skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Who, what, why, when, and where? All essential questions to determine the cultural context of a piece or work or in this case a web site. I will do my very best to provide and answer to each of the questions to determine the cultural context of my chosen site ask.com. In one of my comments written by another student on my first blog, someone mentioned how a search engine is a hard site to work with because it doesn’t give you much. They are right, if you go to the site ask.com you can see that it is very plain with not much on there. Not many images, not many words but even so it has an amazing plethora of resources and information and is what is important for our technology driven age. Each search engine is different Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others some have so much else going on when you go to their initial site, but my focus was just the search engine so ask was a great specific example although this applies to a larger context. 
Who? Who uses this site? Who creates this site? We do, we do, we do. Everyone in this world, from businesses using the site for advertisement or students for their projects or the juvenile youngster looking for addicting games to play. We all use this site because it provides virtually anything anyone needs it finds it for you. So I can say it’s nearly impossible to narrow that answer to one because its billions.
What? What is this? It’s easy access to the world wide web, in an organized manner. Technically the world wide web is the internet not ask jeeves, but it sure helps us acquire what we need on the internet. The internet is a huge place and any help we can get to make it easier most of us will take, so it’s a helper to us. Why? Why goes along with the same ideas as what, as I just explained we need help because technology is increasing immensely year by year so we need little assistants to help us manage those technologies sometimes, and a search engine will help us start that.
When? The twentieth first century is when a.k.a “age of technology“. Yea, I bet that is getting repetitive, but what is our whole reason for blogging instead of writing essays and turning them on? Because now is the time that computers and the web is becoming our right hand. It’s no longer the new thing and few people are in awe of the idea of the internet anymore. When? Everyday I use this resource to my advantage because seems that using the internet is a daily task and as mentioned earlier I don’t know where everything is on this thing, so daily I ask my assistant.
Where? The world wide web. Where does ask.com get us? Wherever we want, whatever site we need. My case, it’s found on my homepage as I sign on everyday, that’s where it awaits. It’s always there for everyone you just have to utilize it and I highly recommend asking for that help when needed.
My home page is Ask.com. It is a general page to have as my home page, but I use this page very frequently. I think that it is a great site and very helpful. As I write this blog you can view the page as well to get a visual of my examples just click here.
The focal point of this site is the area right in the center of the page where you can place your search in. I believe this is the focal point and not their display of their name which many would assume. It is already set up for you to start typing whatever you need to enter in; there is no need to get back on the mouse and click there to let the site know you are ready to search. It provides it immediately and is a fast way to get going. This will enable the user to be focused on using the site in a quicker way.
Ask.com’s would fall under the genre of search engines with the convention of receiving information in an amazingly short time. Instead of spending hours in the library using their search engines, whether, that be their catalog or librarian, then proceeding to sit down and find what page the exact information you want is on, you can easily type in specifically what you want and Ask.com will do it for you. Other conventions of this site are the "search tools" on the right including specified search categories i.e. images, dictionary, encylopedia, weather, ask for kids, and even blogs and feeds. This is a widely accepted and convenient device used on the internet today. It is easily accessible and not hard to learn how it works, this helps the site remain a successful search engine.
Now, although this seems great, it can be too good to be true sometimes. It altars the conventions in some ways. Yes, you may search a certain subject and hundreds of sites come up with options of what you need, unfortunately since the internet is so accessible to everyone else as well and not as secure, not every tad bit of information found is necessarily true. I am not saying because it is fast it’s not true, I am saying it might be a little less reliable then a book with your subject’s information found in a library or bookstore. People can make the decision to take more time for a more accurate source or sometimes take more of a chance with an online search engine. That chance could very well turn out in their favor, much of the information is true, but just as much of it is false.
As subtly mentioned before, the online medium and its blogging differs from print/paper based writing. A book is a published piece of work that was approved by professional firms with publishers and editors, whereas, a site about panda bears in China could well be written by a five year old as it could by a professional veterinarian. Almost anyone can put anything on the world wide web from across seas, you have to be sure of what you are distinguishing as fact and fiction.
