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Technical Information
Web 2.0: The Revolution will be
Computerized
Article by:
IcemanBaldy
The revolution will not
be televised, will not be televised
will not be televised, will not
be televised
The revolution will be no re-run
brothers
The revolution will be live
--Gil
Scott-Heron, Small Talk at 125th and
Lenox, 1970
These are the last
lyrics from an often referenced piece by
Gil
Scott-Heron as recited by him against a
background of
African Drums in 1970
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Before ending his poem with
these final lines about
irrelevant media dictates
and commercial messaging
that ignore social
injustices, Gil says, “The
revolution will put you in
the driver’s seat.” Well my
friends, the revolution has
indeed begun, and though not
televised, it is live and
changing with every passing
now; each of us has an
opportunity to drive. The
revolution has come in the
form of a socially
networked, collaborative,
participative internet
commonly referred to as Web
2.0.
Whether you choose to
be aware, are an active
participant, or decide to
“stay home” and “cop out” is
entirely up to you. This
article will teach you how
to navigate through Web 2.0
services and applications
for more efficient
networking, collaboration,
and visibility.
What is Web 2.0?
Let’s start with what it isn’t.
Web 2.0 is not a product that
you can purchase or download
that will solve your website
problems or generate traffic or
revenue--that’s marketing hype
by people who want to be part of
the Next Big Thing. In fact, Web
2.0 is not a new version of the
old internet (Web 1.0), but it
builds upon what the internet
does best--sharing content and
allowing users to follow linked
networks to even more content.
Web 2.0 goes a step further by
using the internet and
high-speed data connections to
optimize opportunities to share
and contribute to user-generated
content. This user-provided
content is often more
entertaining, more informative,
and more dynamic than the static
pages that have characterized
the Web 1.0 internet in the past
and our preferences for
user-generated content (both
reading and developing) are
evident in the popularity of
weblogs (e.g., Blogger, Typepad,
Wordpress), social networking
sites (e.g., MySpace, LinkedIn,
Facebook), video sharing (e.g.,
YouTube, Google Video) in
addition to podcasts, tagging,
open source encyclopedia entries
called Wikis and as many as
1,200 related and other unique
applications indexed by various
Web 2.0 directories that are
searchable online. The key is
using these applications and
services to become more
efficient, save money,
strengthen your connections,
improve visibility or quite
simply to get your message out
on your terms, when you choose,
to as wide an audience as you
want. That’s the revolutionary
power of Web 2.0. I’ve been
reviewing some of the most
popular applications and
services to evaluate what
benefits they offer--all are
free and relatively easy to set
up and maintain. Whether you
have a website or not, you can
enhance (or create) your web
presence by taking advantage of
what these sites provide in
three revolutionary steps: |
1. Articulate your Message and
Establish a Presence--Blogger,
Typepad & Wordpress
I’m using all three of these
services currently and each has
its advantages and
disadvantages. If you don’t have
a web presence, starting a
weblog or blog is one of the
fastest and easiest ways to get
started. If you do have a
website and want to generate
additional traffic, create a
weblog as an offshoot of your
site and link to your site from
the weblog. Your search engine
ranking will improve and you can
use the weblog as syndicated
content for your site. Each of
these services offers hosting on
their own servers so that you
can access your blog from
anywhere and don’t have to worry
about purchasing hosting space.
Each allows you to choose from a
variety of pre-formatted
templates that offer some
customization in terms of fonts,
colors, images and add-on
features in order to allow your
blog to convey your interests
and/or products appropriately.
Over time and as bloggers become
increasingly proficient and
comfortable with the look of
their blog, new and creative
interpretations of a look or
theme may be restricted by the
standard themes offered unless
you’re extremely comfortable
with changing the underlying
code; however, there are some
very popular blogs that use
standard templates. Blogs are
first and foremost driven by the
content provided by their
authors, whether frequent posts
by a self-proclaimed expert on a
narrowly defined topic or the
daily ramblings in the life of
an individual whose writing
connects with or entertains an
audience that provides
consistent traffic and referral
exposure. Get a blog, create
some content, and feed an
audience of one or many. The Web
2.0 revolution is based on
user-generated content and blogs
provide the venue.
2. Assert your Sovereignty and
Take Ownership of your own
Personal Space--MySpace,
BlackPlanet, MyBlogLog, Squidoo
Where blogs are author-driven
and allow for an element of
interactivity through author
posts of news and opinions with
comments on those postings
provided by the reading
audience, social networking
sites like MySpace, BlackPlanet
and Squidoo take this a step
further by allowing authors to
share of themselves while
linking to and building
interactive communities of
like-minded people who share
their interests. These personal
page sites incorporate most of
what you can do with a weblog--date
stamped postings, video,
pictures, links, and
comments--while also allowing
visitors to connect with other
community members who are
related to your personal network
of contacts. Contact between
members is further enhanced by
internal email, access to user
profiles, groups and web forums.
These services take virtual
networking to the next level and
allow for the development of
mutually beneficial relationship
through online collaboration.
MySpace is well executed and
easy to navigate but too much of
a haven for unsolicited,
non-related notes from other
members for my tastes. I like
the member search features
offered by BlackPlanet but
configuring a good looking user
page seems a challenge for most
novices. MyBlogLog will help you
get the word out about your
weblog or website while growing
your network of friends and
associates with shared interests
and is one of my current
favorites. Squidoo is the newest
of these and offers what I
believe is the best combination
of business and play for those
who are more concerned with
demonstrating expertise,
improving visibility and
generating revenue than with
having a social space. The Web
2.0 revolution will be
characterized by user-generated
content that is acted upon by
the masses and improved through
collective intelligence (or
degraded by collective dumb--it
works both ways).
3. Inspire a Grass Roots
Campaign: Play Tag--Digg,
del.icio.us, technorati,
StumbleUpon
Playing tag means understanding
the importance of meta tags in
how information is classified on
the internet and what you can do
to impact the classification
scheme of your data as its
perceived within the scheme.
Meta-tags are descriptors used
in the behind-the-scenes source
coding of every web page. Tags
are at the heart of how
information is searched and
organized on the internet. A tag
is defined by Wikipedia (another
Web 2.0 application where any
individual is free to contribute
to online encyclopedia entries)
as: “a (relevant) keyword or
term associated with or assigned
to a piece of information (like
picture, article, or video
clip), thus describing the item
and enabling keyword-based
classification of information it
is applied to.” Most of the
applications and services
described in this article are
focused on user-generated
content which is quite simply
whatever you decide to write or
post to the internet. When you
make a post, most of these
systems allow you to “tag” the
data by assigning key words to
whatever you are posting so that
when others look for or search
on that keyword using a tagging
directory, they find your
content. Digg, del.icio.us,
technorati, and StumbleUpon are
just a few of the more popular
tagging directories. A visit to
these sites will give you an
indication of what’s popular on
the internet and you would do
well to make sure that your
weblog and site content are
tagged using common and
not-so-common keywords which
will be indexed and discovered
by users of these tools and the
site logic that feeds search
engines. Tagging is
revolutionary because not only
can you tag your content by
assigning keywords, but those
who visit your blog or site can
tag the entire page or
individual parts of the page by
using these same tools and
thereby validate a collected
categorization of keywords on
this topic through their
participation.
Web 2.0 applications and
services offer each of us more
opportunity than ever before to
create, manage, and collaborate
on media messages we generate
that are easily shared with
others who think like we do.
Information today is live, and
dynamic. Now the tools for
relaying information in its
natural state are beginning to
challenge our conventional
thinking and passive engagement.
That’s a true revolution. Will
you be ready to drive?
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