Week 1 question

"Choose a social media site that you are a member of and say why you engage with it and what you get out of it. If you are not a member of any site, choose one to observe and answer the same question regarding the activities that you observe – or, you may choose to say why you do not normally engage with social media. You are encouraged to use your answers to exercise 1.3 to frame your response."

The social media site that I choose is YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/ [accessed 24th July 2011] . YouTube exists for users to post video content in a blog format. The site is free to watch the posted videos but if you want to comment, subscribe to bloggers or post your own videos you must have a YouTube account. People can achieve a cult following and some YouTube bloggers having thousands or even millions of people subscribed to their blog channel. Once a YouTube blogger reaches a certain amount of subscribers they are often invited by YouTube to become a You Tube partner. This is where they receive some of the revenue generated by pay per click advertisements placed next to their videos. The site also uses email notifications that send an email out to all the subscribers every time a YouTube blogger posts a new video.

The main reason that I engage with YouTube it is to subscribe to other YouTube bloggers. These bloggers post videos that I find entertaining. Although I do not post any video content I do comment videos the bloggers that I follow post. Most of the time these comments are not answered but it does give me a sense of being part of a small community.

Below is a screen shot of the YouTube bloggers that I am subscribed to.