web 2.0

The Difference Between Social Networking and … Social Networking

Typically the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions social networking is Myspace or Facebook, the two prominent social-networking based websites currently online. But have you heard of RSS as a social networking tool? What about YouTube or Twitter?

The entire goal of social networking is to provide communication methods between people, whether those people are family, friends, or simply acquaintances. While Myspace and Facebook definitely fall into the social-networking category, I don’t like to think of them as such. What you accomplish on these two sites, and others like them, is setting up a who’s who page about yourself with outlines of your interests, tastes, and an occasional blurb or journal entry about your life. You may or may not receive an occasional one-to-one comment from a friend. There’s really not much “networking” to it except in already existing social relationships.

On the other hand, services like YouTube and Twitter allow a person to not only establish communication with existing social relationships, but discover and become involved with new content and people. Following someone on Twitter becomes something that isn’t only reserved for your friends but anybody you come along on the web who writes something that interests you, thus opening up the door to more content or ideas from them.

This idea is also clear in RSS. While the original intent was simply to keep you updated on a particular web site’s content without having to actually browse to it, the potential of RSS has become much more. It allows you to subscribe to things which you otherwise would have never visited again. It shows who you are interested in as well as it shows the content producer that they have a following and gives them the opportunity to push out more of their own [b]unique[/b] content.

YouTube allows this content to be put into video form. It allows people to keep up to date with producers they like. It allows viewers to provide comments to the producers which ultimately keeps the cycle going. Viewers get ideas of their own and then become producers.

The very thing that got me into blogging was actually listening to the 2005 Northern Voice live stream podcast. The producers of content gave me ideas for blogging and helped me become a content producer myself. While I am by no means anyone “major” in the blogging community, I’m still doing it and always exploring new ways to get my content out there, both from things I’ve seen other producers do and ideas I get from the community.

This, in my opinion, is the truest form of social networking: It not only allows you to stay connected with people you know but also explore new people and content you otherwise wouldn’t have. You then have the opportunity to become a part of a whole new community.

Give your own content and people will follow. Follow people’s content and they’ll give you more content.

It’s All About the Reader: Twitter It, YouTube It, Just Share It

One thing that I’ve learned very quickly when I dipped my feet into the world of blogging and online technology is the importance of the reader. Ultimately, you’re not writing for yourself but for your audience. When you write a review of a product, it’s about how that product would be a good buy for your reader. When you give advice or technical support, it’s about putting it in the reader’s terms and applying it to the reader’s situation.

It’s about giving back to the community which supports you by reading your content. It all boils down to one singular idea: the community. Without the community, you have nothing. Sure, you can be producing content, but if you don’t have the backing of the community, your community, you won’t get very far.

The main importance of the community, however, is how the community can help you. A lot of times they will offer suggestions to help improve you. Collectively, this vast amount of knowledge and critique of the work you do becomes critically important to your success. If you don’t embrace the community, you lose everything, including your respect. Not only does this apply to the online blogging world, but also to products and services. I’ve covered this idea more than once (see the two blog entries previous) so I won’t repeat myself.

There aren’t too many ways to involve the community–the more the better. Get yourself on YouTube, or even Twitter. Twitter is one of those things that is ridiculously simple but can have such a profound effect on your community (speaking of which, here is my Twitter). The community subscribing to simple blurbs or mini-posts gets them surprisingly involved. It lets them tune into who you are as a content producer and get into your mind a little bit more on a casual level. Share interesting links or quick thoughts on emerging news. Let them get involved in your thought processes and they’ll only turn around a help you back by offering suggestions.

In summary: everything from products to services to blogging to online content should be first and foremost about the community. Otherwise, you end up with garbage.

Microsoft's Progress is Slow, But Not Out of Sight

We already know that Microsoft needs to start listening to the community and hearing what they have to say. We already know that not only do they need to listen, but they need to involve the community in core decision-making processes with their software, from the very planning stages. What do we as users want out of the software? What do we want to be able to do with it? How would we, as users, actually go about doing this with said software, and what features can be added to make it easier and more enjoyable?

Twoof the teams at Microsoft which have isolated themselves from this ideal are, mainly, the Windows and Office teams, and quite possibly a bit of the Windows Live team. Windows Vista, while not a disaster for me personally, was one for multitudes of people. Office 2007, while having many excellent features, was a trainwreck for the power user (Outlook 2007, anyone? No thanks…). Where are all of these complete OS/cloud integration features from Windows Live? No where to be seen.

Onthe flips side, there are many teams at Microsoft who do an incredible job at listening to users. The Xbox and Xbox Live teams, absolutely the Zune team, and while they’re not heard from too often, the Microsoft Research teams. They all listen to what users want out of products, what features, whether software or hardware, would benefit to the end user, and begin using their brilliant development minds to follow through on those ideas. They have us, the geeks and user advocates, to literally translate what the average end-user wants to do or has frustrations with into language that Microsoft developers and technical users can understand.

Onething that made headlines today is that Microsoft Research has opened up the Singularity project to the public for SDK and RDK use, for 100% free. If you do not know, Singularity is a very small Operating System which runs its microkernel and processes as managed code. Not only that, but it’s written in the C# language. For the non-technical users, this means it’s a completely different operating system than anything else out there both in terms of its programming and the potential it has. What Microsoft Research has done with Singularity is create a virtually uncrashable operating system with insane performance. People have been begging Microsoft to release this to the public, to technical users and developers, for over a year now. They’re finally listening.

Whatdoes this mean? It means that they’re making progress. It means that technical users can use Singularity, get down into its core, and start making suggestions to the Singularity team of how they’d like to see it improved. It means that with Microsoft’s brilliance, and our end user input, we could potentially be involved in the planning stages for a next-generation Operating System from Microsoft.

Now,I’m not saying that Singularity will be the base for the next version of Windows. The Singularity developers have already states that’s not its purpose. However, with input from the community, it very well could be the case that Singularity’s ideas make it into the next version of Windows, something that would significantly help us all. Nor am I saying that this has any relationship to my previous post about Microsoft’s involvement to the community, though a few people from Microsoft have already commented to me about it.

Microsoftis making progress, no matter how slow it may be. Let’s just hope it’s not too slow. And let’s hope that not only my cry to Microsoft, but that of thousands of others, speeds up that process.

Microsoft:Please listen to the community in all areas of your software development from the very planning stages. It will benefit the end user, and ultimately, it will benefit you as a company.

The Power of Blogging in 2008

Ten years ago if you would have told someone you had a blog, they would have been confused. While the term itself has existed for around 9 years now, its current meaning wasn’t realized until around 2003 or 2004. Originally, it simply meant “weblog” or a journal of your life online. You described events that happened to you just like you would in a handwritten personal journal.

These days, a blog is much more than a journal. While many people operate “web journals,” a much smaller portion operates what I would consider to be a true “blog” in its current meaning. Blogs have become a place for not only journalism by the public (which has seriously impacted the area of politics), but also a way to provide and spread information. Some of the most popular blogs on the internet take current events, provide their own opinions concerning those events, and make any recommendations or suggestions as a result.

Blogs have become what I believe the single most powerful and influential medium of the spread of information, whatever it may be, across the internet. Ranging from “how to” articles, to in-depth critiques of politics, to why you liked the movie you saw last night or why you chose to purchase a specific product, it not only covers a wide range of topics, but also carries a lot of power. Blogs get information out there.

I personally saw this power firsthand, albeit not as major as some people have. When I wrote about the trouble I had with Kensington’s website and trouble with Kensington’s customer support line, four days later I received a comment on that post from Kensington’s product manager about the issue. How he found the blog entry, I’ll never know. At no point did I give out my website or email address which could have led him there. Chances are he was doing a PR search concerning Kensington and found my blog entry. One week later, I not only got the product I was looking for, but got it for free and only after he had gone through a bit of trouble to find a discontinued item for me.

While that item was only a mousepad, it even more shows the true power of blogging in 2008. If someone such as that product manager is so concerned about every bit of PR out there about his company, even about a mousepad, how much more concerned should politicians be concerning world matters and the voices of the public?

This is demonstrated by people around the world being executed and imprisoned for giving their opinion online concerning their local politics.

What do you think? How powerful is blogging really, and how will it change things in 2008 and beyond?

Social Networking and its Failure

Let’s take a trip back in time. The year is 2003 and the internet is a rather pleasant place to be, although looking back we wouldn’t make that claim. Myspace and Facebook didn’t exist and half of the world didn’t visit them at least once per day. No one knew what AJAX was let alone used it on their websites. Flash-driven websites were the “cool thing to do.” But most importantly, the idea of using the internet as a “platform” and the convergence of technologies was near non-existent.

Then this whole concept of Web 2.0 came along and everyone was confused about what it really meant. People claimed that their websites were Web 2.0 and companies even dedicated their so-called services to help people make their websites Web 2.0 compatible. Some people even jumped the gun and claimed that Web 3.0 exists.

The change that happened in late 2004 when people started really understanding what the Web 2.0 concept was all about. It was about convergence of internet technologies and using the internet as a platform for full applications. Instead of running a program on your computer, why not run that program on the internet where you can have access to it from anywhere you go?

To be honest, if we’re still dealing with desktop environments on our computers in 15 years, I’ll be surprised. Your entire desktop environment will be web based and you’ll have access to it from anywhere, but your files and documents will be stored locally for safety. You won’t be putting in a CD to listen to music, you’ll be using a music subscription service to listen to anything you want. You’ll have access to anything from anywhere at any time. All of your devices will work together, and all websites will be able to communicate and share information with one another.

And here is where I think Social Networking sites have failed. Their very idea in concept form is awesome. If we can connect technologies, why don’t we connect people together from all over? Let’s create a social map of the world on the internet. However, what social networking sites have lost sight of is that the whole point while doing these things is to converge technologies. With their immense popularity, their potential to drive forward convergence of web technology is just as immense. Why haven’t they taken advantage of it?

Picture this: Instead of you needing to upload photos of yourself to MySpace or Facebook, why not allow you to associate your MySpace account with your Flickr account? What if I could send an email to someone but I didn’t know their email address? What if I could use the information about that person I did know to send them an email? What if I could fully control each and every one of my accounts without even needing to launch a browser? And what if I could update all of my accounts at the same time with the same information?

The possibilities are endless. AJAX is only one very small part of the concept of Web 2.0. AJAX is the User Interface side of the vision of convergence of technology, not the convergence itself.

Social networking sites have failed at what could have been (and what still could be if they play their cards right) an awesome breakthrough in web technology and even your computing experience as a whole. MySpace and Facebook are right now just a place to “hang out” and post silly surveys. They each let it come to that, when it fact it could have been a complete portal to socialization and conversation and the computing experience as a whole.

Zamzar.com - Free file conversion

I’ve known about Zamzar.com for a few months at this point, but it has taken awhile for me to really see the true convenience of it.

Zamzar.com, for those of you who don’t know, is a 100% free online file converter. Seriously, you can convert files, virtually any type of media or document up to 100MB, on the fly. All you need to do is simply upload the file and provide an email address where the link for the converted file can be sent. No emails addresses are harvested, you’re not put on any spam lists, and no software is required to be downloaded to use the service.

I find myself using Zamzar.com every day for something or another. All I’m hoping for is a bit more file support for other things besides media or documents, such as address book archives (vCard, LDIV to CSV, etc). Developer and producers file conversion would also be useful, such as DSLR Camera RAW or even things like PSD (Photoshop) conversion.

If you need any type of media file or document conversion, you owe it to yourself to check out Zamzar.com

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for online file format converters? Leave a comment.

What is Web 2.0?

If you’re at all a common browser on the internet, you probably have come across a website mentioning this thing called “Web 2.0.” What is this exactly, and how does it work? There has been much confusion going on surrounding Web 2.0, a lot of fallacies, and a lot of debate among website designers as to its true definition. Hopefully I’ll clear some of these up.

Firstly, let me tell you what Web 2.0 certainly is not. As the name would imply, Web 2.0 is supposedly the successor of Web 1.0. In some ways this is true. However, it definitely does not mean there is some brand new version of the “internet” coming out or that you’ll need to “download” a Web 2.0 browser or anything. We’re still dealing with the same exact internet. Don’t let the so-called version number fool you.

Web 2.0, as I personally as a web designer and technology advocate would define it, is redefining how we look at the way websites work. For example, for the past 15 or so years, the World Wide Web has been nothing but static pages with text, maybe a few pictures, and within the last few years, possibly some Adobe Flash animations or interactive navigations. Still though, for the most part, every website you browse is simply for the display of information, page by page, site by site, everything works by itself and for itself.

Web 2.0, on the other hand, is redefining static web design concept. For example, instead of coding a website to simply display information, how about updating this information in real-time without requiring any Flash, Java, or the user manually refreshing the page? Even moreso, how about allowing users to instantly add information or make changes? Ultimately, Web 2.0 is defining the convergence of internet technology and websites on a global, standard, and non-proprietary level. Everything just works together. Every website isn’t just its own anymore, it’s able to interact with others as well.

I found it very interesting that Steve Jobs recently announced at an Apple conference when presenting iLife ‘08 that iPhoto was “officially Web 2.0 compatible.” I seriously had to laugh at this. Not only did he miss the mark completely, he has a completely warped idea of what Web 2.0 is really trying to accomplish. What Jobs supposedly meant by saying this was that you are now able to upload your photos directly to your .Mac account. Keyword, there. .Mac. Nothing else. You have to use Apple’s services. For iPhoto to truely be able to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies, it would have to be able to work with (or work with after installing a simple addon or putting in an API key) other online photos services such as Flickr, or Sony’s PhotoStation, and many others at the mercy of the API’s developers.

The whole point of Web 2.0 is making every website work together and connect with each other seamlessly. It’s not just flashy AJAX programming, live updating, or cool rounded edges. It’s about the convergence of all internet technology into one collective memory. Microsoft gets it (with things such as Microsoft Windows Surface and Microsoft Research’s Photosynth), the open-source community gets it. The mainstream and “talented” web designers get it, but apparently Apple doesn’t. Going off in a slight tangent, Apple will seriously be hurting in the next 5-10 years if they don’t back off of their proprietary mindset and realize everything is going online to the collective memory.

What’s even funnier is people are starting to talk about Web 3.0 when 90% of people don’t even know or give a wooden nickle about what truely is Web 2.0.