Before choosing a website to critique there were a number of requirements that needed to be evaluated. I wanted to choose a growing medium with an obvious user base. One of the major specifications was to critique the websites internal information flow with particular attention given to user management. A website with a large user base would need to facilitate its members and by extension how they interact with the website. Amongst the spectrum of popular websites MySpace nicely fits this scaffold. Being already familiar with MySpace, the critique didn't require me to learn how MySpace functioned from ground up and also allowed me to write a more in depth critique within the given time frame.
Prior to writing the critique a little bit of preparation needed to be done. I had to familiarize myself with the art of analyzing content. The challenge here, is MySpace offers such a wide selection of content it would be impractical to cover all of it. I initially devised a diagram to assist with the main points I would cover. This helped throughout the writing cycle as I had a visual to refer to. Originally the critique focused on specialized areas of MySpace; however this approach didn't allow me to compare MySpace with other similar social networking websites. Another change I needed to perform, where my targeted audience. I didn't take into account the general reader, and having a strong software development background it was easy to diverge to information that wasn't relevant. As a consequence my initial draft was scraped and only the essential points were expended.
When writing the critique, I initially developed a blue print of how it would be structured. The blue print had set the basis for expending on the key points; ultimately it ensured I didn’t miss out on any relevant information and kept the information integral. With each main point in mind, I devised a set of manageable sub points. This helped with time management and allowed me to systematically expend on each point with in a set time frame. One pitfall I ran into is that I needed compare MySpace with another social networking website. Having only ever used MySpac the learning curve was steep. The process involved me setting up an account with another social networking website called Tagged. Originally I was going to choose FaceBook as the comparison website. However, with the reader in mind I thought it would be more interesting to expend on an on line social community that is less mainstream.
The cultural context of this critique was unique in the sense that MySpace didn't have a distinct start and finish such as a book or a featured film. Unlike other forms of sequential media that doesn't require user interaction, MySpace proposed interesting implications. The ability to manipulate and govern information flow dramatically changes the context of how a user interacts with a medium. Furthermore it was difficult to find concrete material that offered opinions on these of mediums of this status. With limited resources to work with, a different means of gathering information was needed. As a result, the critique was entirely based on my knowledge of networked media. My work he differed to others in the field, in the sense that there is no sequential structure in which content comprising of MySpace could be ordered as depicted in the diagram.
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