Web 2.0

In this week’s workshop we considered the idea of Web 2.0, a term coined by Tim O'Reilly in 2004. We looked at a reading by O’Reilly entitled "What Is Web 2.0?" and discussed the meaning of it and related concepts such as:

The Long Tail

-          Finding niche things to sell to mass audiences

-          Selling lots of less popular items to specific audiencesFolksonomy

-          Where many sites categorise key words or ‘tags’ for easy browsing (i.e. Flickr, YouTube)

Collective Intelligence

-          where users can contribute and edit content to websites (i.e. eBay, Amazon)

In the lecture earlier in the week, we looked at problems with the early web known as Web 1.0 such as copyright issues, searching and indexing page content, the need for considerable technical skills to publish online and the lack of social involvement.

We then looked at cloud computing allowing users to store files online and the development of Web 2.0 which has made considerable progress and allows users to interact with each other and the web, placing users in active roles rather than passive ones as consumers.

For the second half of the workshop, we then had to get into groups and make our own Pecha Kucha PowerPoint based on one aspect of O’Reilly’s Web 2.0. We watched a video demonstrated what a Pecha Kucha presentation and how to make one. The video explained that PK presentations typically last around 6.40 minutes, consisting of 20 slides each lasting 20 seconds each. The point of PK presentations are that there is an important picture or key word on each slide for the speaker to be able to verbally communicate their point rather than read a long paragraph off each slide.

Pecha Kucha: Get to the PowerPoint in 20 Slides (WiredNews, 2007)

We chose to focus on Collective Intelligence from O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 in the style of a PK presentation; we were only allowed a 5 minute presentation consisting of only 15 slides for 20 seconds each.

Each member of the group researched and looked up the relevant links in the handbook for that aspect and picked out important points using Internet sources and images from Google. We used Microsoft PowerPoint as it was the simplest and quickest way of putting together a slideshow of relevant points. We looked at the definition of Collective Intelligence, examples such as eBay, Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, social networking sites such as MySpace and Twitter and the advantages and disadvantages of Collective Intelligence.

In the following week, we then presented to the class, whilst being just over the time limit I felt that we did well but from feedback it became clear that we didn’t fully explain what Collective Intelligence was which was important for the overall presentation.     

Web 2.0. - Collective Intelligence

Sources:

O'REILLY, T. (2005) What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software [WWW] Available from: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20-html

WIREDNEWS. (2007). Pecha Kucha: Get to the PowerPoint in 20 Slides [online video]. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NZOt6BkhUg [Accessed 24/10/11]