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Course website for USC Online Communities (APOC) CMGT 538
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Online Measurement Systems: Nielsen, ComScore, Quantcast and Alexa

Mar 14, 2010

Please find below the peer presentation that goes over Nielsen, ComScore Quantcast and Alexa. The presentation and discussion touched on differentiators, and challenges and benefits to each platform. There is a lot to think through when choosing which measurement tools that you will use when you launch your site.

API’s, Mashups and Content

Mar 14, 2010

This class was focused on Content generation and focused in on the use of APIs and Mashups. We discussed types of content: professional content, semi-professional content, user generated content (user gen) and machine generated content (APIs were tossed into this last bucket). During the discussion on APIs we spoke about some of the early leaders like Ebay and Amazon and then went into current trends, authentication models (Facebook, Google OpenID, and more). Finally, the class broke out into groups and created their own Mashup / web service using a few APIs.

Additional readings:

Great  New York Times Article that discusses trends in Hyperlocal news and spends some time with Adrian Holovaty, the founder of Everyblock and Chicagocrime.org, which was an early example of a Mashup, looking at crime data by neighborhood in Chicago, you can read more about that here from a 2005 NY Times article.

ProgramableWeb’s directory for APIs – great starting place if you are considering creating your own Mashup.  List is at 1,600+ as of March, 2010.

No assignment this week!

Mar 08, 2010

Front End / UI (user interface) Overview

Mar 04, 2010

Please find the slides below for Class #8, which gave an overview on Front End / User Interface (UI). Thanks to Tim for the great guest lecture!

Automattic Guest Lecture

Mar 04, 2010

Please find the slides below from Raanan @ Automattic. Thanks again Raanan for the great presentation!

Assignment

Mar 01, 2010

Please identify 2-3 sites that you enjoy spending time on and write a few bullets on aspects of the frontend – what you like and what you do not like (and why). Please submit the assignment via the comments below.

Also, make sure that you are keeping up with your weekly readings.

Types of Hosting and Selection of Backend Platforms

Feb 27, 2010

Please find class 7 slides below – thanks again to Raanan for the great presentation!

Reading Assignment: WordPress blog

Feb 21, 2010

Please read 4-5 recent stories (in the last 6 months) from the Automattic Blog (http://automattic.com/blogs/) and compile a 1-2 page essay on advantages / disadvantages of using the Automattic platform.

History of Online Communities

Feb 19, 2010

Please find the class presentation below. Subjects covered include: History of Online Communities, BBS, AOL IM, ICQ, Instant Messenger, Blogger, Tripod, GeoCities, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendster and more!

Yelp presentation

Feb 18, 2010

Here is the class presentation from Christina, thanks again Christina!