May 11th, 2010 | nubae
Web 2.0
So, to me it all seemed like a craze just 2 years ago, something I thought would fade with time, cause lets face it, who has time to constantly be updating their blogs/tumblogs/tweets/dents/miniblogs, or any other number of the new creed of content names. Well... it seems like just about everyone has at least something to say, which just goes to show the luck of human psyche the twitter folks were able to lock on to (or was it really a caclucated psychological trait?)
Either way 2.0 is here to stay, and you might as well jump on board if you haven't already. So... which ones do you actually get on board with.... cause there is a serious social networking bubble right now... with grwoth rates approaching those of the earlier more general dot com bubble.
Well, I for one would start off with at least a blog... if u dont want u're own site... there are plenty of choices that alllow for pretty nifty changes to layout, look, and feel, and even content. OF course, if you want to have it all, u probably want to be running your own site on your own server... say something like Habari.... (shameless plug), but there is also wordpress which htough does force some advertising on you, its a great choice for the starting blogger... and then there is of course blogger itself, and probably hundreds more, all free and mostly surviving through advertising on thier pages
Now of course thats not elegant, but running your own show might be more elegant, but it certaiinly doesn't mean you'll be making any money from iit. Even if yoiu're an SEM whizz (don't worry if u dont know what the term means.... its just a fanct word for internet marketeter) chances are, the reason for running a blog are passion, and scratching your own itch. The latter is more like a journal. My site started off in this fashion. Rather than having to re-do everything whehever there was a new distro in town or a good reason for upgrading your server. This also lead to people becoming more active in the wikis (especially the Ubuntu and openSUSE ones) which arguably are web 2.0 technology too.
So... if I had my own site, and had chosen between the miriad of open source blogging software, these are the additions I would certainly at least consider attaching (at this point its more like playing with puzzle pieces, where eventually you come out with something beautiful to look at, but that fiuts in all the right places too..
1. Twitter and Identi.ca
- Say what you will, but these 2 are really the beating hearts of the web 2.0 revolution. They hurtle information across social networks at alarming speeds, and though identi.ca is much purer in concept and licensing (its pure open source), twitter, somehow seems to have something that non of the other competitors has,,, its growthg and folllowing are truly phenomenal. I mean, is it really just because they were the first kids on the bkock? Anyway, if it was my site, I'd use both social networks, one as a more general talk about everything kind of place, and the other for more specific group and event based information. I would use twitter for the first, and identi.ca for the second.
There are those that would group ident.ica and twitter to get the same message to more peopel, but I'm a strong belieever that those running identi.ca are also probably running twitter.too unless they're real purists and refuse to run anything that isn't GNU. And there are more of those people than you would imagine at first. But just cause you run twitter, doesn't mean you knoiw identi.ca even exists.... there is the slight irony in this entire debate. But... since you are reading this article, you know they both exist, and server different or the same purpose depending on the purity of the reader. I'll leave up to the readers to guess where I stand :-)
2. Facebook and MySpace
- For the longest time I tried with all my might to avoid both of these, and myspace, at least has not won me over :-) With a slight sigh of disbelief, I fear facebook is actuallly more useful than I once admitted. I still thing its a time waster, but if used correctly if can be a a great tool. But its one of these tools that almost has all the charactersrtics of digital porn/virtual procrastination. I find it difficiult to put words to it.... its like a drug you don't really need, but you think you need, and it makes you feel good cause you have the illusion of being connected. But you see, this is where the entire Matrix symbolism can come iinto play,. Which pill do you take? The one that violently rips you out of the virtual bliss of having 500+ friends with hundreds of updates and thousands of comments, links to applications 50% of which you dont use or even know what their use is.
Myspace came first, and seems to still be a place for musicians to be able to self publish, which I think is a wonderful idea in principle... but perhaps a little ahead of its time, and with the requirement of some serious competition (I suppose this is coming now slowly), but eithewr way... its hard to escape these 2 tools, no matter the personal feelings you might have for them.
3. Deliciious and Digg
- Delicious is a bookmarking service that allows you to create bookmarks that can then be shared with other users or sites, and depending on how one uses it. it can be a great way to generate an interactive links page that will be both useful to you and to others. Similarly, Digg is a way to generate publicity or give rank to existing links/blogs/or general web pages. Though I tend to use digg less than I could, its all a question of time, and right now, I would invest in generating a nice delicisious list which you can then post/share on your blog or website
4. Tweetdeck and Yoono
- These 2 applications are ways of multitasking or compartamentalising the set of web 2.0 faciliities you choose to use. Both have the ability to show a kind of control panel that lets you have an overview of all your web 2.0 applications at work. For example, I use Yoono as a sidebar for my firefox app, that shows me whats going on with twitter, facebook, flickr, gtalk, linkedin, msn, and aim. It would be practically impossible to keep track of so many applications while having the ability to post to one or all of them at the same time. I started of using tweetdeck, which I thought was wonderful, but it has its limitations. For example, it requires adobe air to run, and is not quite as cross platform and robust as yoono, which can be run as a standalone app, or as a side bar to explorer or firefox. I've been using yoono only a short while, but I wouldnt know how to cope without it anymore.
Its quite impressive how quickly dependent we can become to these new social networking apps, be it twitter or linkedin, or more playful ones like facebook and freindfeed. Where once I tried to keep my distance, I now find myself quite immersed in these appsl using them on a daily basis, and wondering what the net was like without them. A more lonely place for sure, but I now believe these web 2.0 apps actually have great financial and business potential. Something that businesses are finding out quickly.
