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What is 8ounfashionable. Iptters a,redead.E-mailis outdated.Text meesages the to schedule goingon with the weywe communicate? WeuseFacebook to tell the world. protests,Tbitter to coordinate,and YouT\tbe
omesaythat we,humuw,have Therise of beensocial. always people to socialmediaenables fina$ fulfil their innatedesireto to oneanother. become moreconnected mediais an umbrellaterm that Social applicaa groupof web-based covers by the tionsandthe contentgenerated groupof thoseapplications, These includesocialnetworking-Facebook, MySpace, Linkedln,wikis,blogsand like Youltbe Videoandphotosharing and like Facebook andFliclc. Websites a basicpart of our lkitter havebecome our media is changing Social livestoday, personal andsociallives. Thereis no doubtthat socialmedia the waywe commusiteshavechanged nicate.Wepostpictureson our proffle wallsinsteadof the wallsin our homes. socialmediahas Overthe last ten years, of of thousands hundreds stimulated politics, world over conversations opintragedies, ideas, human events, anddestroyed created ionsandnews, andofrered a wealth manygovernments mediaconsists of entertainment.Social that of onlinetoolsandwebsites people to interactwith com' encourage panies, andform andpeople, brands publishing by creating, communities mediais a andsharingcontent.Social wherestream, two-way communication is messaging aswith traditionalmedia; published communi' througha one-way e.g. radio, to the masses, strea,m cation andnewspaper. telovision A nswform of connunlcadon andinformation As communication travelfasterandfaster,the world seems to getsmallerandsmaller.Thishas greatimplications for howwe communi' obsession with today's especially cate, Oneof the with socialmedianetworks, in the waythat we changes biggest interact,dueto socialmedianetworks, that we is the sheernumberof people canintoractwith, Boforesocialmedia, lirnitedin our means we wereexhemely to interactwith othersandwewerelimthat we kneni ited largelyto the people because of social in-person,However, medianetworla,we are nowableto of people all interactwith thousands overthe world- this is whywe seepeople whohavethousands of Facebook friendsthoughtheywouldneverhave that manyif theyhadto interactwith medianetworks themoffline. Social to shareopinallowus the opportunity Thekind ionswith a far wider audience. that socialmedia of globalconversation andthitter, websites, suchasFacebook is beyond the comprehavedeveloped of mostpeopleat the beginning hension Thereis not a right or of the decade. andto wrongwayto communicate into our lives. adaptsociallanguage engulfed However, we areall becoming due in this newworldof cornmunication to technology-andif we haven'tdone will beforcedto learnthis soalready, newform of language. a newlanguage Wea,relea,rning in 140 usersspeak Thenewlanguage andlaughin L0L's.The bytecharacters maineffectof socialmediais that senmuch havebecome tences andphrases the alterationof shortenFor example, to bebotha noun theword'Facebook' from a sentence anda verbcanchange on "I will sendher a message ul'll facebook her". to simply Facebook" society, the almostIn ourfast-paced instantability of socialmediato share with the world hasalsoafrectthoughts Gone in actualspeech. ed our behaviour to is the dayof snall talk. Kissgoodbye proseof lengthyintros.Thesweeping is $ving wayto a earliergenerations newwayof writing that is moreconcise, jumpingright to the point. Blogging has to this aswell, sincemost contributed lcrowthat they only bloggers successful to drawa readerin, havea few seconds Ibutspeakand beforehe clicla away. or slangis not of abbreviations overuse for everysetting,Social appropriate have to learnthe proper media users time andplacefor difrerenttypesof doesslip into writing.Whileshorthand some blogs, andeven emails, Facobook, mostwritersare still written papers, anddo of howto write properly, aware and sooften.Shortpunchysentences the activevoicearetakingoverasthe in mostpopularwayto communicate writingwasoncea soliwriting.Where a very tary activity,it hasnowbecome socialwayto cornmunicate. Dtgltal vocabula,rY The0ford EnglishDictionary(OED) to includethe everyyear expands usedwordsin our commonly newest a word'ofiicial' Sowhatmakes society. Thereality is that andnotjust slang? slanghas whatwasoncoconsidered asofficial. accepted nowbecome enterthe wordsandphrases Vernacular In 2013, the entries regularly, dictionary 'follow' have and'follower' for 'tweet', to rePre' in rea{usted the OED been sentboth a nounandverb,in orderto media. In the latest reflectusein social quarterlyupdateto the 0:dordEnglish oneentryin particularhas Dictionary, previously attractedattention:lu.raal, definedonlyasthe chirpingof birds' to refer to 140-charhasbeenexpanded aswell. the OED acterlkitter updates its usual"ten yearrule" to let loosened in. I\nitter wasborn asa this nowcomer andearlythe socialmediasite in 2006, playtrlly coined followingyearits users posted tweet, uboth anoun(a message on thitter) anda verb (to posta mesthat many sage onlkitter).It is possible termsmayevenreplace technolo$cal of this A goodexample olderphrases. wouldbe "FriendMe",asin the friendactionof requesting Facebook to remove ship."Unftiend",meaning iN a 'friend'ona sitesuchas someone wasvotedthe NewOdord Facebook, wordof the year Dictionary's American Online in America.OdordDictionary (0D0) hasrecentlyincludeda number oir; I'ettbitn of words,suchasphnb enwji,andsoon,in line with the culturtechnolog andmedia. al shift towards eflect The Farcobook In little morethan half a decade,

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tr'acebook hasgonefrom a door-room noveltyto a company with 600rnillion use$, It is oneofthe fastestgrowing companies in history an essential part of the sociallife not onlyof teenagers but hundreds ofmillione ofadults worldwide. As Facebook spreads a,round the globe, it creates surprising effects-even becorning instrumental in political protests from Colombia to lran. If Facebook werea country, it wouklbe the third largestcountryin ilre world, biggerthan the U,S, Thischange in communication hasbeenrefenedto as Effect".Beforethe era "Ihe Facebook of Facebook, long-distance relatives and friendsmightonlybe heardfrom on a rareoccasion. Butwith Facebook, these relatives andacquaintances canbe heardfrom daily,Communication with thosewhoarefar away no longerconsistsof convenations to catchup on the m{or detailsthat havehappened in eachother'slivesduringthe pastsix months. Statusupdates allowpeople to seewhat is happening in the otherperson'slife regula^rly. Not onlydoyousee the big things,but the smallday-to-day thingsaswoll. Facebook hasbroken downbarriersandrnade long-distance relatives seem asifthey are a thing of the past. Efecdve Faoebook post Writingan effective postis an Facebook art but anyone canlearnit easily. It is a lmownfact that Facebook userslove poststhat arefun to read,or are informatfue enough to sharesomething that thoydonrtknowabout,Positive postsalwqys ruceive moreuserinteracposts. tion then negative Weshouldnot forgetthat Facebook is meantfor relaringwith yourfriends,chit chatting aboutgoodstuff,andmanyusersjust useit to taketime offfrom their busy life. Considering this,whenwriting your post,makesurethat there is some explanatory text, that is rnotivating, fun to readandnon-revealng.Ihecontent shouldahnays havesome'feelgood" factorthat urgeusersto e:plore it more.A nice,attractiverelevantimage yourpoststandout from other makos poststreams insideuser'snewsfeed, Theinage contont,graphics or text written on it shouldbe easilyreadable on mobiledevices, postimages Never with bluned contentor smalltext on it, becauso mobilousersmaynot find it easy to readonomallscreens. People are twiceaslikely to comment on a question postasa non-question post,Be creativo, andfind a wqyto getthe con-

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Ora,mna,r motters gamma,r Does matterin onlinepoets? SHn, ecanand ecroll 0kay,grammar matters. Youlorowthat Before the Internet,writerswroteand beinggarnrnaticalisn'tjust aboutfolrea.ders read.However, like rnostthings, lowingthe ruleslike some sort of robot. technologr left its markon the It is aboutpayingattentionto context. writer/reader rtlationship,For the It is usinglanguage that is mostlikely Internet,writerswrite andreaders to be understood. It is aboutsending a scan, Ihis is the largestdifrerence message that will be metwith respect, anongnany between just asit shows witing for the respect, Does it bother lVebandwriting for print. Ttrinkabout youwhensomeone you says, "Between youreada book, it, When for the most yourlip twitch evorso andI"? Does part youplan to settledownwith it and slightlywhensomeone usesan apostrotakeawhilo.Whether fiction or nonfic. pheto makea plural?Wecanexcuse tion, books are generally readfor longthe apostrophe violatorswhogetcontermpleasure. Webcontent,however, is fusedwith compound nours,Those are I quite difrerent,It hasbeenrepeatedly triclry rules.Whatwe canneverexclne, proven viewers scana page. Eles may howwer,is the disregard rest on a title, sectionheading, bolded for dtsversus ifb, suchasthe emailI wordor paragraph beginning, but we received telling me 'The company seldomjust reada webpage. Mostsite wantsto useit's ownlogo,'. It is the visitorsareverybusypeople whowant simplestof rules,really,If there is an to readonlyasmuchastheyneedto apostrophe in dtb, it stands for rifrs or il satis$the goalthat broughtthemto Das,andnothingelse.'This is an historyoursite.Wehurry fromhomepage ical eventfor our organisation," wrotea throughpathway pages, reading person aslittle the otherday,referringto the aspossible, Weskimandscanfirst to launch of a newproduct line.Let'sput find whatwe camefor.Skimmers don't asido, ifwe can,the incorrect use reallyreadthe contenton eachpage, of.histnrical-whtch means an eventin but theydo scanthroughit in orderto the past- asopposed to hlsfonr, which find quickvisualcuesthat will help refersto an evont's importance in the themget the information theywant. contextof history.Let'sconcern ourWhen theyseesomething that appeals selves instead with the usgof the indefto them,theywillstopandreadmore inite article:ara. thoroughly or click a link to getto the Think ofall the importantevents that contentthat doesinterestthem. havetakenplacein the world in tho last five yea,rs andaskyourselfifthere Wrtdryin cAberspace wasno Internetor socialmedia, would thewritingworld is changing, It almost the information be restricted, tho news sounds clich6,but it is true, nonethecommunicated too late,wouldyoulmow less.Writingin cybercpace is no longer aboutthemasquicklyasyoudonow? the laughing-stock of the publishing Lookat the debate asto howintegral industry. As a resultthe focw of the socialmedia wasin the facilitationof publishing industryhasshiftedftom Egrpt'sfreedom, asoneCairoactMst papercopyto onlinemedia, fire put it 'lile useFacebook concisely to Intemet hasrevolutionized the printed schedule the protests, l\ritter to coordipage, producing readilyavailable mate- nate,andYoulirbe to tell the world'. rial for people all overthe gobe, giantssuchas Social notworking Because of this trend writershave Facebook, thitter, Instagram, and foundit necessary to adaptto the ever- Goo$e+havecreateda bravenew publishing changing industry. But most world.Is socialmediarevolutionising writershavefoundthat the webhokls ourworld?Youdecide!I its om publishing people p.K Jaya,rql challenge: don't readthe Internetlike they reada P$qYarqis@gnrail.com bookor magazine. Theytend to let their Beferencel attentionslip morereadily. As a result KirkpatrickDavid: theyonlyreadpages TheFacebook that sound Effect, a peel of relevancy Random House to that shortattention E Books,2012 span. LesterJohnandWaters Thismakes writing for the weba K John:lhe little morechallenging, Everything Guideto Social Theruleshave Media, F changed in the newpaperless PlusW Media, Inc,2010 world.
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versation yourFacebook roUing, Keep postingshort.People arescanning Facebook, not readingit. Thelongorthe postis, the lessengaging fansfind it,

Howmusta writer adaptin this brave, newcomputerized world?

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