Urbis class summary

The internet has made valuable connections since its birth many years ago. Of those connections, the most important are of the people at a worldwide level. These connections wouldn’t be as entertaining if it isn’t for the recent explosion of social networking sites. Many beckoned me into joining through popularity. We have heard of MySpace, Facebook, and Youtube, all luring us in. Yet, there was one social networking site that caught me hook, line and sinker!
Urbis.com is a site dedicated to those all around the world who are in love with reading and writing. Whereas most sites are focused on staying in communication with friends only, Urbis.com revolves around friends critiquing and giving advice to one another. With that being said, most users should have an idea of what they want from the site. Users may want a publisher’s attention or simply post their hobby for others to read. As discussed in the class, there are many advantages to using the site. First, there’s a freedom to write whatever you wish never being confined to a notebook. Secondly, scouts search for new talent in the site eager for fresh ideas and new styles of writing. Thirdly, some book groups held in the “real world” limit the number of people who can hear your work as well as only hearing a specific genre. On Urbis genres are continually added, you’re not limited to one, and users who are willing to hear you are in the thousands! Finally, the aforementioned writing groups are where Urbis draws its inspiration; Urbis is its’ future representation. In the more accessible, more digital times we live in it seems every activity has its own url.
I found the site as a very useful way to get wide variety opinions from different ages, backgrounds and areas all around the United States. I am thrilled at the class’s overall reaction; most agreed it was a very useful tool. It could be accessed as a way to perfect one’s homework assignment, an idea I couldn’t come to realize. In addition, the credit system encourages reviewers to leave in depth comments about the works you’ve written no matter their background. However, an issue over copyrights surface, anyone could copy your hard written work and you wouldn’t know. Urbis protects users from copying other users, but it could only do so much when it is out in the open on the web. Surprisingly, unlike many other social networking sites Urbis has zero advertising. This is something that most internet savvy users find very welcoming. It has also been brought to my attention in class that it is very hard to figure out how Urbis receives it’s funding. Perhaps, there is a site devoting itself to make the audience happy, with no corporate puppeteers behind the stage.