You might have heard of Wattpad: an innovative social network whose popularity is increasing at the speed of light, but have you considered joining its community? If so, well, you probably know how frustrating and fantastic it can be at the same time. For those of you who have no clue what Wattpad is, I’m here to tell you all about it.

Wattpad is for the unknown writers and for any type of readers. All you have to do is create an account and start writing and reading! It can be a bit annoying sometimes since most of the good writers don’t get the recognition they should get. So from a person with experience on this social network, I think you should search for amazing talented writers who don’t get as many fans as they should, instead of just clicking on the popular books that everybody reads. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t read those books (some of them are pretty good); however, I think that you will understand my advice after you join. You may get the recognition you deserve or you may not. It is really random but, if you're a writer, don’t give up! Wattpad is a great way to improve your writing skills as well as take in some constructive criticism.

Join clubs and make friends! Wattpad is for the underdogs. There, anyone can show their true colours. Do you have any problem? The Wattpad community will help! Just write how you feel and everyone will want to make you feel better.

If you are planning on showing off some of your works, just make sure you know how to end them. Sometimes, it can be a little annoying for your readers if you have no clue what to do with your book or you simply don’t update it. Try to be organized. For example, if you already have two or three chapters for a new book, don’t put them all at once. This will give you some time to write more chapters and will also make your readers attached to your brilliant idea.

If you are a member of Wattpad and you don’t get noticed: don’t worry. Try changing your book cover to something more appealing. Colours are extremely important. You need to create something simple but memorable. Also, book titles are a big deal. In Wattpad, if your title tells the reader everything that the book is about, it will probably get a lot of views, especially if it is a fanfic (I think that we need to change this attitude about fanfics though).

Most important of all, have fun! Wattpad can be many things: amazing, exciting, gripping, frustrating, boring... it really depends on your attitude towards it. If you want to make the best out of your Wattpad experience, start by making friends. They make it all better!


-Barista Alexandra-

Image: via (Wattpad logo) Read more »

Facebook and Twitter- which do you prefer? Some people are fervent FB lovers; others hate it and stick to Twitter. I personally adore both, but spend more time on Facebook, mainly because more of my friends have it. Here are some points to consider...

• Like I said, often more people have Facebook than Twitter. Facebook is a general tool for everyday life (how sad that sounds!) and everyone goes on it regularly. Twitter, on the other hand, is more for unusual people who want a vent where no one knows them...and maybe a place to go when they're drunk.

• There is a beautifully friendly community on Facebook for page admins. I'm am admin on seven pages including Hunger Games fan-pages, a poetry and writing one and a depression help page. It's a joy sharing stuff with the likers and getting tonnes of likes and comments, and I've made some of my best friends though admin group chats.

• Twitter has the advantage in that you can have a wider public audience. It's easy to get a couple of thousand followers and hopefully have them all see your Tweets. That's not as likely to happen as it is for everyone to see Facebook posts, though, as if you have that many followers you probably follow a good many people too (unless you are Harry Styles) and they may not read their whole news feed.

• But the Twitter community can be awesome too. You're more likely to meet awesome new people on Twitter if you follow people you don't know in real life.

• Rants- difficult with 140. Ah, the 140-character limit- one of the great banes of Twitter! As much as it makes us value our words, it prevents us from expressing ourselves voluminously or creatively. Unless you use the short slot to your advantage and be clever in your phrasing...

-Barista Sabita-

Image: geralt, FACEBOOK(LET),  mkhmarketing, JordanGosselin Read more »

Now we all have those friends that we just can't stand on Facebook. Below, I have listed the seven annoying types of people on Facebook. Recognize any of your friends? Or maybe even you?

The Obnoxious Gamer

*sends game request to friend*
THE NEXT DAY
*sends game request to friend*
THE NEXT DAY
*sends game request to friend*
Friend: Yo. Stop sending me those game requests. I'm not playing.
THE NEXT DAY
*sends game request to friend*

The "I Better Let Everyone Know What I'm Doing Every Five Seconds" Person

"Just woke up. It's a beautiful day."
"Taking a shower."
"Whoops. Forgot the soap."
"Currently on the toilet, reading a newspaper."
"Breakfast, here I come!"

The Attention-Seeking Picture Poster

*posts a heavily photoshopped picture covered in makeup and wearing pretty clothes*
Friend 1: Aw. You're so pretty.
Friend 2: Absolutely gorgeous.
Friend 3: Why can't I look like you?
The Attention-Seeking Picture Poster: What are you guys talking about? I'm the ugliest thing to ever walk this earth!

The Vague Status Poster

"OMG. Worst day ever."
Friend 1: What's going on?
Friend 2: Are you okay?
Friend 3: I'm here if you want to talk to someone.
The Vague Status Poster: No, it's okay. It's private.

The Public Private Conversationalist

"Hey, Friend 1! I can't wait till the movie this Saturday!"
"Yo, Friend 2! Dude, can you believe what happened at Friend 374's birthday party?"
"When are we hanging out, Friend 3?"
*private joke*
*private joke*
*private joke*

The Oscar Winner

"I am so extremely grateful for all of you. I don't know what I would do and who I would be without all of you guys. My life has been absolutely amazing and everything that has happened so far would have been impossible without you. I love you and I thank you."

The "I'm In a Relationship And You're Not" Brag

"I love you, boyfriend."
"I miss you, boyfriend."
"My boyfriend took me out to the best dinner ever. Complete with roses and a Tiffany bracelet."
"Boyfriend's going to take me to Hawaii."
"Boyfriend is the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Just. No.


-Barista Mia-

Image: Neeraj Kumar Read more »

 

Social media is great. Social media is awesome. For some of us, social media is the best invention since the Internet, and it very well might be. However, there’s a slight problem: there are some evil characteristics of social media that are very hard to ignore (dun dun duuuuun). What are they, you ask? Well...

Evil #1: You see things that you don’t want to see

It’s not like you ask to see it, but someone retweets a graphic picture of something absolutely awful. Another person likes something on Facebook that ends up on your newsfeed and it’s, um, shone a little light on who that friend of yours is like behind the scenes. Social media makes you see weird and disgusting things on a daily basis whether you ask for it or not.

Evil #2: You get obsessed with social media

Social media has this evil power of sucking people’s minds and making them only concentrate on stalking people’s profiles on Facebook and catching up with the latest Justin Bieber gossip on Twitter with fellow Believers... I mean, who else here has a problem with checking his/her phone every five seconds for Facebook and/or Twitter, hm?

And most of all...

Evil #3: Social media is an evil procrastination tool

This is by far the worst side of social media. Being a procrastination tool. And an amazing one at that! It’s so easy to log onto your account and spend time on it for hours and hours, forgetting all of your other responsibilities like homework, projects, and so on. In fact, I’m pretty sure social media is the one that brought procrastination into human existence, that evil thing.

I have nothing against social media. In fact, I adore Twitter. But I think it’s a good thing to keep this evil side of social media (dun dun duuuuun) in mind as we go out our daily business on Facebook and such. (Mwahahahahaha.)

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!


-Barista Mia-

Image: Ed Yourdon Read more »

I remember the first day I went on the new setout of Facebook and saw the thumbs up button in the message tabs. ("You can 'like' messages? Now my life is perfect!") Gone are the days of awkward end-of-convo smiley messages when you don't know whether it would appear desperate to send another or if it would seem rude not to reply.

But in my eyes, FB is still lacking in a lot of possible shortcuts that would make messaging so much easier. But then, I am exceptionally awkward, so naturally I... 

Anyway! Here are my dreams of the stickers or emoticons a perfect Facebook tab would include:

• The "duh" sign.

This is for that horrifying moment when you're in the middle of a heated debate with your crush or someone, and are doing all you can to make yourself appear witty, and pose an ingenious rhetorical question. Or so you imagined. The moment you've pressed Send you realise you need some way to let him know your power is so great that he can't even see where it ends. And yeah, other than actually saying that. In comes the "duh?!" sign- "Helloo-oo, can't you see how sarcastic I'm being here?!”

• Then, there are the times when you've said something, ahem, a little too sarcastic (there is such a thing as too sarcastic? Wow.) We wanna quickly assure them we don't mean to rude. Like this! That's right, a large head with a tiddly brain, and my crude Snapchat doodling.

• Typo alert! A big fat cross through a big fat mistake- a fun alternative to writing the (often obvious) correction ever time Autocorrect cocks up.

• If you can't be voters to set up a worldwide campaign to bulky Mark Zuckerburg into introducing these tactics, why not just go have a nice cry ( ":::(" tears) and resort to good old fashioned words by having a little experimental game? See how far you can get answering "haha", "lol", or something like it, to every message. It can actually become pretty hilarious. See for yourself!

So, I think it would be cool to have these, but what do you guys think? Any other ideas? I wanna hear them! 

-Barista Sabita-

Read more »