Week 5, Thing #11 - Web 2.0

From Wikipedia on Web 2.0 definition:

"Web 2.0 encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content. "

"Tim O'Reilly (founder of O'Reilly Media) states Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet—a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects. (O'Reilly Radar,Principles and Best Practices, 2007)"

"More than just the latest technology buzzword, it’s a transformative force that’s propelling companies across all industries toward a new way of doing business. "

35 years ago I heard the first rumblings of the 'internet'. I worked for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph, and we were using a modem to connect from San Jose, California to the Bell Labs in New Jersey. It was one of those monster couplers where you push the receiver of the phone into the two receptacles to carry the signal over the phone lines.

At that time you had to have specific locations to navigate towards - you had to know where you were going ahead of time - no searching to see what's out there. The scientific community, especially in academic realm, was using the internet, but they knew each other's addresses and they were in url format. Take a look at a url after you have navigated through a few pages and you will see it's not something you want to remember!! Without the concepts of web 2.0 we wouldn't be able to use the web the way we do today. Imagine me telling you to remember this site to see the poster of Buddy in a previous blog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aluckygirlproduction/3444443233/

who wants to remember all those numbers and letters??? and that's just one picture.

So I am grateful for the point and click convenience of web 2.0.

More on the web page I chose to investigate later. No surprise on the site though - it's I'm Cooked - a funny, funky little site where wanna be top chefs upload their own cooking demonstration videos. Honestly - you may want to bookmark this page - I think I'll try to put something up. Let's see if Jill beats me to it!