|
When
it comes to local news, there's the serious stuff and
then there's the OTHER stuff. Local gossip falls under
that other stuff category but let's face it...we all
love it and it's probably been around since we could
walk upright. It's probably not going anywhere anytime
soon so we wanted the Zipper app to help you find local
gossip with the Gossip Channel. What exactly is the
Gossip Channel and how do we use it to find the best
digs on local smack talk. Let's take a look,
First, what's a Channel in the world of the Zipper
anyway? The channel is a quick and easy way to narrow
the info both found and submitted on the Zipper app.
There's a lot of local info out there with all kinds of
angles and colors. Occasionally, we have something
specifically that we want to find or find out about.
That's where the channel comes in handy. You can
quickly, and from any window, click the Channel button
for a drop down of available channels to choose from
with the classic pinwheel interface. You can now thumb
through various categories such as news, gossip, deals,
sports, music, eats, etc to filter the local zips that
will show on the main window. You can also use this
same filter ability when writing and posting zips so
that your message get a tighter and cleaner tag so that
people interested in that type of message will more
easily find it. This is incredibly useful when you
start to have 100's if not 1000's of zips containing all
various types of local news and gossip. Speaking of
gossip, let's look at the gossip channel.
Sometimes we want hard local news action and some times
we just want eye candy. That's where the gossip channel
comes into play. The gossip channel is where you go
find all the juicy news. If your location is set to
wide net such as "Ur Local", then the gossip may be
about the shakers and movers in the area. Obviously,
this is going to be very different in Los Angeles than
in a tiny 2000 people town but the effect is the
same...just differences in degree but not kind. So
what's fit to print in the gossip section and how do you
go about doing it. First of all, any Zip that's posted
in the local gossip channel will be under the anonymous
handle and avatar by default. Let's face it...it's not
gossip if your real name is there for all to see. This
follows the traditional means of communication gossip
which is always in hushed tones and quiet voices.
Taking local gossip to the web with our Zipper app is
not different. You can also cross combine the Gossip
channel with your High School Location. This is
probably where the rubber meets the pavement for this
particular Channel at least in the early days of the app
as there will be plenty of grist there for local
gossip.
Even
though the local gossip posts are generally anonymous
(you can post with real handle if you like), try to keep
things clean. The same rules that apply in the real
world to libel, slander, and the like apply in the
digital world with the Zipper app. If gossip is true
then it might be tough to really argue but also keep in
mind that malicious messages can be hurtful and
ultimately, karma has a nasty way of bringing things
back in balance. Even with local gossip.
|
