Category — Mod04: Social Technologies

Reading the articles regarding Web 2.0, I realized the need for the term. In beginning to read Web 1.0, I was wondering what it was referring to. Why do we need to place  one as before and one as after. The differences the articles suggest regarding 1 and 2  is extremely relevant especially as a user who has grown up with the development of the Internet, it makes sense. The change over from Netscape to Google, the popularity of Napster, the ideas of Flickr and the whole concept of blogging. Stepping back and looking at the perspective the articles take creates a sense of objectivity. There is that moment of “Aha” when I read the articles and it does begin to make sense. From first glance, it appears the coining of 2.0 was needed to describe the difference in user participation and the changed nature of content. There is a shift in the way people use the Web now and the relevant tools and applications. That is something certain. Perhaps, the newer generation would not be able to relate to the need for a differentiation because all they have known have been social web tools. However, this change is definitely something that needs to be addressed and discussed.

CrowdTrust

Looking at the pitch for CrowdTrust, it really makes a point about data management. How do users deal with the chaos associated with their online self. We have an entire life online. How do we manage the data being created everyday? How do we make sense of this online self? In reality, these things seems to be separated into categories on their own. The family lives in a home on a street, but my family online is scattered among the many other email addresses with the people I have known since high school. Online, it all becomes a blur of chaos. The idea of a personal creative commons can really help to not only organize the online reality of who we are but also highlight the things that are important to us. Being able to objectively step back and see our own online “DNA” is a very exciting step because it is so honest. The connections CrowdTrust is able to make is accumulated from our day to day lives. This ability to map out who we are will make our online self even much more organized than that of our reality.

Last Note

The way social technologies have changed the way we surf the Internet and interact with the people in our lives is both exciting and overwhelming. The dynamics between people, the politics between our online and real self, and the organized chaos of it all is quite overwhelming because of all the possibilities. Our existence whether online or offline is bound to the notion of what is meaningful. The lack of boundaries, the power and the freedom of being “social” is a topic one can continue to discuss and pursue.

The web 0.0 article was a good read. I have often wondered what the revenue model is for a lot of this web 2.0 activity and thought that maybe I was missing something.  Certainly for some services, humanistic, creative commons attitudes drive development (as opposed to annoying pop ups and blinking banner ads.) It was interesting to read about Twitter’s founder.  He can obviously afford to forge ahead without a solid game plan.  Internet users are more than happy to use free services (even if it is free as in beer and not free as in speech).