When our class was discussing Web 2.0 and the many fascinating developments that have risen from Web 2.0, I was found most interested in Library Thing. That has to be the most amazing website I’ve ever seen. I know my excitement for it might be a little strange, but my grandma and I have always talked about wishing we could catalog our books without us having to slave over handwriting each one down. I used to read a lot more than I do now, thanks Pre-Med, and I have tons of books. My grandma however has significantly more. She has a group of best friends that are all retired school teachers, one of them being a librarian, and they LOVE to read. They often share books with each other, and my grandma always wanted a way to catalog her books and keep track of who had them. I thought this website would be perfect for her. I’ve set up an account for her, and I’m going to purchase the CueCat Bar code scanner, so I can upload a lot of her books quickly over Spring Break. I’m so excited to tell her about this.
The concept of Web 2.0 is something that I really like. I feel like it shares a lot of the same philosophies as Open Software and Creative Commons. With the increase in Web 2.0, it has increased accessibility to networks with other people who through collaboration and sharing of creativity create advancement as individuals and as for the community as a whole. For example, Wikipedia is set up so that almost anyone can edit a Wikipedia page’s information. Similar to OS software and applications, this is the quickest way to debug information and have the best form available at all times. Unfortunately with Wikipedia, people like to prank sites or purposefully mislead people, but the accessibility to millions of viewers allows for the opportunity to be fixed quickly.
Another application that would be considered part of Web 2.0 that I really love is blogging. I don’t really blog much, I did when I was first in High School, but I love reading blogs. My favorite blog in the world to read is my friend Michael’s blog. He is probably the funniest person I know, and I love that on his blog I can search by topic, read his blog from 3 years ago, find my favorite one by looking at his tags, and being able to navigate to the blogs of his friends, whom are also hilarious. There is something funny about being able to delve into the details of someone’s life that you don’t even know, and I find it entertaining to be able to do so. I’m also a huge fan of PostSecret and check it every Sunday. The community sense of PostSecret is growing in that they now have a forum where people can even post their video-secrets. Blogs are becoming so much more diverse, and I wonder where they will be taken next. As long as I can still read Michael’s sarcastic descriptions of life, I’ll be happy.
