1. Avoid Meta Keyword stuffing.
2. Create unique content.
3. Think of the keywords that your users would type on a search engine to reach your site.
4. Use Google Adwords's keyword tool to find the appropriate keyword/s (to target) for your site.
5. Take advantage of the concept of "user generated content" by implementing user reviews or comments and sharing tools for social media websites. User generated content helps to emphasize the title/content of the page without much effort from the web developer or web master (Look mom no hands!) [Read my reflection paper and know the impact of user generated content.]
6. If you're using a content management system (CMS) like Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal, make sure to upgrade to the latest version, as soon as possible, otherwise your site would be a candidate for hacks.
7. The main content should be in a good position on your page. Avoid putting ads, widgets, clickable thumbnails before or at the top of the content. These objects should be at the sidebar.
8. A matching URL and title makes a big difference. Make sure it is not spammy. Keep it simple.
9. Make your site unique. You don't have to worry in getting a domain that contains a piece of your keyword/s. It's all about the content.
10. Make people want to link to your site. Create a content that has value, unique, exciting or cool.
11. Use Google Webmasters tools.
12. Copied content does not rank highly.
13. Original content makes people want to return to your site.
14. Don't use images where text should be in.
15. Don't give your rankings to others - be careful with web developers / web companies that create your website and put their links at the bottom/footer of your web pages (ex. "Powered by Company Here"). Give value to your site.
16. Use Google Maps for every content when appropriate.
17. Observe the keywords that lead your users to your website. Utilize these keywords/web pages to attract more audience.
18. Make sure that your hosting provider is reliable and has good up-time.
19. For URLs use dash (-) or periods (.) as separators.
20. Find ways to make users busy on your site. Post related content in between paragraphs or images, especially on the sidebars. A 5 minute video is short and attractive to a busy person - then multiply that thought to 5 for each person (for another 5 video clips) who visits your site, and you'll know what I mean.
21. Shorten the meta description. Make sure that it is not cut-off abruptly in the search results.
22. Implement properly structured and clear breadcrumbs.
23. Make sure that the character encoding used renders all the special characters correctly.
24. Avoid rendering inorganic content. Focus on what users/humans like.
25. Don't put too much text on your site, especially if it's unrelated/spam content.
26. Don't sweat on creating a good URL. Unique and valuable content is the key. 
27. Be consistent with the links of each page. Use canonical tags.
28. Fix broken links and make sure links point to the correct destination.
29. Track your backlinks. Make sure that your backlinks are not coming from spam sites.
30. Use valid and appropriate HTML tags.

I am in the process of redesigning my own site, and I think this list is a good guideline for search engine optimization to help me get a higher rank in Google search engine results.

By the way, thanks to Adrian for the Google IO video.

This is a simple Flash animation I created for my (UPOU) DEVCOM 207 course last semester.

The video contains information about the roles of women in the history of computers, current statistics and possible reasons on the status or participation of women in IT and how to encourage women to become computer programmers.

Gender is not an issue if you really want to pursue a career in (information) technology or other related fields.

Reference: Wikipedia

Digital convergence of news media was called "Mediamorphosis" by researcher Roger Fidler. He actually published a book entitled, "Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media", wherein he gives the 6 fundamental principles in mediamorphosis (page 29).

1. coevolution and coexistence
2. metamorphosis
3. propagation
4. survival
5. opportunity and need
6. delayed adoption

According to the definitions of propagation and survival:

"Emerging forms of communication media propagate dominant traits from earlier forms. These traits are passed on and spread through communicatory codes called languages. While survival states that all forms of communication media, as well as media enterprises are compelled to adapt and evolve for survival in a changing environment. Their only other option is to die."

Based on these assumptions and from what we are already experiencing, methods in gathering information is almost the same, what's noticeable are (1) broadcasters and journalists are provided nowadays with multi-purpose devices like smartphones or PC tablets, so they can publish news via different technologies and (2) how they broadcast news, again they have their laptops or PC tablets so they can also check real time news from other websites.

In terms of producing devcom materials for print and radio, we would often see and hear URLs of websites, this is considered as brand extension in order to promote news from their own sites (online version) or other 3rd party sources like Twitter or Facebook.

In reality, traditional media would not be lost in this technological synergy. I believe that the process in gathering news, designing or layouting of magazines or newspapers, are also applied when creating webpages. The target audience is still the same, what's really changing is the transfer from a physical form (in this case, paper) to virtual form.

             Being a web programmer, my work is closely tied to what the new media has to offer. The great amount of time that I spend in writing programs and browsing the internet puts me at a favorable situation to discuss second orality and its effects in the social construction of reality, ideology, power and domination. My reflection about the aforementioned subjects and concepts would be mostly based on Walter J. Ong’s book, Orality and Literacy.

            Ong stated in his book, Orality and Literacy,that a “second orality” is arising in Western societies with the advent of telephone, television and new electronic technologies”. I’d like to believe that Ong had successfully predicted what we are all experiencing at this day and age on the web, which is the profound publication of user-generated content.

I was also surprised that Ong included writing computer programs in his study, and considered it to be a performative literature. I agree when he expressed that although writing programs is not seen as a form of writing by the current literary tradition, it has subgenres that make up the performative works which most education people today encounter most frequently. [1]

After reading Gidden’s formulation of the dialectic of control as a process of enablement as well as constraint [2], I have come to realize that yes, the web applications that I create provoke human interaction and somehow there’s power and domination in my creation since my software defines the scope and limitation of usability, especially if internet users would rely on my application because it offers some information or interactivity that they would find dependable or addictive.

Affirming in a study entitled, “The Media Construction of Everyday Reality”, it stated that “media operates upon several levels in influencing and shaping both worldview and cultural and psychological patterning of human behavioral response”[3], Considering that new media has adopted the presentation and content of traditional media, at least to some extent, I believe that the current state of the World Wide Web is now almost equal in changing and shaping the point of view of those people who are considered to be free thinkers. To prove this point I remember how President Barack Obama, the first African-American president, launched an evolutionary campaign on the web, which immensely influenced and convinced internet users in the United States to vote for him. He was one of the first successful politicians to harness the potencial of the web.

Ong affirmed that with the development of print, Western culture moved event further away from a hearing dominated sensory world to one governed by sight [4], I suppose this has been more compelling in the advent of Web 2.0. He also goes to great pains to indicate that he feels that neither orality nor literacy is superior[4]. I agree with him. I believe that an idea is still an idea, regardless of whatever form an idea is presented. It doesn’t matter which medium is superior or inferior, what’s important is how both technology or method promotes growth and helps human beings in reaching their full potential.

 References:

[1] Orality and Literacy; Walter Ong; http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~mhalber/Research/Guides/ong-oral.html

[2] Communication and Power in organizations: Discourse, Ideology and Domination; Dennis K. Mumby; http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/570/476

[3] The Media Construction of Everyday Reality;  Feb 2005; http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Publications/SystemsEssaysIII/MediaConstructionEverydayLifeSEIII.htm

[4] Review of Walter J. Ong's Orality and Literacy; http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/ong_rvw.html

 A Buzzword

As of date we are currently in the second wave of the World Wide Web which is popularly known as “Web 2.0”. After reading several articles about the meaning of Web 2.0 I can say that there is no direct or standard definition for it, although many articles give similar details on its characteristics, technologies, concepts and usage.

According to the Wikipedia page for “Web 2.0” this was how the World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee described the term “Web 2.0” in a podcast interview. [1]

"Nobody really knows what it means...If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along." [1]

Referring on the same article, Tim O’Reilly, who is generally credited for coining the term, defined the concept as, “the web as the platform”. [1]

While in Investopedia Financial Dictionary, the concept of “Web 2.0 does not refer to any technical upgrades to the Internet; it simply refers to a shift in how it is used”.[2]

When looking at the various definitions of Web 2.0 it is imperative to study the evolution of some aspects of the web in order for us to have a clear understanding of the developments in hypertext, hypermedia, interactivity and social media, and try to predict or determine what will be the ultimate manifestation of Web 2.0.

Hypertext, Hypermedia and Interactivity

            It is written in Wikipedia that hypertext is the underlying concept defining the structure of the internet. [3] In effect, though already existing since 1977, hypertext was made famous by the World Wide Web, as stated in Lincoln University Internet Encyclopedia [4].

Although existing definitions of “hypermedia” vary slightly from hypertext, and may have been used interchangeably, author Ted Nelson – who coined both terms in 1965 – wrote in 1992:

“By now the word "hypertext" has become generally accepted for branching and responding text, but the corresponding word "hypermedia", meaning complexes of branching and responding graphics, movies and sound – as well as text – is much less used.”[3]

Whether both terms are used incorrectly or interchangeably it is undeniable that the development of hypermedia has been a great catalyst for the popular reception of interactive CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web, according to Darren Hughes in his article Taking the "Hype" Out of Hypermedia: A Teaching Tool [5]

In Clay Carr's article, "Hypertext: A New Training Tool?" (1988) Carr sees the greatest potential for hypertext in data retrieval, in allowing "a user to access information in an associative, intuitive way-without regard for its actual location or for any visible database structure". [5] The overwhelming growth of the World Wide Web is strong validation of this theory. Cloud computing, touted as one of the technologies to be greatly utilized in Web 2.0, and social media are perfect examples of this purpose.

As indicated by David Lowe and Wendy Hall in their book Hypermedia and the Web, in terms of the current state of hypermedia, we are now at a point where many of the technical limitations associated with handling various forms of media have been removed - at least to a limited extent. Similarly we have begun to develop an understanding of how to manage the various technologies in a reasonably cohesive fashion. But this has lead to the current situation of a hypermedia as a tool for information provision and procurement, rather than the broader concept of a tool for information utilization.[6]

The word "interactive" is often used as a synonym for new media such as the World Wide Web. “Interactivity” on the other hand, as per Denis McQuail, is the ratio of response or initiative on the part of the user to the offer of the source/sender.[7] Several articles supported that the internet is one of the most excellent systems to elicit human interaction. McMillan states that interactivity can occur at many different levels and degrees of engagement and that it is important to differentiate between these levels. User-to-user interaction via the internet; para-social interaction, where new forms of media are generated online; and user-to-system interactivity which is the way devices can be engaged with by a user.[7]

Web applications have become more sophisticated, therefore prompting internet users to upload their own images, documents, audio, and videos online. Considering that the internet has a communication model of many-to-many, rather than the traditional one-to-many, we can say that the chances of reaching other people globally through your uploaded data is immensely huge. Interactivity in the new media has played a big role in promoting liberal democracy and free market in Web 2.0. Sharing the same thought is Paul Graham in his article, “Want to start a start up?”, He believes that the second big element of Web 2.0 is democracy. He says, “We now have several examples to prove that amateurs can surpass professionals, when they have the right kind of system to channel their efforts.”[8]

Social Media

            The rise of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter changed how we communicate and collaborate, at least to some remote and virtual degree. User-generated content is considered to be one of the highlights of Web 2.0.

            In a status report entitled, ”User Generated Content, Social Media, And Advertising” by the Interactive Status Bureau, it was written that, “Social networking is the ultimate manifestation of user generated content, and as such, holds more potential for growth than any other form of content on the Web today.”

But not everyone did not like the outcome of this new model, critics such as Andrew Keen argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital narcissism and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share and place undue value upon their own opinions about any subject and post any kind of content, regardless of their particular talents, knowledge, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas.[9]

Conclusion

            After reading various sources about Web 2.0, hypertext, hypermedia, interactivity and social media, I’ve learned that the two major paradigm shifts during this phase are user-generated content and cloud computing. If I were to choose which of the two manifests the concepts of Web 2.0 more, I would have to choose user-generated content, because first of all cloud computing would not exist if it weren’t for the data and information uploaded by the internet users. Second, because a lot of breakthroughs happened not only in human socializing per se but also in marketing and advertising.

            For now I believe that the ultimate manifestation of Web 2.0 lies in social media.

References:

[1]Web 2.0; Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

[2] Web 2.0; Investopedia Financial Dictionary; http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/web-20.asp

[3] Hypertext; Wikipedia ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext

[4] Hypertext; Lincoln University Internet Encyclopedia; http://www.lincoln.edu/math/rmyrick/ComputerNetworks/InetReference/12.htm

[5] Taking the "Hype" Out of Hypermedia: A Teaching Tool; Darren Hughes; http://www.longpauses.com/hype.htm

[6] What is hypermedia?; Chapter 2 of Hypermedia and the Web by David Lowe and Wendy Hall; http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/lac/LoweNHall/extracts/Hypermedia.html

[7] Interactivity;Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactivity

[8] Want to start a start up?; http://paulgraham.com/web20.html

[9] Social Media; Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

[10] User Generated Content, Social Media ,and Advertising — An Overview; http://www.iab.net/ugcplatform