I know it's an overused buzzword, but web 2.0 applications are seriously changing the way I use the internet. I'm very impressed at the way, without many changes in the underlying technology of the internet (client-side at least), visionary web developers are providing new and interesting ways of consuming, producing, and spreading information.
I guess it all started, for me, with facebook. I first signed up in 2004, when MIT was the second college to be added. This was a brand new experience. It was real-time information by and about my friends, and everyone I knew, for a time at least, was obsessed with checking and updating the site. My use of facebook has waned in recent years as they added more and more useless applications and advertisements, and as my friends drifted elsewhere for similar day-to-day updates. But it still holds a place as the first web page in the web 2.0 vein to capture my attention.
My first exposure to social bookmarking was Fark. Fark is a social bookmarking site (though it is antiquated in its submission/mod approval method), with hilarious headlines for asinine news stories and a proudly sardonic community. This remains my favorite site on the internet, hands down.
As I expanded my desire for information made popular by users, I moved to Digg. Submissions to Digg are voted on by the community, and thus front-page content is almost exclusively determined by the popularity of a given link. It's a great idea, but it has been marred by social politics and disagreements on algorithms for determining front-page worthiness (for instance, popular users in the Digg community accumulate a network of hundreds of friends on the site who "Digg" their submissions immediately, causing them to instantly reach the front page). Still, if they can work through these problems, Digg will be around for a long time.
My favorite recent discovery is del.icio.us. Like digg with less of the self-absorbedness in the community, del.icio.us allows you to bookmark and tag any web page. RSS feeds send you popular links from a variety of categories, and convenient Firefox plugins allow you to quickly and easily bookmark any site you happen to be at. del.icio.us is social bookmarking at its best, and I highly recommend it if you're thinking about getting into the (addicting) practice.
Blogger, obviously is something I've quickly become accustomed to using, but Twitter is a brand new spin on the concept. It allows you to post quick 140 character or less messages to a blog from the web, IM, or SMS. Similarly you can have your friends' updates sent to IM or SMS, which helps you keep track of where everyone is and what they're doing. So far it's easy to use and I hope to get more of my comerades into the practice. I do need a better phone though, one that makes SMS easier. Perhaps one of these.
While not technically web applications, Skype and Pidgin are changing the way I use the data transfer capabilities of the internet. Skype is the tool of choice for voice over IP. For $3 a month you can use your computer to make unlimited calls to anywhere in the US and Canada. And for a few pennies a minute you can make international calls. Skype has allowed me to video chat seamlessly with Erin all the way from Malaysia, at no cost (the application itself is free). Pidgin is the IM application of choice for anyone with a dozen different IM accounts. It supports AIM, GTalk, MSN, Yahoo, Sametime, etc., all in one interface that doesn't show you even a single ad.
Google has done an excellent job of integrating several different applications. I set up a Google Group for Jason and I to use while we collaborate on a FAWM submission. I use google spreadsheets to do our weekly budget, and then I share it with Erin through Gmail. iGoogle is my homepage. I use Picasa, which integrates seamlessly with Blogger for posting images. Gmail is my primary personal email service. All these things combined and linked together, and all free, is something that's really exciting to me. Call me a geek.
But by far the technology that has been the most influential on the way I behave on the internet has been RSS. With an RSS aggregator, you can "subscribe" to any website that generates an RSS feed. The RSS aggregator will then automatically check for any updates to the websites you are subscribed to. I use Google Reader to preempt all of my web surfing. I have 23 subscriptions to various sites like Fark, the BBC, NPR, and personal blogs. Everything is collected without any effort from me, and so I can catch up on 300+ headlines a day without ever having to see each item in full if I decide it doesn't interest me. Sharing is a click of a button, and anyone who uses google reader can see your shared items on their homepage. Anything I share also shows up on the tab to the right on this page (if you were wondering where those links come from). RSS has increased the amount of information I process daily, and decreased the amount of time it takes to collect it. If you're an information junkie and relish that quick burst of dopamine each time you read a new headline, this is something you will love.
Web 2.0 is really about information flow- increasing the amount of relevant information that a user sees, and the ability to suggest that information to others. This is only the beginning, folks.
I guess it all started, for me, with facebook. I first signed up in 2004, when MIT was the second college to be added. This was a brand new experience. It was real-time information by and about my friends, and everyone I knew, for a time at least, was obsessed with checking and updating the site. My use of facebook has waned in recent years as they added more and more useless applications and advertisements, and as my friends drifted elsewhere for similar day-to-day updates. But it still holds a place as the first web page in the web 2.0 vein to capture my attention.
My first exposure to social bookmarking was Fark. Fark is a social bookmarking site (though it is antiquated in its submission/mod approval method), with hilarious headlines for asinine news stories and a proudly sardonic community. This remains my favorite site on the internet, hands down.
As I expanded my desire for information made popular by users, I moved to Digg. Submissions to Digg are voted on by the community, and thus front-page content is almost exclusively determined by the popularity of a given link. It's a great idea, but it has been marred by social politics and disagreements on algorithms for determining front-page worthiness (for instance, popular users in the Digg community accumulate a network of hundreds of friends on the site who "Digg" their submissions immediately, causing them to instantly reach the front page). Still, if they can work through these problems, Digg will be around for a long time.
My favorite recent discovery is del.icio.us. Like digg with less of the self-absorbedness in the community, del.icio.us allows you to bookmark and tag any web page. RSS feeds send you popular links from a variety of categories, and convenient Firefox plugins allow you to quickly and easily bookmark any site you happen to be at. del.icio.us is social bookmarking at its best, and I highly recommend it if you're thinking about getting into the (addicting) practice.
Blogger, obviously is something I've quickly become accustomed to using, but Twitter is a brand new spin on the concept. It allows you to post quick 140 character or less messages to a blog from the web, IM, or SMS. Similarly you can have your friends' updates sent to IM or SMS, which helps you keep track of where everyone is and what they're doing. So far it's easy to use and I hope to get more of my comerades into the practice. I do need a better phone though, one that makes SMS easier. Perhaps one of these.
While not technically web applications, Skype and Pidgin are changing the way I use the data transfer capabilities of the internet. Skype is the tool of choice for voice over IP. For $3 a month you can use your computer to make unlimited calls to anywhere in the US and Canada. And for a few pennies a minute you can make international calls. Skype has allowed me to video chat seamlessly with Erin all the way from Malaysia, at no cost (the application itself is free). Pidgin is the IM application of choice for anyone with a dozen different IM accounts. It supports AIM, GTalk, MSN, Yahoo, Sametime, etc., all in one interface that doesn't show you even a single ad.
Google has done an excellent job of integrating several different applications. I set up a Google Group for Jason and I to use while we collaborate on a FAWM submission. I use google spreadsheets to do our weekly budget, and then I share it with Erin through Gmail. iGoogle is my homepage. I use Picasa, which integrates seamlessly with Blogger for posting images. Gmail is my primary personal email service. All these things combined and linked together, and all free, is something that's really exciting to me. Call me a geek.
But by far the technology that has been the most influential on the way I behave on the internet has been RSS. With an RSS aggregator, you can "subscribe" to any website that generates an RSS feed. The RSS aggregator will then automatically check for any updates to the websites you are subscribed to. I use Google Reader to preempt all of my web surfing. I have 23 subscriptions to various sites like Fark, the BBC, NPR, and personal blogs. Everything is collected without any effort from me, and so I can catch up on 300+ headlines a day without ever having to see each item in full if I decide it doesn't interest me. Sharing is a click of a button, and anyone who uses google reader can see your shared items on their homepage. Anything I share also shows up on the tab to the right on this page (if you were wondering where those links come from). RSS has increased the amount of information I process daily, and decreased the amount of time it takes to collect it. If you're an information junkie and relish that quick burst of dopamine each time you read a new headline, this is something you will love.
Web 2.0 is really about information flow- increasing the amount of relevant information that a user sees, and the ability to suggest that information to others. This is only the beginning, folks.
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