Spring 2008
Social Media & Web 2.0 - Web Manual 2.0
Social Media Definition: Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and ideas. Description: Social media uses the “wisdom of crowds” to connect information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, musicsharing, group creation and voice over IP to name a , few. Examples of social media applications are Google (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook(social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), and Flickr (photo sharing):. -Source Wikipedia This is one of the more explosive and interesting components of the Web today. Now you can see the direct line between traditional information distribution mechanisms and what is referred to as Citizen Journalism. Print/Newspapers - Blogging Radio - Podcasting TV - Vlogs But instead of air waves or news stands, the distribution methodology for this media is RSS. The collaboration no longer needs to happen in a board room or in a cubicle farm - it can happen anywhere you can get an Internet connection. As a result, the once exclusive club of journalists writing for a magazine etc. is now open and available to everyone. Like all things that are open, it can be a good thing and a bad thing. The distinguishing factor we are developing is an online reputation. You are responsible for your reputation and voice and we are moving into a time when the bloggeratzi are separated from the serious bloggers/podcasters/vlogers etc., where a trusted source of information is just that, and the noise generated by the masses will either meet our social standards for quality or will be relegated to the equivalent of the grocery store check out line magazine rack. Here you will have your Edward R. Murrow quality media as well as a tabloid style in social media spaces, but make no mistake about it, the traditional media will be involved and adopting the new technology just like everyone else.
Web Manual 2.0 - Spring 2008
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Spring 2008
Social Media & Web 2.0 - Web Manual 2.0
Social Media, New Media or Internet Media all comes back to the interactive and collaborative nature of the new web application platform that is referred to as Web 2.0. Web 2.0 You may have heard the term web 2.0 before. Some consider it a buzz word while others see it as a definition or a current iteration of the Internet's evolution. These terms may actually underestimate the scope of the change in development methodologies when it comes to creating web sites today. When 2.0 is applied in the context of versioning software, an implication we are all used to, from a software engineering perspective Eric Rice says "If it takes you 10 years to get to version 2.0 of your software you are so fired!" I also think this is more than a single low level version change. It is more exponential in scope, perhaps more web squared than 2.0. Regardless of the semantics behind the name, this is a shift in how to develop, market, interact, work and experience the web. We need to know what all this means. The core component of the distribution methodology is RSS or Really Simple Syndication. You can think of it as a shift in consumption from going to find content to having content delivered. It is analogues to the magazine model, you subscribe to content that is then delivered to you. RSS formats are specified sing Extensible Markup Language (XML) that is read by an aggregator. The collaborative nature of this medium is creating some amazing content and what are often referred to as a mash ups. This mixing of media from multiple sources is generating some really amazing evolutions of archival media as well as new media created from producers all over the world. This 21st century cut-up technique would make William Burroughs and the entire Beat Generation proud. Some of the more common mash ups now involve Google Maps with multiple data sources being combined to create a new and interesting set of information. Annotating the Planet One of the other big initiatives on the web these days is the annotation of the planet earth. This is one of the phenomena that is really being pushed forward by the user generated content crowd. The mixing of information and GIS data is happening in very interesting ways, such as using Flickr photos and Google maps to show where images were taken. We are adding relevant information to maps to improve our knowledge or ideas in relation to location. User generated reviews of restaurants, bars or shops are now being tied to mapping software. We are also beginning to see this information pushed to cell phones that are geographic information system (GIS) enabled to allow us to receive virtual post left by our social networks which are Short Message Service (SMS) messages related to our physical location.. Web Manual 2.0 - Spring 2008
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Spring 2008
Social Media & Web 2.0 - Web Manual 2.0
Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A “Second Life'' in the Virtual World by the End of 2011
Web 3++ The Future ... Speaking at the Stanford Summit, an annual tech industry conference, the Linden Lab CEO predicted that a completely-open virtual world architecture – much like the one he’s touting for Second Life - would result in an online alternate universe several times larger than today’s internet. ”In ten years, virtual access will be more prevalent than web access,” he said, evangelizing alongside several other virtual world mavens, including the godfather of alternate reality, Berkeley scholar-inresidence Jaron Lanier.
Considering the massive amounts of computing power required by these 3D worlds, Rosedale's future virtual landscape would sit atop a hardware infrastructures that makes Google's network of servers look small. “Google now has about 100 thousand machines,” he said. “In ten years, virtual worlds will have hundreds of millions.” But that was hardly the boldest prediction of the morning. Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online, said that within “two or three years,” an alternative online universe like Second Life would provide real-time 3D graphics rivaling the digital effects in today’s Hollywood blockbusters. “You’ll see the kinda stuff that Transformers is doing today,” he said. John Anthony Hartman 21965 SW Aldridge Terrace Sherwood, Or 97140 503.334.2564 http://www.feedia.net john@feedia.net
Web Manual 2.0 - Spring 2008
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