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This week: Hype 2.0, Education 2.0, Battlestar Galactica 2.0, Recruiting 2.0, Techie Post of the Week.
Hype 2.0
This week I’m going to annoy everyone by labeling everything ‘2.0’ 😉 There’s been a
lot of talk in the ‘sphere this week about whether Web 2.0 is just a vacuous marketing
buzzword. Tim
Bray was the most high profile of the dissenters, but I’ve noticed a few other
anti-Web 2.0 comments recently. Well, not so much anti-Web 2.0 as
anti-hype. I guess a lot of people, and techies especially, are wary of another
dotcom bubble bursting on us in a year or two. As Jay
Fienberg commented in my
post this week about this matter:
“From my own perspective as someone who was part of “dot-com”, I would say, in some
contexts, that “web 2.0” is being used to indicate 100% the same thing as
“dot-com”.
Specially, the way “dot-com” business talked about itself is the way “web 2.0” business
talks about itself. (Same is true of many not-yet-businesses.)
On the other hand, the things that you talk about on this site are something that needs a
name. And, I think “web 2.0″ is a decent enough name for that collection of
things.”
I agree that we need to keep things in perspective and not get carried away with the
hype, which is what happened to the dotcoms of the late 90’s-2001. I still think the Web
2.0 era is a revolutionary one, but we have to be careful not to get overly excited by
the smell of money. CNET’s just published an article about Top 10 dot-com flops, which is
worth reading as a cautionary tale 😉
Education 2.0
Gardner Campbell has a nice
post about Web 2.0 for educators and the current generation of kids. Gardner
wrote:
“…this year my first-year students were markedly more web-pervaded than my
fourth-year students. That doesn’t mean they were more sophisticated in their
thinking, it just means their horizon of expectations was in a different place–a
place we should be prepared to journey to ourselves.”
He goes on to suggest that “the younger students live on, and in, the Web”.
In my post earlier this
week, I said that Web 2.0 is about everyday people creating and building on the
Web. Gardner’s post is a reminder that the next generation are doing much more than
that – they’re literally growing up on the Web. Talk about a revolution…
The comments in Gardner’s post are worth reading too – e.g. this from Gardner:
“I think my older students were just over the line of the divide between those who
go to the Internet to find or do something and those who go to the Net to meet their
friends and do the equivalent of watch TV or listen to music together.”
Bonus Links:
– Web 2.0 is now part of an official course: IST 110: Introduction to Information
Sciences and Technology (“This summer, I am piloting a new approach and parts of a
special topics course I am designing called, Web 2.0: The Read/Write Evolution.”)
– Two excellent powerpoints
here: ‘New Internet Literacies’ (slide 17: “Rip, Mix and Learn” – fantastic! – and
I’m pleased to see my blog is noted on slide 21); and the second ppt is ‘RSS: The New
Killer App for Eduators’
– John
Pederson also has some thoughts on Web 2.0 and education.
SciFi 2.0
The Unofficial
Battlestar Galactica Blog wants the official Battlestar Galactica website to get
with the program and deliver on their Web 2.0 promises. Specifically the Unofficial blog
asks:
1. Where is the podcast for episode 2.03 Fragged?
2. Where are the deleted scenes for season 2 episodes?
3. Where are the Ron Moore blog updates?
4. Where are the video blog posts?
Even though the last time I saw Battlestar Galactica was when I was about 7 or 8 years
old and wishing I would grow up to be like Starbuck, I completely agree! Go the
Unofficial blog!
Recruiting 2.0
Recruiting.com has
a nifty overview of how Web 2.0 technologies are changing the job recruitment
industry (the post finishes with a bizarre comment on whether Steve Rubel attracts groupies! um, some
thoughts are best left unblogged…). Anyway, the gist of it is that recruiters now have
more ways to interact online – “and, therefore, more ways to use the web”. Blogs, RSS and
Tagging are specifically mentioned.
Speaking of jobs, I noticed this advert on
the PaidContent.org job board this week from Disney Internet Group:
“Disney Internet Group: Manager, Strategy & Corp Dev: Seeking reformed
Strategy Consultants, Investment Bankers with the “itch”, and Entrepreneurs tired of
fundraising pitches – Come help build the Web 2.0, with the resources of a $50 billion
corporation and some of the strongest brands around.”
Nothing like having “resources” at your fingertips to build Web 2.0 stuff. Money still
counts in this world… but not too much, we hope (see Hype 2.0 above).
Techie Post of the Week
Last week I expressed my
interest in the new AttentionTrust
organisation, but wondered what it meant precisely. Well Peter Caputa has done us all a
favour and written a post entitled AttentionTrust.org
Explained Better. This is a nice summary of what AttentionTrust is all about:
“As we use the web, we reveal lots of information about ourselves by what we pay
attention to. Imagine if all of that information could be stored in a nice neat little
xml file. And when we travel around the web, we can optionally share it with websites or
other people. We can make them pay for it, lease it, scream for it “show me the money”,
barter for it, whatever. The important point is that we get to decide who has access to
it, how long they have access to it, and what we want in return. And they have to tell us
what they are going to do with our Attention data.”
It remains to be seen whether this is a Utopian dream, but the intentions behind
AttentionTrust are certainly right on.
That’s a wrap for another week!
