WEB 2.0
‘How many of you have
Facebook or another other form of an online profile?’
I’m sure everyone has
been asked this countless times whether asked alone or in a group of
people. I have been asked this, both alone and with others too, and always find it interesting to see
how many and how little people do.
So now to ask you! How many of you have got one or more of these social media
accounts; Bebo, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn,
Pinterest, Tumblr, Snapchat, Skype, Whatsapp and StumbleUpon?
If you have an online profile with at least one of these
apps then you are, like me, one of the 38.0 million people out of 64.1 million
in the UK population that do. That is A LOT of people! All these apps are categorised as Web 2.0. But what is this ‘Web
2.0’ that is so importantly debated? There are a wide range of social media
that differ from each other but there is one thing they all have in
common. They all aim to enable collaboration and sharing between users which is
what Web 2.0 is; a tool that encourages social networking, communication and
participation. This also includes blogs and wikis; communications that are made
between the creators and the readers. Web 2.0 provides the opportunity for the
reader and the creator to interact with each other as well as swap and share
roles. You are in charge of what you post and edit. This differs hugely to Web
1.0 where you were able to read the content only. In this blog I will be
discussing some of the key points in Reader 1 and also how they relate to
personal experiences.
How I use Web 2.0
The internet is a wonderful and very powerful tool that many
people, especially in 2015, would not be able to live without. Without even
knowing I, like most of us, have been using Web 2.0 for years, and continue to
use it in its various forms on a daily basis. After reading Reader 1 I feel I now have a better understanding of what Web 2.0 is and how we use it. Before reading the booklet I didn't have a clue!
There are some apps
such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat that I have created online profiles
for and used for years as well as others such as Tumblr and Twitter that I
rarely use and post on. I began creating these profiles purely to keep in
contact with friends and family, but as the years went on and social media
became a huge part of our lives, I now use these profiles for pretty much
everything; selling or buying items, reading useful (and sometimes totally
useless) information and articles, education, communicating with friends and
family, looking and applying for jobs, blogging…the list is endless! Although I
use Web 2.0 daily, after reading other blogs and doing more research on the
topic, I realise how much more effectively I can use it to my full advantage.
Collective
Intelligence
What does collective
intelligence contribute to the idea of social networking and professional
communications?
Collective intelligence is the idea that people from all
over the world can participate in an online interaction that brings strangers from
different backgrounds together to act collectively in a way that
encourages social interaction. This includes supporting collaboration such as
in a wiki or enabling discussion and debate, for example, a blog.
Tom Gruber is an American computer scientist with a clear
focus on collective intelligence. He suggests there are three specific parts/processes
to an online system; A social system, where people communicate and interact,
helping improve users’ experiences by sharing their own or other people’s
content. A search engine, Google being an example, that is good at finding
questions and answers. And finally, intelligent users who know how to create
their problems in queries that the search engine can match to online Q&As. These
are the components that Gruber believes support collective intelligence. And
Web 2.0 usually provides users with all three of these processes.
Of course when writing a post about social networking and
communication you have to mention Facebook! I found a very interesting article
on an interview with Mark Zuckerburg, the CEO of Facebook, who said:
This made me think; Why do people use Facebook?
Facebook is a life story in a nutshell. You can share your
own stories, posts, pictures and videos to your own profile or to others, while
people are able to comment, like or share and vice versa. I think the sheer
level of interaction that occurs every day on Facebook is amazing, showing
just how efficient Web 2.0 really is. As a dancer, I have personally been able to see
upcoming auditions and castings on a closed group on Facebook called The
Hustle, which is a community of artists that support other artists to find
work. As you can imagine this is an incredibly helpful and useful group as not
only can I see suitable jobs I apply for, but am also encouraged to tag and
notify other friends on job posts that may apply to them, while they return the
favour. It’s a huuuge communication point filled with many little interactions
that is only as big as it is due to the fact that people are participating
collectively.
I personally believe using the web for learning is
incredibly useful. I remember doing homework back in high school, and using
Google to help me with my spelling or a language translation or to search for
useful documents I could use for referencing, for example. Although it is
important that not everything you read is used as a reliable source.
Using Web 2.0 creates this freedom of knowledge to have your
own opinion and discuss others, as well as being directly involved in what we
write and post. Web 2.0 is a tool that opens up a whole new world of knowledge
and networking that I feel I could expand my learning in to benefit me in my
future professional practices. In conclusion I think it is a concept that will
never stop expanding and developing for the better.
I would definitely recommend reading the article in the link
below. It was interesting and was a helpful article to relate to.
[1] ZUCKERBERG,
M (2015) Mark Zuckerberg Q&A: The Full Interview on Connecting The World.
(Online Interview). Available from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-19/mark-zuckerberg-q-a-the-full-interview-on-connecting-the-world
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