The following was published in Inform magazine's Spring 2009 edition :
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Web 2 4 U
Will Rourk
2009-02-12
Staying connected to the World Wide Web is fairly easy today with technologies like WiFi and broadband networks. Keeping your work environment mobile ensures access to information wherever you need it. But why would one want to be connected to the Web all the time? What does the Web offer that entices professionals to go mobile? When considering the Web in a professional environment one might examine its potential utility. As frivolous and trivial as the Web seems for the most mundane and menial pleasures as one may take, it also offers an array of tools that responds to the unique conditions of a networked society. To fully grasp this potential there should be an understanding of what has become known today as Web 2.0.
The term Web 2.0 was put into the public psyche by O'Reilly Media during the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. O'Reilly press is responsible for a majority of web technologies manuals and programming guides widely recognized by their trademark zoomorphic colophon. From the words of Tim O'Reilly, Web 2.0 allows for the "harnessing (of) collective intelligence" by "opening data and services for re-use by others." "Web 2.0 was the moment when we stopped using computers and started using the internet." The World Wide Web has evolved to a level of sophistication that elevates us from mere passive observers to active participants of networked content and information.
The concept of Web 2.0 is not based upon any specific version of technology but rather an attitude towards the way we use the Web. The web has evolved to a state of utility that allows the average user greater power to become self published in more interesting ways than was previously possible. The products of Web 2.0 help foster an environment where anyone can get their message out. Blogs like Wordpress and Google's Blogspot.com give people the space to pour out their ideas through text, audio or video. If you have a personal media collection that you want to share with the world you can post your videos on YouTube or your annotated photos on Flickr. Web 2.0 allows you to pull in just the news you find relevant via RSS or Atom feeds so that you can aggregate or mashup information in ways that are meaningful to your perspective. Aggregated news websites like Reddit.com and Digg.com let their readers become the editors by presenting news that has been tagged as interesting and relevant.
Probably the most widely recognized and engaging technological evolution of Web 2.0 has been the development of social networks. Fundamentally, Web 2.0 is all about networking, or better yet, working the net. Social networking services don't expect you to just go and gawk at someone else's personal presentation of content. When you visit someone's MySpace or Facebook page you are expected to share yourself as well. In the world of Web 1.0, or the Web-as-we-knew-it, a person's presence on the Web was like a one way street. You published your images, your essays and maybe even your video clips, and your goal was to lure people to that information so they could experience it like a magazine, all published and presented in a static unchangeable form. With Web 2.0 your content becomes everyone's content, and everyone's content becomes yours. The goal of creating a presence on the Web does not merely satisfy the need to be self-published but rather to participate in the promotion of a common interest through syndication. It is the potential for the sharing of ideas and collaboration upon which professionals might want to focus in order to make sense of Web 2.0 opportunities. Web presence is now synonymous with participation. For example search Facebook or Youtube for "sustainable design". You will be presented with a collection of web locations sponsored by individuals, special interest groups and design firms that not only allows you to absorb content but add your own thoughts and content to it as well. The Web has become a continuing conversation whereby you are able to contribute to someone else's message thus also making it your message.
So how does one leverage Web 2.0 professionally? Networking giant, Cisco Systems Inc., presented some interesting ideas in an episode of their web show, TechWiseTV. In this episode entitled "Applying Web 2.0 to your Business Challenges" (http://www.mytechwisetv.com/page/31+Web+2.0?t=anon) Cisco's hosts presented the Web2.0 environment with a warning to professionals. Dismissal of these technologies would be perilous since blogs, wikis and social networks are emerging as powerful tools for communication. Web 2.0 is a platform for collaboration and networking that drives home the fundamental concept of globalism. Communication on a global level has never been easier. With Global communications also comes global recognition. Cisco also acknowledges the drawbacks of relying on free tools, since most of these utilities are no cost to the public. Depending on who you let into your Facebook or MySpace environment, you will most likely encounter fairly unprofessional conversation. There's also the ever vigilant prospect of security to consider. You might not want to impart sensitive client information on a social network that is open to the world.
For those that may not trust the freedom and democracy of the Web there are corporate solutions such as Cisco's WebEx Connect or Oracle's Beehive. But for those that appreciate what is given to us freely, there are ways to make your social networks more professional. The Social Media University Global, or SMUG, blog is devoted to helping professionals understand how Facebook can be used as a business tool. (http://social-media-university-global.org/facebook-business/) The "University" is basically one guy named Lee Aase. In his blogpost entitled "Top Ten Facebook Business Uses," Aase describes the different types of Facebook groups (open, closed, secret and sponsored) that may appeal to businesses looking to get into the social networking world. Businesses use Facebook groups as a way to build their own "fan" base by providing descriptions of their services, not just in text, but in audio and video as well with links to their own webpages and sales contacts. It's like the YellowPages on steroids except that your listing is global, not just local. And better yet it's all free!
Now that Facebook, MySpace and myriad other free social networking tools are being utilized in full force, where is social networking headed? Perhaps something down the pike may arise from multidimensional social networks like Second Life where people meet, communicate and interact in 3D virtual space. Second Life includes tools that let you build your own buildings and shape your own spaces online. Think of the potential of meeting your clients in their new virtual home modeled upon the designs of their real-space home? They'd have the chance to navigate the spaces you've designed while you design them. Or perhaps the future will look more like the current trend where communications are getting more compressed. Microblogging is the popular way to communicate these days with tools like Twitter and Jaiku whereby people communicate short messages of 140 characters or less. This is a web technology born right out of the culture of text messaging on mobile phones. SMS or short messaging services are favored by many whose lives have become consumed by mobile technologies. Conversations are extremely short and concise and some savvy texters may even utilize the coded LEET (or l33t, or 1337) language to help get the point across. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet) But mobile technologies are really where all of this is headed. The smartphone is evolving into a more robust handheld computing device with the help of technologies such as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android operating systems. With these phones you can take Web 2.0 with you no matter where you go since the Web runs quite smoothly on 3G high bandwidth networks. Technologies that combine GPS with software such as Dopplr and Google's Latitude make your phone a location aware device so that social networking in a mobile environment begins to foster more real-space collaborations. With Web 2.0 apps running on your mobile device perhaps we'll be making more face-to-face rather than Facebook meetups.
Unsurprisingly though, the next paradigm-changing technology to affect the Web is already upon us. Web 2.0 has perhaps already peaked, and now we can anticipate even greater utility from the World Wide Web. For the next phase is not necessarily Web 3.0, but a trend towards what has become recognized as "cloud computing." The full realization of cloud computing will place the majority of our applications, tools we use everyday on our computers like Word, Photoshop or CAD, onto the Web. This means that you no longer clutter your computer with an array of applications. You just access the applications you need from an applications service provider. This will be accomplished via a technology called SaaS, or software as a Service. Currently the best way to sample this particular future of the internet is to explore the applications already given to us for free from Google. Google Docs is a robust and fully featured text editor given to you for free as a Web service application. I typed this article and stored it in my own Google Docs account. All of this functionality is provided via your favorite web browser - or any web browser. In fact web browsers are becoming more utilitarian and application-like. Take Firefox's Flock browser for example. It keeps you directly connected to all of your Web 2.0 technologies with which you have subscribed and presents them all in one space while you also surf the internet.
Does your office use Web 2.0 technologies to leverage your business needs? Let me know. Let everyone know. Log into my blog at http://rezn8r.blogspot.com, and let's begin a conversation about the interesting and innovative ways your company utilizes the Web.
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