What it is: Draft is a website that allows you to view, share and edit drafts with other writers and editors.

Why it’s interesting: The website allows you to have different draft versions so that you can chose which changes you want to accept. You also can publish the edited version on LinkedIn and WordPress sites.

How you would use it: I would use it to help edit any assignments that I have in my classes that are written assignments. It also seems like it would be very helpful in group projects because you can see the individual edits and changes made in the document. However, I would not likely pay to use the professional editors on the site, and I would mainly just use it for drafting documents.

One tool I liked in today’s presentations was Draft. Draft is a Web-based collaboration tool for writers that lets you upload your writing so different editors can comment on it. Although you have to pay, you can even get professionals to edit your papers for you. If I end up writing a substantial amount for my third project, I’ll definitely consider uploading my rough draft to this site.

Storybird was another tool that looked very useful to me. I’ll definitely consider using Storybird as a platform for my third project, because I think I’ll do my project in a story format. This site looks like a cool way to upload stories, add graphics, and even share my story over social media.

SoundCloud

Without a doubt, the site that interests me the most from Day 1 of presentations is SoundCloud. This is because SoundCloud is the only one of these sites that I have had experience using. I use this site for my broadcast tapes. As a broadcaster, one of the most important parts of my resume is the tape from my previous broadcasts. This lets employers listen to my work.

Virginia Tech IMG Sports Marketing (the company I currently intern for) tweets broadcast clips using SoundCloud on a weekly basis as well.

In my experience using SoundCloud, I’ve found the site to be very easy to use. SoundCloud makes it simple to upload files and embed links into your WordPress site. I also like to use the mobile app for my iPhone.

You can find my personal use of SoundCloud on this site if you click here.

What I Did

I’ve begun building both my web essay and presentation. I’ve written some brief text, as well as inserted some screenshots from the “Storify” site.

Why I Did It

I am signed up to present on Friday, October 17, 2014. My presentation will need to be done by midnight the night before.

What I Still Need to Do

First, it will be necessary to finish building my 5 minute presentation. This will force me to gather the most important facts to put in the powerpoint. Then, I will be able to use the most important facts in my web essay and continue to build off them.

The interface I was most interested in after hearing everyone’s presentations was visme. I liked visme because it looked like it would be a great tool to use when it comes to infographics. I think I was also partially biased to visme because I worked next to Sarah and I got to see the interesting things visme did. Don’t get me wrong I also understood her frustrations because it took both of us a while to figure out the font thing. But overall, I think visme is a great tool for business people to use to create infographics if they are on a budget.

Today in class, I was introduced to some crazy interfaces I had no idea existed. I also gave my presentation on my own interface, Creatavist. The most fun to work with seemed to be PicMonkey because it looks like it could make me look really artsy even though I have no photographic talent. However, since I cannot figure out the timeline application on my own interface, I would like to resort to making a fun video. We saw a few video applications today, however, the constraints of them seemed to outweigh the positives, the most notable of them being I could not even upload my own video to Masher. I really enjoyed Sarah’s presentation on vimeo, but I would not want to use it until all the glitches have been worked out.

Of all the tools presented this this fine Monday morning, I would have to say that the 750 Words tool is by far the one I am most interested in. I am an amateur writer who has a habit of abandoning projects, and while this site doesn’t encourage keeping to one single project, it certainly would help me to keep up with writing in general. Even though it has a $5 dollar membership fee, that is hardly a price to pay considering all the good it could do for someone who is considering writing as any sort of career goal.

From today’s presentations, Soundcloud was the most interesting tool to me. I thought it was an interesting take on music sharing and listening to music. I love music. I use iTunes and YouTube, and I have a Spotify account. Spotify is a useful tool, but it’s a little different than Soundcloud. I like that while Spotify emphasizes creating playlists and listening to music, Soundcloud emphasizes sharing music with others. Although Soundcloud was my favorite tool from today’s presentations, it might be a difficult tool to use for the next project. Telling a story will be difficult only by using songs. If I tried to do it, I could create a profile for the main character and tell the story through songs and their interactions.