Aloha everyone, this week I'm somewhat distracted since I'm in Hawaii to "work". I guess I'll have to suffer somehow :). In looking at Web 2.0 tools, I first wanted to find out what a Web 2.0 tool was. So after consulting a few places, I believe that these tools allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data (Wikipedia). Wikipeda listed a few tools as Web 2.0 that I had never considered before like eBay, Craigslist, etc. I believed these just to be web sites. So is the term Web 2.0 being overused in that any website that allows the user to inter and interact with their data is now a Web 2.0 tool?
In fact I'm not a big computer user outside of work and this class. Something about being on a computer for 10-12 hours a day and then going home and using the computer for another 4-5 doesn't really appeal to me. Google Docs to me seems like an interesting idea, but at the same time seems to be a novelity. I can see the value in collaborating on documents in a business world, but Google Docs seems to lack the richness of formatting to really play in the mainline business world.
Blogging is a good concept, prior to this class I probably would not have blogged anything. Currently I'm using it to listen and respond to the thoughts of some of the top minds in my research area. This level of interaction with the experts through this medium really accelerates the advancement of knowledge.
Flickr is a pretty good tool for sharing photos. But then again, unless you are a professional photographer, I don't really care to see you family photos of your vacation to the Grand Canyon. I almost seems like society has gotten into the mindset of "well the tool is there so I probably ought to use it." Just look at myspace and some of the content that people post there.... :
Anyway enough with the ranting, I think that some Web 2.0 tools are useful but given the limitations on functionality and openness that is present in the corporate world, I don't see these tools really being embraced by an overwhelming majority of corporate users.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I found this definition on the web for Web 2.0:
Web 2.0 is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies (the practice of catgorising content through tags). Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the internet. - http://www.stiltonstudios.net/glossary.htm
I think that Web 2.0 tools will become much more common in corporate America. The future workers in these corporations are growing up with YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, as well as all sorts of other collaboration tools. We are already using Wiki's at work for collaboration between tech support agents and their technical content (instead of a group creating content that may or may not be used, why not let the support agents do it themselves as well as revise the content that they feel they need), various IM tools to send quick messages, as well as tools like LinkedIn to keep in touch with our business contacts, even though they may change companies. Soon they will be integrated into business practices as much as email is today.
I found another "definition" of what web 2.0 is (http://www.oreilly.de/artikel/web20.html). I was using what my perception of Web 2.0 was that they are tools the use Web Technology to provide the user with the richness of a thick client application via the web.
I agree that many Web 2.0 tools will make it's way into the corporate world, but I think that they will be "standalone". For example, if a company uses Google Docs to collaborate on creating company documentation. IMHO, they would stand-up their own Google Docs service and system behind their protective firewalls and not use the WWW.
Post a Comment