10 posts tagged “web2.0”
According to a new research study that's part of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 28% of Internet-using Americans tag content online. Specifically they said "yes" when asked, "Please tell me if you ever use the internet to categorize or tag online content like a photo, news stroy, or blog post". Seven per cent say they tag daily. To me, these are very revealing numbers. They suggest, strongly, that Web 2.0 is not simply the domain of geeks, but have penetrated the mainstream. This is great news for citizen journalism, and, I think for the web in general. Folksonomic (grassroots, bottom-up) tagging is the key tool of participatory media. Go tag, go!
Don't have time, inclination or chops to make a webpage? Don't have the persistence for a blog? Here, try ShortText. ShortText is a simple, but useful Web 2.0 tool. Visit the site, type or paste in some text, hit a button and, bam, instant unique URL for your text. You can share it with the world or just a group a friends. They can, in turn, comment on it. And, you can subscribe to an RSS feed of the comments. Here's an example, with special prize-winning relevance for my Mohawk students:
http://www.shortText.com/buhtk
I can see ShortText being very useful for folks who just need to post a quick quiz, letter for feedback etc. and don't have access to an intranet or wiki or website. Simple, smart, RSS, social and useful. Nice job ShortTexter people.
Over on Squidoo, Seth Godin's share-smartness-donate-to-good-causes site, Seth, NetSquared and GetActive are running a contest where you can vote on the smartest nonprofit orgs in cyberspace. What do they mean by "smartest"? Nonprofits who are making the best use the the web and Web 2.0 tools to do good. Great link up of groups. Get over there and check them out, then vote. :-)
For the past week I've been trying out a new Web 2.0 tool called Stikkit. Stikkit is a site/application that allows you to create shareable, taggable Sticky Notes. That doesn't sound like much, but it has real potential. The application is still very much in beta, with new functionality being added every few days, so it's a moving target. Right now it features some basic, but useful, intelligence about what you write. Begin a sentence with "on" followed by a real date or a relative one (today, tomorrow) and Stikkit will make the note you're creating a part of your calendar (with can be subscribed to via iCal and other calendering software.
Preface a task with "todo" and it becomes a part of a a to do list that generates an RSS feed. You can post notes from your cellphone to the Stikkit site, search all your Stikkits and tell the "brain" behind the application to ignore certain parts of your note as it searches for meaning. Stikkit won't replace my workhorse database, Devonthink Office, as my tool of choice for heavy info-caching. Nor will it replace iCal as my calendar software. But, it will let me capture quick, useful notes on the fly, anywhere. So far, that's pretty handy. Will keep you posted.
Over at techsoup.org, Brian Satterfield has just published an excellent set of case studies about how nonprofits are using intranets. I'm pleased to say that an intranet wiki I set up for one of my clients, the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, was featured. The intranet, called ensemble is based on Project Forum and a handful of other Web 2.0 tools. Brian did a create job of capturing the way we introduced the site at ASO.
Just got off a Skype chat with Kelly Abbot, one of the big dogs at dandelife. What a great guy. I had emailed him about my idea of using his social biography tool with Alzheimer's folks. He's all over it and we talked future functionality that would work well with those living with Alzheimer's. I LOVE Web 2.0. Where else can you see a piece of cool software, email the creator, hear back in under a day and talk features? Made my Friday. Thanks Kelly!
Curtis James just posted about the dandelife Web 2.0 tool. It allows you to place an incident from your life on a shared timeline. You can then search that timeline by date or tag. You can also add to other people's memories of events or places.
I'm really taken by the tool because of the work I do with the Alzheimer Society of Ontario. I imagine a lot of folks with early onset Alzheimer's using dandelife to share moments of their past with their children or grandchildren. Or, a variety of folks could use a common tag and help each other remember important stages or incidents in the past. I think this could have tremendous therapeutic value for caregivers and those with Alzheimer's. Thoughts anyone?
