Week 4 Notes

Author: Sky Croeser
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 5:25:57 PM WST
Subject: RE: Web 2.0 perceptions: A question of intentions & terms.

We will be looking at the semantic Web later on in the unit when we look at the Internet’s possible future(s).

I think that Web 2.0 brings us closer to the ideal of hypertext, personally, because it helps to connect different parts of the web and our lives in novel ways. What do you think?

As Berners-Lee mentioned in the developerWorks interview “the Web’s a form of communication”, and he wanted the Web to be collaborative. Even thou he is stated as saying that Web2.0 “is a piece of jargon”, what we are defining as Web2.0 is after all what he envisioned the Web to be all along.

My personal opinion is that we like to name things, give then exciting colorful names that help to sell a product or an idea. I do not think that Web2.0 is the proper name for the state of the Web as it is, Web 1.1 or similar is more my thinking. For me to increment the main number something really big has to happen, a 180 degree change in technology, how we use the Web, not just an incremental improvement or evolution.

Having said all this and using the current definition of Web2.0, the exciting thing about many to many communications is that voices that were not previously heard now have the ability to be published easily on the Web. However, the issue with this would be the sheer volume and validity of the information. Fortunately Tim is on the case.

NOTES

• Low bandwidth, static pages, animated gifs and frames defined Web1.0
• Web1.0 is primarily a READ-ONLY medium
• Web1.0 is a retronym
• Web2.0 allows users to create content
• Web2.0 is many to many, as opposed to Web1.0 which is one to many
• Metadata – data about data
• RSS – Really Simple Sydication
• RSS is able to create pages through the separation of form and content

• Search (Allow users to find what they are looking for)
• Links (Links are important – Allow users to generate them)
• Authoring (Allow users to contribute)
• Tags (Allow users to provide tags)
• Extensions (Use software to anticipate user preferences)
• Signals (Let the user know when there is new content)

A major part of Web2.0 is user participation, as well as the content being separate from the form. There are many website out there that are considered to be Web2.0.