July 31, 2007
just getting on facebook? forget it. the next big thing is rejecting social networking.
in other (yet seemingly related) news, luke tells me that a bunch of australians have discovered that printers are as bad as cigarette smoke. i don’t have a printer so maybe i can start smoking now. clearly, it’ll all balance out and i’ll look cooler and sexier!
July 28, 2007
i first came across the term “web 2.0″ a few years ago when i had to write a blog entry about its use for NGOs as part of a job application. i had to do it in english and french. i bet someone had a good laugh about that considering i have minus 100 intelligence en francais. anyway, i thought web 2.0 was one either one of those masturbatory marketing buzzwords (which it is, thanks to tim o’reilly) or one of those terms people who have no idea what they’re talking about use to look smart. so i was totally prepared to ignore it and never think about it again.
but i got the job (i guess my nerd skillz are better than my french) and i quickly learnt that web 2.0 was just about the only way to describe all this cool new stuff happening on the web. oddly though, i was already aware of what web 2.0 describes, i just didn’t see it as so clearly different from the way the web was before. its like the term has changed our perception of the web, like the creation of a syndrome or a disease by naming of set of symptoms which can be treated, stigmatized, studied, or otherwise embed with meaning.(schizophrenia didn’t “exist” before someone named it, drug companies create syndromes all the time to sell more drugs).
anyway, i started using the term (even though i quietly threw up in my mouth each time, as cato would say). having a nice simple term is pretty handy when you want to discuss something without having to go into a lengthy description of what you mean each time. the only problem though is that the term web 2.0 only makes sense to other web geeks, and even then its really pretty nebulous (is it the rounded corners? the gibberish names? the power of many eyeballs? wait… wasn’t that usenet?). worse still, people who have never heard it before find it rather confusing and think it actually refers to a concrete set of technologies.
the other problem is that it did start out as an elite marketing buzzword, created by tim o’reilly. according to paul graham, he actually had a conference and then famously tried to sue another conference for using it in their name, even though web 2.0 is supposed to be about openness, user generated content and all that. and as an annoying marketing buzzword, it started out with more hype than substance. its gotten progressively worse, especially with people talking about web 3.0 and 4.0 without any idea what they’re saying.
all in all, the term sucks. but we keep using it cuz there’s no alternative. and this is why i’ve decided to start using “the social web” to describe SNSes et al. instead. it’s actually descriptive, and doesn’t have a misleading version number in it. i’ve noticed a few other bloggers using it too, such as ian wilker. since i’m all about “be the change” i went and updated the wikipedia entry to reflect this new definition too >:] let the editwars begin!
July 27, 2007
perth had its first ever barcamp last month.
con wiebrands (the ass-kicking curtin librarian who helped convince the evil tech admins to unblock twitter and facebook on campus) and i did a talk on explaining web 2.0 to n00bs, such as older folks or university admin who think the internet is full of pedophiles and hackers.
there were a lot more education/librarian people than i expected, which was cool for getting a more broad range of views. i have, however, found that perth seems to have a lot of little pockets of people doing cool stuff but they tend to keep it to themselves. there isn’t as much cross-pollination as there should be.
the last session was entitled silicon beach (get it? huh huh? like silicon valley… but better cuz theres a beach) which was all about putting perth on the map and overcoming the interia that keeps perth quiet. this was where the microsoft guy, scott barnes, who had come to demo silverlight, revealed that he was also there to sniff out the cool shit going on in perth. he diplomatically told us that we still have a bit of work to do.
but you know what? i think the problem of the little pockets of cool that don’t talk to each other is the real problem. there is cool stuff starting to happen in perth, it’s just hard to find. in the past two weeks, i’ve discovered there were a bunch of killer festivals going on in the next few months, my favourite of which being the byte me! festival of digital geek creativity in december, which has an incredible lineup of VJs, game designers, electronic musicians and thinkers from perth and around the world.
Tags: byteme, barcampperth, web2.0, australia, perth
July 4, 2007
my friend adam passed along this insane job description for “social media officer” at the university of toronto.
Experience:
Minimum five years experience working in the field of new media from a content perspective, including web design/architecture, preferably in a large organization. A high degree of knowledge of and experience with “Web 2.0” tools (Wikis, RSS, Podcasting) is essential as is intuition for continued developments in new technologies — especially “Web 2.0” and “Web 3.0” technologies. (Intuition about the possible direction of “Web 4.0” is also important) Equally essential is a high degree of demonstrated, successful project management experience.
what? did they read some joke about web 3.0 and think it was serious? the term “web 2.0″ was used to describe changes on the web after they happened. you can’t just talk web 3.0 or web 4.0 into existence. besides, web 2.0 basically means everything and nothing, using it as a naming convention is like building your house on sand.
remember the hype and vapourware and non-existant business models of the 90s that led to the first dot com crash? yeah. this isn’t a good sign.
fono says: man, this means i can’t make jokes about web 3.0 anymore. to be leading edge you really have to talk about web 27.0 now.
July 1, 2007
remember internet explorer versus netscape browser wars of the mid 90s? myspace is copying facebook and adding applications.
so, get ready for the social browser wars - facebook versus myspace!
Powered by a Wordpress and LiveJournal mashup created by David Fono; made pretty by a hacked ShinRa House theme. 
