DOCSLIB.ORG

Enabling High-Density, Low-Power Data Storage for Efficient Microblogging

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Enabling High-Density, Low-Power Data Storage for Efficient Microblogging CASE STUDY Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 Family Storage Performance Data Center Efficiency Enabling high-density, low-power data storage for efficient microblogging Intel® Xeon® processor E3 family helps Sina develop a cost-effective cold storage solution for its microblogging platform Sina Weibo* is the information-sharing and communication platform Sina developed to provide users with an effective and efficient microblogging service, allowing them to post messages, upload photos, share, and communicate with friends and family anytime and anywhere via their laptop, PC, or mobile device. Since its launch, Sina’s microblogging service has become a leading communication platform in China, with over 500 million subscribers and more than 300,000 certified users including over “The TCO benefits of the Intel® 130,000 corporate and institutional accounts. Xeon® processor E3 family helped Sina facilitates its microblogging service through Quanta Cloud Technology (QCT), Sina increase our storage capacity which is dedicated to providing cloud computing data center clients through a full range by approximately 70 percent while of products including solutions for rack-mounted servers, storage devices, network switches, and integrated cabinets. Quanta Cloud Technology also performs system reducing server power consumption integration, tuning, and optimization according to the needs of its clients, strengthening by approximately 40 percent. Choosing and enhancing efficiency according to their needs and designing system solutions for Intel® architecture for our cold server large data centers and enterprises. Through this fruitful partnership, Sina helps its users storage solution ensures compatibility communicate with the rest of the world whenever and wherever they are. with existing infrastructure and CHALLENGE applications, reduces complexity, and • Inactive data uses valuable data center resources. Social media data is created rapidly lowers total cost of ownership.” in large volumes, but also has a short life span as active data. When data becomes inactive, it wastes storage resources designed for frequent access. Wang Shuo Operation Director SOLUTION Sina Research and Engineering Department • Intel® Xeon® processor E3 family-based cold storage solution. Deploy Quanta Cloud Technology’s STRATOS* S100-L11SL cold storage servers running on the Intel Xeon processor E3 family, which provides a high-density, low-power cold storage solution for Sina’s massive volume of inactive data. IMPACT • Cost-effective cold storage solution. Sina increased its storage capacity by “Utilizing the Intel Xeon processor approximately 70 percent while reducing server power consumption and lowering unit E3 family, Sina has been able to capacity power consumption by approximately 40 percent. take advantage of Quanta Cloud • Optimized utilization of storage resources. Sina’s microblogging service can store and Technology’s high-density, low-power serve cold data to users while reducing the overall cost of storing infrequently accessed data. cold storage servers at low operating With the rapid rise of social media, people To meet this challenge, Sina sought help from temperatures and low failure rates. can now exchange information whenever Quanta Cloud Technology to implement a The solution meets the requirements and wherever they want. Along with this cold storage solution. Cold storage is a way and applications for scale-out storage impressive rise of social media comes to store rarely accessed data in large volume in large-scale data centers. Through a rapid and exponential increase in the with low energy consumption. this project, our storage solution volume of data stored by social media service providers. A great amount of social Compared to general storage solutions, was proven to not only meet Sina’s data is only viewed by users for a very short cold storage primarily focuses on requirements, but also to exceed time, immediately after it is uploaded (active delivering cost-optimized data storage. customers' expectations for price/ data). The data is accessed increasingly “Within the Sina microblog’s 20,000 less over time, becoming inactive data. servers, a great amount of data is rarely performance and power consumption. accessed, with a processor utilization Quanta Cloud Technology will continue Processing inactive data the same way as active data reduces the efficiency of the rate of less than 15 percent. However, optimizing our products and services to resources dedicated to storing and serving this kind of data increases by 30 percent provide the best solution to large data active data. Even so, while this aged data every year,” explained Mike Yang, general center customers. is not accessed frequently, it needs to be manager at Quanta Cloud Technology. available any time a user requests it. The According to Yang, although Sina's challenge for Sina is how to cost-effectively microblog has been in service for only a Mike Yang store this aged, inactive data while few years, the amount of data it possesses General Manager maintaining durability and availability. has been increasing at an exponential rate. Quanta Cloud Technology The new cold storage solution increases storage capacity by up to 70 percent while reducing power consumption per unit storage by approximately 40 percent Traditional Intel® Xeon® processor Another storage LESSONS LEARNED storage server E3-1220L v2-based sever server option • Although cold storage techniques 217 W 127 W 330 W are still in their initial development stages, Intel has released a series of 220 V processors optimized for the cold 12 Disks 12 Disks 24 Disks storage sector and is committed to 13 A 2 TB 2 TB 2 TB developing a wide range of solutions cabinet that meet the demands for cost- 2860 W Per server Per server Per server effective cold storage solutions. 13 sets 22 sets 8 sets Maximum Maximum Maximum • Intel® technology-based cold storage servers can provide users: HDD capacity: HDD capacity: HDD capacity: - Superb performance by driving a higher 312 TB 528 TB 284 TB number of data disks per processor Power consumption: Power consumption: Power consumption: - Excellent energy efficiency, since they 9.04 W/TB 5.29 W/TB 6.88 W/TB can achieve higher cabinet server density and reduced operating cost Comparison of cold storage solution servers done by Sina using Intel® Xeon® processor - Compatibility with broad range of E3 family, a traditional storage server and another type of storage server industry standard applications, substantially decreasing Without effective cold storage solutions, support their current applications, resulting investment in data migration, rising business costs can result in an in a higher overall total cost of ownership testing, and maintenance unsustainable business model. (TCO) for the cold storage solutions from Quanta Cloud Technology. The improved - Proven maturity. Intel technology- Meeting the demands of massive data efficiency of Sina’s microblog service is based platforms have a long history To help Sina solve this problem, Quanta also enabling the company to develop of reliability in the enterprise data Cloud Technology proposed cold storage new business platforms such as emails center, with a continuing roadmap servers running on the Intel Xeon and videos and pursue further business of innovations. processor E3 family. expansion opportunities. When selecting its cold storage solution, Improving microblogging performance engineers from the Sina microblog team Considering the advantages of using Intel A brighter future needed to ensure they were getting the most architecture, Sina went for the Intel Xeon In the future, Sina's microblog team aims cost-effective solution for their business processor E3 family-based STRATOS S100- to deploy more cold storage systems and model while maintaining the same user L11SL 1U cold storage server offered by to continue utilizing servers based on the experience. The Intel Xeon processor E3 Quanta Cloud Technology. The server Intel Xeon processor E3 family. It is also family can drive data stored on 12 disks, while was installed with up to 14 SATA hard evaluating the new Intel® Atom® processor the processor of a non-Intel® architecture- disks. As a high-density storage server, the C2750. Intel is also working with the Sina based solution accommodates fewer disks, STRATOS S100-L11SL 1U cold storage microblog team to apply erasure coding resulting in a greater number of processors server is suitable for large data centers with and other techniques to the cold storage per rack. Utilizing the Intel Xeon processor E3 a demand for storage software, allowing for system to save storage space, using the family-based cold storage platform meant horizontal expansion. processing capabilities of Intel® processors. higher density and simpler architecture solution. Moreover, the energy-efficient Intel Test data from Sina showed that compared Xeon processor E3 family-based servers with traditional storage servers, the Intel contribute to reducing energy consumption Xeon processor E3 family-based cold Find a solution that’s right for your and operating costs for the data center. storage servers have increased storage organization. Contact your Intel capacity by approximately 70 percent while representative, visit Intel’s Business Success By using Intel Xeon processor E3 family- reducing server power consumption and Stories for IT Managers (www.intel.com/ based servers, Sina microblog can ensure lowering unit capacity power consumption itcasestudies) or explore the
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Versatility of Microblogging
    www.spireresearch.com Side Click: The versatility of microblogging Microblogging is well-established globally as a way of keeping in touch with others about events occurring in their lives in real-time. Popular microblogging sites include Twitter in the U.S., Tencent QQ in China and Me2day in South Korea. Twitter has 140 million active users1, while China’s Tencent QQ has a staggering 721 million active user accounts2, ranking only behind Facebook in terms of being the most used social networking service worldwide. Microblogging allows users to combine blogging and instant messaging to post short messages on their profiles3; including small and conversational talk, self-promotion, spam and news 4 . On a deeper level, microblogging has altered the way people consume and generate information – not only democratizing the broadcasting of information but also enabling it to be done in real-time. Connecting to stakeholders There are several benefits to integrating microblogging into a business’s regular stakeholder communication regime. Consumers who “follow” a company’s products or services would be the first to know of any promotions. The company also benefits through obtaining prompt feedback and suggestions for improvement. A concerned investor 1 Twitter turns six, Twitter Blog, 21 March 21 2012 2 QQ Continues to Dominate Instant Messaging in China, eMarketer Inc., 27 April 2012 3 An Insight Into Microblogging Trends And Toolbars, ArticlesXpert,21 January 2012 4 Twitter Study – August 2009, PearAnalytics.com, August 2009 © 2012 Spire Research and Consulting Pte Ltd would want to be the first to know of any important news which might impact her returns.
    [Show full text]
  • How Generation Y Talks About Sustainability on Tumblr Yeu Olivia
    Yeu Olivia Han Microblogging the Environment Spring 2013 Microblogging the Environment: How Generation Y Talks About Sustainability on Tumblr Yeu Olivia Han ABSTRACT Environmental discourses represent how people understand complex environmental issues and create material consequences in policy, human behavior, and society. On microblogs, users exchange small amounts of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links. Little research exists on the relationship between environmental discourse and microblogs, so I ask why environmental discourse takes the forms it does on the microblog Tumblr, by examining discursive content, form, and context. I coded 102 blog posts, conducted 3 interviews with bloggers, and performed discourse analysis on 8 posts. I identified environmental problem solving, which privileges human agency and seeks solutions within current political economic systems, as the most common form of environmental discourse on Tumblr. I found that Tumblr microblogs used little technical language, had many “shares” and “likes,” and communicated in a subjective tone. These features make environmental discourse accessible to a wide audience, allowing for broad diffusion of environmental information and encouraging collaboration. In the neoliberal context we lack the correct frames for understanding environmental issues. Instead of arguing about whether the science is right or wrong, policy makers should determine what to do about these issues and when to act. Though Tumblr is a part of and reflects aspects of neoliberalism,
    [Show full text]
  • Microblogging Tool That Allows Users to Post Brief, 140-Character Messages -- Called "Tweets" -- and Follow Other Users' Activities
    MICRO-BLOGGING AND PERFORMANCE APPS AND SITES Instagram lets users snap, edit, and share photos and 15-second videos, either publicly or with a private network of followers. It unites the most popular features of social media sites: sharing, seeing, and commenting on photos. It also lets you apply fun filters and effects to your photos, making them look high-quality and artistic. What parents need to know • Teens are on the lookout for "likes." Similar to the way they use Facebook, teens may measure the "success" of their photos -- even their self-worth -- by the number of likes or comments they receive. Posting a photo or video can be problematic if teens are posting to validate their popularity. • Public photos are the default. Photos and videos shared on Instagram are public unless privacy settings are adjusted. Hashtags and location information can make photos even more visible to communities beyond a teen's followers if his or her account is public. • Private messaging is now an option. Instagram Direct allows users to send "private messages" to up to 15 mutual friends. These pictures don't show up on their public feeds. Although there's nothing wrong with group chats, kids may be more likely to share inappropriate stuff with their inner circles. Tumblr is like a cross between a blog and Twitter: It's a streaming scrapbook of text, photos, and/or videos and audio clips. Users create and follow short blogs, or "tumblogs," that can be seen by anyone online (if made public). Many teens have tumblogs for personal use: sharing photos, videos, musings, and things they find funny with their friends.
    [Show full text]
  • Automatic Hashtag Recommendation for Microblogs Using Topic-Specific
    Automatic Hashtag Recommendation for Microblogs using Topic-specific Translation Model Zhuoye Ding Qi Zhang XuanJing Huang School of Computer Science, Fudan University, 825 Zhangheng Road, Shanghai, P.R.China {09110240024,qi_zhang,xjhuang}@fudan.edu.cn ABSTRACT Microblogging services continue to grow in popularity, users publish massive instant messages every day through them. Many tweets are marked with hashtags, which usually represent groups or topics of tweets. Hashtags may provide valuable information for lots of applications, such as retrieval, opinion mining, classification, and so on. However, since hashtags should be manually annotated, only 14.6% tweets contain them (Wang et al., 2011). In this paper, we adopt topic-specific translation model(TSTM) to suggest hashtags for microblogs. It combines the advantages of both topic model and translation model. Experimental result on dataset crawled from real world microblogging service demonstrates that the proposed method can outperform some state-of-the-art methods. TITLEAND ABSTRACTIN CHINESE 基基基于于于特特特定定定话话话题题题下下下翻翻翻译译译模模模型型型的的的微微微博博博标标标签签签推推推荐荐荐 微博服务变得越来越流行，用户可以通过微博提交大量的及时信息。很多条微博被用户通 过标签标记，这些标签代表了微博的话题类别。标签可以为很多应用提供有价值的信息， 比如检索，情感分析，分类等等。微博的标签本应该由用户自行标记，然而，根据统计只 有14.6%的微博包含标签。在这篇论文中，我们提出了一种基于特定话题的翻译模型，来 为每条微博自动推荐标签。此模型综合了话题模型和翻译模型的优点。在基于真实微博语 料的实验中，我们提出的方法超过了很多经典的方法。 KEYWORDS: Microblogs, Tag recommendation, Topic model. KEYWORDSIN CHINESE: 微博，标签推荐，话题模型. Proceedings of COLING 2012: Posters, pages 265–274, COLING 2012, Mumbai, December 2012. 265 1 Introduction Hashtags, which are usually
    [Show full text]
  • Constructing and Performing an On-Air Radio Identity in a Changing Media Landscape
    CONSTRUCTING AND PERFORMING AN ON-AIR RADIO IDENTITY IN A CHANGING MEDIA LANDSCAPE A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by David F. Crider January 2014 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Nancy Morris, Advisory Chair, Department of Media Studies and Production Dr. Patrick Murphy, Department of Media Studies and Production Dr. Donnalyn Pompper, Department of Strategic Communication Dr. Catherine Hastings, External Member, Susquehanna University ii © Copyright 2014 by David F. Crider All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT The radio industry is fighting to stay relevant in an age of expanding media options. Scholarship has slackened, and media experts say that radio’s best days are in the past. This dissertation investigates how today’s radio announcer presents him/herself on the air as a personality, creating and performing a self that is meant for mass consumption by a listening audience. A participant observation of eleven different broadcast sites was conducted, backed by interviews with most key on-air personnel at each site. A grounded theory approach was used for data analysis. The resulting theoretical model focuses on the performance itself as the focal point that determines a successful (positive) interaction for personality and listener. Associated processes include narrative formation of the on- air personality, communication that takes place outside of the performance, effects of setting and situation, the role of the listening audience, and the reduction of social distance between personality and listener. The model demonstrates that a personality performed with the intent of being realistic and relatable will be more likely to cement a connection with the listener that leads to repeated listening and ultimately loyalty and fidelity to that personality.
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:1403.5206V2 [Cs.SI] 30 Jul 2014
    What is Tumblr: A Statistical Overview and Comparison Yi Chang‡, Lei Tang§, Yoshiyuki Inagaki† and Yan Liu‡ † Yahoo Labs, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, USA § @WalmartLabs, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA ‡ University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 [email protected],[email protected], [email protected],[email protected] Abstract Traditional blogging sites, such as Blogspot6 and Living- Social7, have high quality content but little social interac- Tumblr, as one of the most popular microblogging platforms, tions. Nardi et al. (Nardi et al. 2004) investigated blogging has gained momentum recently. It is reported to have 166.4 as a form of personal communication and expression, and millions of users and 73.4 billions of posts by January 2014. showed that the vast majority of blog posts are written by While many articles about Tumblr have been published in ordinarypeople with a small audience. On the contrary, pop- major press, there is not much scholar work so far. In this pa- 8 per, we provide some pioneer analysis on Tumblr from a va- ular social networking sites like Facebook , have richer so- riety of aspects. We study the social network structure among cial interactions, but lower quality content comparing with Tumblr users, analyze its user generated content, and describe blogosphere. Since most social interactions are either un- reblogging patterns to analyze its user behavior. We aim to published or less meaningful for the majority of public audi- provide a comprehensive statistical overview of Tumblr and ence, it is natural for Facebook users to form different com- compare it with other popular social services, including blo- munities or social circles.
    [Show full text]
  • Personalized Hashtag Suggestion for Microblogs
    Personalized Hashtag Suggestion for Microblogs Juan Xu, Qi Zhang, Xuanjing Huang School of Computer Science, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Intelligent Information Processing, Fudan University f13916430285, qz, [email protected] Abstract. In microblogging services, users can generate hashtags to categorize their tweets. However, a majority of microblogs do not contain hashtags, which has intrigued active research on the problem of automatic hashtag recommenda- tion for microblogs. Previous work conducted on this problem mostly does not take the user’s preference into consideration. In this paper, we propose a novel personalized hashtag recommendation method for microblogs based on a proba- bilistic generative model which exploits users’ perspectives on microblog posts for hashtag generation. Our experiments on a real microblogs dataset show that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods. We also show some case studies that demonstrate the advantages of considering both the content and user’s personal preferences for hashtag suggestion. 1 Introduction Microblogging services overload us with information, bombarding us with thousands of tweets, blog posts, and status updates every day. For example, Twitter, one of the most popular microblogging tools, has grown rapidly, with an estimated 200 million users generating 400 million tweets per day recently1. To cope with the volume of infor- mation shared daily, hashtags ¡akeywords prefaced with “#” in microblogging services ¡ahave been introduced to help users categorize and search for tweets. Past empirical research shows that hashtags can be useful in many applications, including sentiment analysis [1, 2], breaking event discoveries [3], query expansion [4], etc. In the spectrum of industry, Google started supporting Google+ hashtags in search queries on Sep 25, 20132.
    [Show full text]
  • Atom: Horizontally Scaling Strong Anonymity
    Atom: Horizontally Scaling Strong Anonymity Albert Kwon Henry Corrigan-Gibbs Srinivas Devadas Bryan Ford MIT Stanford MIT EPFL Abstract Atom is an anonymous messaging system that pro- This scalability property has enabled Tor to grow to handle tects against traffic-analysis attacks. Unlike many prior sys- hundreds of thousands to millions of users [3]. However, the tems, each Atom server touches only a small fraction of the fact that Tor provides low-latency anonymity also makes the total messages routed through the network. As a result, the system vulnerable to a variety of deanonymization attacks [9, system’s capacity scales near-linearly with the number of 17, 31, 44, 56, 74, 75]. servers. At the same time, each Atom user benefits from In this paper, we present Atom, an anonymous messag- “best possible” anonymity: a user is anonymous among all ing system that takes important steps towards marrying the honest users of the system, even against an active adversary best aspects of these two architectural strategies. Like Tor, who monitors the entire network, a portion of the system’s Atom scales horizontally: adding more servers to the network servers, and any number of malicious users. The architectural increases the system’s overall capacity. Like mix-net- and DC- ideas behind Atom have been known in theory, but putting net-based systems, Atom provides clear security properties them into practice requires new techniques for (1) avoiding under precise assumptions. heavy general-purpose multi-party computation protocols, Atom implements an anonymous broadcast primitive for (2) defeating active attacks by malicious servers at minimal short, latency-tolerant messages.
    [Show full text]
  • A Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures
    McCracken, Allison. a Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11537055. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution 2RPP a tumblr book McCracken, Allison. a Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11537055. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution 2RPP McCracken, Allison. a Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11537055. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution 2RPP a tumblr book platform and cultures Allison McCracken Alexander Cho Louisa Stein Indira Neill Hoch EDITORS University of Michigan Press Ann Arbor McCracken, Allison. a Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11537055. Downloaded on behalf of Unknown Institution Master Pages Copyright © 2020 by Allison McCracken, Alexander Cho, Louisa Stein, Indira Neill Hoch, editors Some rights reserved This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Note to users: A Creative Commons license is only valid when it is applied by the person or entity that holds rights to the licensed work. Works may contain components (e.g., photographs, illustrations, or quotations) to which the rightsholder in the work cannot apply the license. It is ultimately your responsibility to independently evaluate the copyright status of any work or component part of a work you use, in light of your intended use.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Microblogging Hashtags for Learning Enhancement
    Form@re, ISSN 1825-7321 © Edizioni Erickson, www.erickson.it Questo articolo è ripubblicato per gentile concessione della casa editrice Edizioni Erickson. Understanding microblogging hashtags for learning enhancement Malinka Ivanova Technical University OF SOFIA, College of Energetics and Electronics Summary The use of hashtags in Twitter messages is growing among the educational community for various reasons. Exploring and understanding how hashtags can facilitate learning and self-learning organization is the main aim of this paper. Several online available tools for hashtags management are examined and their recognition and utilization can assist knowledge gathering and learning network constructing. Keywords: microblogging hashtag, learning, social network, hashtag management tools. Form@re, ISSN 1825-7321 © Edizioni Erickson, www.erickson.it Numero 74, Volume 11, pp. 17-23 Form@re – Open journal per la formazione in rete Introduction Microblogging platforms provide interactive channels for information broadcasting and sharing in private or professional aspect in less than 200 characters. Their potential for learning occurring in collaborative atmosphere, forming groups and communities of interests are seen by researchers and educators (Grosseck and Holotescu, 2008; Borau, Ullrich, Feng and Shen, 2009; Gómez-Sanz, Fuentes-Fernández, Cosío and Mestras, 2010). One of the most exploited microblogging tool is Twitter which emerged in July 2006 with its first prototype and after eight months already had about 94000 users (Snider, 2007). Many users from over the world exchange tons of messages and there is still no mechanism for conversations grouping. Seeing this Twitter «bottleneck», Chris Messina proposed inclusion of hashtags in text messages on August of 2007. He is inspiriting from IRC channels and Jaiku microblog.
    [Show full text]
  • Electronic Word-Of-Mouth on Microblogs: a Cross-Cultural Content Analysis of Twitter and Weibo
    Intercultural Communication Studies XXII: 3 (2013) MA Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Microblogs: A Cross-cultural Content Analysis of Twitter and Weibo Lin MA Beijing Foreign Studies University, China Abstract: This research studies microblogging as word-of-mouth communication from a cross-cultural perspective. It compares microblogging contents on Twitter in the US and Weibo in China. After coding microblogs on four smart-phone brands in a month period for their content categories, the author computed the relation between the proportional occurrence of each category and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. The results indicate, across cultures, consumers mostly use microblogs to share brand- central information and entertaining messages. However, cultural values, in significant ways, moderate specific types of contents consumers share on microblogs. Implications for application of microblogging in marketing communication and future research into eWOM content are discussed. Keywords: Microblog, word-of-mouth, content, culture Word-of-mouth (WOM) has been recognized as one of the most influential resources of information transmission (Breazeale, 2008; Godes & Mayzlin, 2004). The influence of WOM on consumer behavior is well established in marketing literature (Steffes & Burgee, 2009). With the rapid development of the internet and information technology, electronic WOM (eWOM) has become an increasingly important way for consumers to share brand-related information (Chen & Xie, 2008). Among various online media, microblog, with its rapid growth and wide spread, has grown to be a key eWOM platform. By December, 2012, Twitter, the most popular microblogging application, had over 500 million users and more than 200 million monthly active users worldwide. As a unique way of communication, microblogging is believed to have the potential to substantially impact WOM branding, which can impact key elements of the company–customer relationship including brand image and brand awareness (Jansen et al., 2009).
    [Show full text]
  • Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in the Coffee Shop Alternate Universe
    Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Katharine Elizabeth McCain Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2020 Dissertation Committee Sean O’Sullivan, Advisor Matthew H. Birkhold Jared Gardner Elizabeth Hewitt 1 Copyright by Katharine Elizabeth McCain 2020 2 Abstract This dissertation, Today Your Barista Is: Genre Characteristics in The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe, works to categorize and introduce a heretofore unrecognized genre within the medium of fanfiction: The Coffee Shop Alternate Universe (AU). Building on previous sociological and ethnographic work within Fan Studies, scholarship that identifies fans as transformative creators who use fanfiction as a means of promoting progressive viewpoints, this dissertation argues that the Coffee Shop AU continues these efforts within a defined set of characteristics, merging the goals of fanfiction as a medium with the specific goals of a genre. These characteristics include the Coffee Shop AU’s structure, setting, archetypes, allegories, and the remediation of related mainstream genres, particularly the romantic comedy. The purpose of defining the Coffee Shop AU as its own genre is to help situate fanfiction within mainstream literature conventions—in as much as that’s possible—and laying the foundation for future close reading. This work also helps to demonstrate which characteristics are a part of a communally developed genre as opposed to individual works, which may assist in legal proceedings moving forward. However, more crucially this dissertation serves to encourage the continued, formal study of fanfiction as a literary and cultural phenomenon, one that is beginning to closely analyze the stories fans produce alongside the fans themselves.
    [Show full text]