Friday, February 29, 2008

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 refers to internet-based services that are collaborative and shared among users. Examples of Web 2.0 services include, but not limited to the following: wikis, social networks, image sharing (photo bucket, flickr) and video sharing (you tube). Sharing and collaboration of ideas can be done either publicly or to a specific audience. The power of Web 2.0 is that users work together to create content through multiple authoring. There are over 100 million images provided by 4 million users on Flickr. (Moore, 2007)

Shared collections include links, photos, documents, and video. Tagging is a method to title and access pictures or other collections linked to a tag. For example, the flickr account that I created has two collections. I tagged all the pictures that pertain to pole vault as “polevault” and sunsets I tagged “sunsets.” A user can browse through flickr and sort by tag; all images that surface are tagged by specific names. However, just because an image is tagged with a specific title does not mean every image will be represented by the tag name.

According to Barton Goldenburg, “The purse strings of the future are controlled by the digital client.” Who is the digital client? A millennial under the age of 23 who spends 8.5 hours per day connected digitally. Digital clients are influencing the design and implementation of online business. (Goldenberg, 2008)

In addition to social networks and wikis, Web 2.0 includes RSS feeds, widgets and podcasts; aligning with the social connection. Each one shares three rules:
1. user generated content
2. social networking
3. distintermediation (getting rid of the middleman – business conducted directly with the consumer)
Suggestions for brushing up on Web 2.0 knowledge include getting to know the culture, participate, open a facebook account, create a blog or download a podcast. (Goldenberg, 2008).

I must admit, given my feelings about broadcasting private information publicly on the World Wide Web, flickr intrigued me. I opened a yahoo account and uploaded several pictures. I decided that a flickr account would be a great way to share photos with friends and family. I set up two different albums, one of pole vault and the other sunsets.
I tagged each photo either as polevault or sunset. After I arranged and tagged I searched for images tagged with the same titles. Quite fun! For this particular assignment, my images are available for public viewing. In the future, I will set up albums for a limited audience, friends and family. Here is my link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24263298@N06/

Annotated Reference link: http://tinyurl.com/yt6f2z



References
Goldenberg, B. (2008). Always on. CRM Magazine, 12(2), 27-31. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier on February 26, 2008.

Moore, M. G. (2007). Editorial: Web 2.0: Does it really matter?Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier on February 26, 2008.

1 comment:

afriendtoall said...

Very well written and informative, Pam. I agree with you that these type of services are useful in not only the business environment but on a personal level, also. I am not as experienced as you when it comes to web tools but am trying to learn. Thanks for all your help and info.
Cyn