Module 3 - Web 2.0

I suppose to begin with the question is what is Web 2.0? There are plenty of technical definitions and some will say there is even a stylistic definition. As explained by Tim O'Rielly, Dale Dougherty originally coined the term in 2004 as part of a conference brainstorming session. Now as a concept, Web 2.0 has been with us for somewhere near 4 years, personally I like O'Rielly's compact definition of Web 2.0, it's concise and sums up all the aspects of Web 2.0.

For me the web is like a Swiss army knife, it has so many practical uses from social media to knowledge retrieval, self publishing but above all communication. But the internet has always allowed that I hear you say, what is it then that differentiates the early days of the internet to that of now?

Blogs, micro blogging, social media, web apps, cloud computing, crowd sourcing, mashups, Ajax, wiki's.

For one it's the concept of user contributed content and the ease of contribution. The web has gone from a place where to have website takes special knowledge and content is presented in a single direction manner primarily to hock a product, to a place where we communicate and share ideas. Many websites and web applications now allow us to contribute and add to the content they provide. Not only that they can also allow us to take their output or data, to integrate into our own sites or even create entirely new concepts and applications.

No more is this difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 highlighted than in this task of comparing the social book marking site Delicious and a static HTML page of links. The latter of these two fits well into the concept of Web 1.0: Static information presented on a page with no further interaction or contribution from the user. Delicious on the other hand is a dynamic database driven, user contributed, social bookmarking site. Here users can bookmark sites, adding comments and tags (folksonony) to their bookmarks, then share their lists of sites with other users.

This user contribution and communication. This creation and sharing of knowledge epitomises what is Web 2.0 to me. The more I explore these avenues the more I find how the web is changing the worlds we live in.

So I suppose now the question is not what is Web 2.0, but what will Web 3.0 bring us?

What do you think?

It's All About The Comments Baby

On a little ramble through the interwebs I came across this great article about the possible future of comments on blogs. For me, a big part of the appeal with blogging, is the interactive nature of comments. Of course then I found this recent attempt to improve the nature of comments very intriguing.

Does it stop there though? Oh no! In true form I ended up clicking through further and discovered some further interesting ways of managing my blogs comments. InstenseDebate and Discus are third party providers of commenting systems that offer a comprehensive means of managing your blogs comments.

So in the spirit of independent learning, I have gone and added Discus to my blog, and now I eagerly await new comments to see how my shiny new system works.

Care to help me with my learning? :)

Net11 Reflections Week Five

Well week five as come and gone just like 2008, and like 2008, week five offered me lots of exciting new opportunities and a few challenges on how I look at things.

Last week saw me finishing up module two and starting to tackle module three, Contributing to the Infosphere, and in particular how we write on the internet. Jamming all this in around work commitments (yes I still worked over the Christmas new year period) and social commitments, has proved a challenge albeit a rewarding challenge.

In fact it has been this time hungry schedule which has caused me to stop and reflect on a few discussions I have had with fellow students over the previous weeks, plus a comment Peter Fletcher made refering to Barry Wellman's paper "Connecting Community: On- and Off-line". Simply put Wellmen posits that technology, online communities, communication on the internet allows us more face to face time of greater quality with our friends and family.

As a result I have begun to take notice of the quantity and quality of the face to face social interaction I have with my friends. Through this self appraisal I have found myself in agreement with Peter's comments and Wellman's paper. I am beginning to see how keeping up to date with my friends via social networks and technology is allowing me to have deeper personal conversations with them. My partner also pointed out how she is able to keep up to date with those friends she is not so close and doesn't see as frequently and as a result those friendships are far stronger.

This it seems is not a random phenomena linked only to myself. Recent studies have also shown that social networking and technology can indeed benefit real life skills, even the business world is starting to realise the benefits of customer interaction through online social networks and media. I think that we are now only starting to see the beginning of how technology, internet communication and particularly social networks can change our world.