Web 2.0 Tour

Links to resources (including this file) are available from: http://del.icio.us/mikejcsmith/web2tour

(Changes from last version – minor corrections, examples of use for teaching, non-geek stuff))

Overview

This tour of Web 2.0 is provided to help teachers and presenters who have been tasked to use or teach about this new facet of the Internet. Please note that this aspect of information technology is fast-changing and this guide is probably becoming out-of-date even as I press these keys.

Feel free to contact the author by email or phone if you need more help. We are very aware that the teachers’ the (initial) level of knowledge in these areas may be quite low. The content covers semi-technical areas of the useful (and often entertaining) ‘new’ Internet phenomenon known as Web 2.0.

A good place to start is Wikipedia, the rapidly expanding online encyclopaedia with a major point of difference – anyone can add or edit the content. Wikipedia is itself an excellent example of what Web 2.0 really means.

Further Research

This guide is very brief and cannot cover all that is Web 2.0, but we hope to have inspired you to explore further.

The Wikipedia gives a comprehensive account of Web 2.0 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Links to these and other useful resources are here:
Delicious http://del.icio.us/mikejcsmith/web2tour

Copies of this document posted here for purposes of demonstrating different ways to publish and store material:

Esnips (master): http://www.esnips.com/web/ACE-Web2/
Airset: http://www.airset.com/Group/Home.jsp?gi=hIOWRJajOBxN (Teacher Group)
Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/people/view/7385
Blogger: http://www.mike-lesson.blogspot.com/
Wordpress: http://mikejcsmith.wordpress.com/
Google Docs: http://docs.google.com/

The author has created the Airset Teacher and Trainers group area, the homepage of which is publicly available here: http://www.airset.com/Group/Home.jsp?gi=hIOWRJajOBxN

To facilitate training and demonstration of this tool, Mike Smith has also set up also two guest accounts for access to Airset member only areas such as files and calendar:

username/email: teacher@mjcsmith.net

username/email: student@mjcsmith.net

These passwords are used during presentations and may change from time to time. Contact the author if you need the latest password.

Introduction to Web 2.0

The World Wide Web (or just ‘the web’) is what most people would be familiar with. It is the interlinked collection of publicly available Internet sites. It does not, however encompass all of the Internet – only what is publicly available. Web 2.0 is a term that loosely covers the newest parts of the web. There was never a term ‘Web 1.0’ before the advent of Web 2.0. The term Web 2.0 just serves to describe some of the newer websites with particular attributes.

The basic difference between Web 2.0 and the original web is that the focus of who generates the content has very much shifted from the website manager to the people using it. That is to say, the general public can now much easily put their own material on the web. This change in focus has dramatically changed both the type of content dominating the web, how people use the web, and also critically how the people share that content with each other.

Let’s compare some typical sites: older static sites (Web 1.0) and newer ones (Web 2.0). Older sites are mostly static and offer limited interaction with the visitor, newer sites are extremely interactive and allow visitors to add comments and perhaps other content, as well as links to their own site or browser. Do you reckon these sites to be Web 2.0?

http://iteslj.org/

http://telstra.com/

http://www.mjcsmith.net/

http://del.icio.us/

http://www.drivl.com/

http://www.airset.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/

http://www.myspace.com/

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/Australia/

http://wordpress.com/

While it has always been possible for people to generate their own web pages, it has never been as easy as now using Web 2.0 sites. These sites offer abilities for people to post their writings, photos, videos very easily and quickly without the need for special tools on their local computer. A key concept in Web 2.0 is that people can share their posted content, and make comments on other people’s content. Another key concept is that of ‘tagging’ (explained below) allowing people to very easily find exactly the type of content they are seeking.

So these are the key concepts to Web 2.0

anyone can post content,
sharing content easily and widely,
commenting on other people’s content, and
tagging content for easy finding of material.

These attributes of Web 2.0 have rapidly created new communities of truly staggering proportions – like nothing ever seen before in human history (a dramatic statement but true!) These have come to be called ‘folksonomies’.

Web 2.0 Examples – A Cook’s Tour

Blogging

Blogging came very early in the advent of Web 2.0. A ‘blog’ or ‘web-log’ is simply an easy way to post a journal on the web. In fact journalists were very early adopters of this technology. Now every man and his dog has a blog.

Wikipedia’s article on weblogs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

A review and comparison of different weblog sites:

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm

View my weblog containing a version of this very document here:

http://www.mike-lesson.blogspot.com/

Photo Sharing

One of the first things that people really wanted to share was photos. Email was always problematic for photosharing, particularly with the larger files sizes from modern digital cameras.

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/

Flickr is a very popular Web 2 site specialising in photo sharing. It was one of the original Web 2.0 sites and is now one the biggest. It has a simple interface and is adding features all the time.

Others:

http://www.smugmug.com/

http://beta.zooomr.com/

http://www.pbase.com/

http://www.bubbleshare.com/

and dozens more.

Tagging became a way to categorise photos, allowing people to easily find material they were interested in. Tags are simply keywords attached to items. People search the web based on these tags – a simple yet powerful technique.

Social Bookmarking Sites

People have always posted their ‘favourites’ or weblinks on their own sites, and new Web 2.0 sites appeared to allow easier sharing of weblinks.

Delicious http://del.icio.us/

Craigslist http://sfbay.craigslist.org/

This is where the concept of tagging really started to takeoff and it has the potential to rival the power of search engines (such as Yahoo and Google) because it places the function of labelling back in the ‘hands of the public’ rather than in a select group of paid people – possibly with commercial interests, or in some computer algorithm interpreting ‘what you really intended to search for’.

Personal Sites and Social Networking

Then people wanted to share more information about themselves and create a more personalised space for themselves on the web.

MySpace http://www.myspace.com/

MyYahoo http://my.yahoo.com/

MySpace started out as a site for developing your own personalised spot on the web and it continues to have this focus. Members tailor the look of their site and can have the full range of Web 2.0 paraphernalia: photos, videos, blogs, sharing, linking, favourites, messaging.

Wikipedia has a huge list of social networking sites for all types of online communities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Some of them specialise for example functioning as a travel diary and meeting place.

http://www.wayn.com/

Video sharing

The advent of broadband Internet allowed video content to be shared

MySpace http://www.myspace.com/ (again)

You Tube http://www.youtube.com/

These sites offer an ability to upload and share videos which has caused a huge ruckus in the Hollywood film industry with Viacom trying to sue YouTube (recently bought by Google). However recent developments may have defused the situation as film companies may be releasing legal videos through MySpace. For example there is what appears to be a studio release of the movie 300 trailer.

http://www.myspace.com/300themovie

Other video sharing sites (including some photo sharing)

http://www.vimeo.com/

http://www.pickle.com/

Not Just for Fun – Useful Tools for Life and Business

Email

Email was one of the earliest Internet tools, pre-dating even the original World Wide Web, and has always been one of the most useful communication tools for people. People generally received an email account through their work or University, however this caused problems as people moved about, or with employers becoming anxious about personal mail at work.

Online or web-based email allowed people to keep their email account name unchanged even when they moved jobs or ISPs (Internet Service Provider). That meant, for one thing, that you could put an email address on your CV. Early accounts had quite limited space and people often complained about mailboxes overflowing as their friends started sending them digital photos (without shrinking them first).

Web-based email providers:

Hotmail http://www.hotmail.com
Rocketmail (now part of YahooMail)

Ozemail (now part of IINet)

YahooMail http://www.yahoomail.com

Google GMail http://mail.google.com

Calendars

Other useful tools people use in their everyday lives are calendars and diaries, long-used out as paper form and then on personal computers, and more recently on portable electronic diaries and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and also the latest smart phones.

As people wanted to carry more information around, Internet sites started to offer online storage, calendars and address books. This also allowed people to more easily share their files and calendars with their colleagues, initially, and also their friends, families and social groups.

Yahoo and Google have offered email-based discussion groups for a long time, and before that were ‘bulletin boards’, allowing like-minded people to keep in touch and up-to-date on events of their common interest. They both now offer online calendars, address books, blogs etc for free and many commercial variants also exist.

The issue then becomes synchronising your (now extensive) online information with your local PC or PDA. As of writing, Yahoo and Google are probably the biggest players in online collaboration (apart from corporate products such as MS Exchange, and Novel Netware and other specialist corporate providers). Yet neither of them provide a (reliable) synchronising tool for use with software on a personal computer (e.g. MS Outlook, Palm Desktop). (NB this may situation may change)

This is a major irritation for many Internet users, and a reason why businesses continue to feel ‘hostage’ to Microsoft Exchange Server, or similar, very expensive and requiring specialist IT support. As of writing, the only online calendar offering proper synchronisation is Airset (more below).

Yahoo Calendar http://www.calendar.yahoo.com/

Google Calendar http://www.google.com/intl/en-GB/googlecalendar/tour.html

The stage was set for the next generation of online ‘collaboration tools’. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_software

Note: The term ‘collaboration’ has a broader meaning in the corporate world, encompassing team work tools (called groupware) such as screen share, distance presentation delivery, audio/video conferencing, project management, shared editing of documents, co-browsing and other team resource management tools. Well-regarded examples of these products are offered by http://www.37signals.com/ These interesting topics are not covered here, nor are other technologies such as VOIP – voice over IP (Internet telephony).

Other highly regarded calendar applications include:

30 Boxes http://30boxes.com/ (free I believe)

Airset http://www.airset.com (free, used as a working example in this guide)

Online Storage and Document Processing

Many people carry their documents around on USB keys, but if you intend sharing your documents online you could use the many online services for document creation and storage.

Online storage and sharing of general files:

Esnips http://www.esnips.com (5Gb of space)

Airset http://www.airset.com (1Gb of space)

Online Storage, Word-processing, Spreadsheets etc:

Google Docs http://docs.google.com/

Mofile http://www.mofile.com/en

Zoho Writer http://www.zoho.com/

Ajax Write http://www.ajaxwrite.com/

Blog-like online word-processing but with privacy and sharing features:

E-Blogger (now Blogspot owned by Google and accessible via Google Docs)

http://blogspot.com/ and http://www.blogger.com/

http://mikejcsmith.blogspot.com/ and http://www.mike-lesson.blogspot.com/ (my blogs)

Word Press http://www.wordpress.com/

Scribd http://www.scribd.com/

A review of “Top 5 Free Online Word Processors by Lee Seats http://freebies.about.com/od/freesoftware/tp/freeonlinewp.htm

Mashups Combinations Sites

Things now start to get very interesting with Web 2.0 sites combining content from other Web 2.0 sites.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)

A current list of Mashups is given here (over 1700 at last count):

http://www.programmableweb.com/mashuplist

Check out these sites:

The 7 Wonders of the World http://coolmaps.7wonders.googlepages.com/

Actor Tracker http://www.actortracker.com/

Bikely http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Brisbane-the-River-Ride

Beam me up hottie http://beammeuphottie.com/

Jesus Speaks http://jesusspeaks.completeapathy.com/

Earmarks http://sunlightlabs.com/earmarks/

Most news sites are now mashups combining content from a wide variety of sources:

BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/

SMH http://www.smh.com.au/

ABC Australia http://www.abc.net.au/

And the all-rounders:

Drivl http://www.drivl.com/

Digg http://www.digg.com/

Technorati http://www.technorati.com/

Mashups can be truly astounding. Imagine being able to see what people all around the world are reading and commenting on in real-time – right now. To see what is happening in the blogosphere try this amazing timewaster:

http://labs.digg.com/swarm/ (my current favourite)

The Web 2.0 Giants – Yahoo, Google, Ebay, Amazon

Yahoo and Google currently dominate the consumer market in Web 2.0 each offering combined email, personal website, groups, blog, maps, calendar, address books, chat and more. Google additionally offers video sharing through its acquisition of YouTube. To get an idea of what is on offer look at Google's ‘more’ page:
http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/options/

E-Bay and Amazon are both well known web enterprises using Web 2.0 technology.

All You Can Eat - RSS

How to keep up with all on offer on the Internet? Try RSS. Look for the RSS button on any site (e.g. a news site) and have it delivered automatically to your browser or your email.

ABC Australia RSS feeds: http://www.abc.net.au/services/rss.htm

All the mashups (in the world): http://feeds.feedburner.com/programmableweb/mashup

Where’s the Fire http://www.technorati.com/wtf/

You cup will truly runneth over.

Working Examples of Web 2.0 Sites

Let’s have a look at some typical and/or useful sites.

Google Docs

Google Docs is not the only online word-processing site. However it is easy and free and will serve our purpose here as a working example.

Google Docs http://docs.google.com/

To use Google Docs you will need a Google Account. These are my Google Docs. As you can see you can create documents and spreadsheets.

The top one Web 2 Tour is the document you are reading now. In this picture I have just uploaded it (an early version) to Google Docs from my PC.

You can share documents in two ways. Collaboration is where other people you invite can co-edit your document with tracked revisions much like MS Word. Viewers can not edit your document, only view it (although they can save/edit/print their copy of it). Sharing with viewers is done in two ways: via a blog, or with a public URL (web address).

The first document is not shared (as at the time this snapshot was taken, although now it is). The second document is shared with viewers via a web log, while the third has been published with a URL which I can give anyone I wish.

We’ll now go through the process of publishing the first document both ways.

Clicking on ‘Share’ brings up the following dialog box:

In this example we don’t want to collaborate so we click on the ‘publish’ tab on the top right corner.

In this example we want to publish to both my blog and generate a publicly viewable URL. Firstly to generate the URL we click on and then click OK.

The web address shown will take anyone to your document on the web as shown below. You can have the document automatically updated at this address. (This address was for an early version of this document and is no longer correct.)

Next we publish it to a web log (Blog) by pressing the button (and OK).

We won’t go into the blog settings at this stage but you can publish to most common blog sites. Since Google recently bought www.blogger.com that is the easiest one to use. My blog site is http://mikejcsmith.blogspot.com/ and you can see this very document has just been published there:

I have since replaced this post with the most current version, so the date will have changed. The document is now at http://www.mike-lesson.blogspot.com/

That’s the end of the Google Docs working example. You can save word processing documents in a variety of formats including HTML (web page) and PDF. You can also count words, spell check and print to a local printer. Try creating your own documents and spreadsheets.

You might even dabble with your own blog - now that you have a Google account anyway. While you’re at it have a look at all the Google goodies you can now play with (as a Google member):

http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/options/

Airset

Airset is not the only online calendar and groupshare tool available, but it is free and works well - albeit a little slowly. You will need to join Airset as a member to get all the features, however the basics of this tutorial will work as a non-member.

Airset http://www.airset.com

First take the demo: http://www.airenainc.com/Home_Page_Demo/Home_Page_Demo.html

You will need the latest Flash player for your web browser. The demo audio sometimes starts before the video is ready to play. Just re-start the demo once you can see the picture.

Ignore the part about mobile phone SMS services since they are available only on the US at this stage.

I have a number of links to my Airset pages listed in my Delicious account. Go to this link and then try visiting the public areas.

http://del.icio.us/mikejcsmith/airset

Note that there is no ‘www’ at the beginning of Delicious addresses. Delicious is an excellent way to direct someone to a complex web address. For example the real address for my Teacher and Trainer Group Page is:

http://www.airset.com/Group/Home.jsp?gi=hIOWRJajOBxN

Much better to have people enter via my Delicious area.

If you become an Airset member you can ask to join the Teacher and Trainer Group page that I host. If you are also a teacher at ACE you can ask to join the ACE Group, giving you access to an ACE online storage area for file sharing. In either case we can then share our resources, calendar, and weblinks, as well as communicate via the group blog.

The ACE Group page has links to files for Power English Web 2.0 and this document.

http://www.airset.com/Group/Home.jsp?gi=VzChwXHOCpwP

Two Examples for Teaching

Simple Online Classroom via a Blog

Using a blog for teaching is an easy way to set up an online classroom. I used my blog at http://www.mike-lesson.blogspot.com/ for one of my Power English classes. As you can see I asked my students to submit a simple writing task by posting replies/comments against my post/lesson.

http://mike-lesson.blogspot.com/2007/03/ace-power-english-web-2.html

Sophisticated Online Classroom with Shared Resources using Airset

I have recently set up an online ESL classroom for a corporate client who wanted to encourage their staff to progress at their own pace (and in more in their own time).

The public group page is here:

http://www.airset.com/Group/Home.jsp?gi=CPNLgIJALCOG

A guest username is: student@mjcsmith.net (contact the author for a password).

The members group page is here (login required):

http://www.airset.com/AirSet.jsp#app.Main+gi.CPNLgIJALCOG_

This group now has shared use of:

a calendar for scheduled lessons, tasks/assignments due dates, and logging hours worked by the teacher/trainer for client billing purposes.
a blog for students to post questions and teachers to respond - all able to be seen by other students/teachers (and work supervisors). This more closely mimics classroom interaction than does individual email. It also helps to document/record the questions and answers.
files for download, such as media extracts, audio/video, and other materials that would otherwise have been photocopied for in-class use.
links to web resources
a basic email (sending) service to other group members.

Not a Geek? Try these sites for real people

Bikely

http://www.bikely.com/

This site combines Google Maps with users’ collections of favourite bicycle tours.

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Brisbane-the-River-Ride

The example is a cyle tour along the Brisbane River via West End, Yeeronga, Indooroopilly, St Lucia and Toowong.

The site has routes world-wide. Paris anyone?

http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/The-Sites-of-Paris

The site has links to a similar one for walking/hiking/running and also for motorcycling.

http://www.stepwhere.com/

http://www.motowhere.com/

You can add your own favourite cycle route by becoming a member. You can import exisitng routes from eleswhere on the site, or GPS routes from GPS devices and websites. You can also skip to Google Earth from here.

Although the three interfaces look similar, and it appears that your login would be common for these three sites, in fact you must join for them separately. I used the same username and password for all three.

Beam me up hottie

http://beammeuphottie.com/

Looking for the love of your life. Tired of bars and clubs? Blind dates have you seeing red? Find a hottie for every ocassion here, whether it’s someone on your arm to show off at a school reunion or just your mid-week cross-town tryst.

Jesus Speaks

http://jesusspeaks.completeapathy.com/

“Having a hard time making a decision? Need some advice from the main man J.C.? Want to know what the Holy opinion is on any topic? If so, Ask Jesus is right up your alley. Ask Jesus any question, or simply input a phrase to see what Jesus has to say. Don't be afraid to ask anything.”

Enough said.

Earmarks

http://sunlightlabs.com/earmarks/

For the USA but an interesting idea which someone could (should) do in Australia as well. The Sunlight foundation has plotted where all the government money is being spent. Look up a town on the map and see if taxes are being fairly spread around.

Conclusion

This guide has only scratched the surface of Web 2.0 but I hope it has inspired you to explore more for yourself.

Enjoy!

Further exploring:

These sites give reviews, ratings and summaries of the best Web 2.0 sites around.

http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0/

http://www.econsultant.com/web2/

http://www.allthingsweb2.com/

 Produced by Mike JC Smith
Updated 2/04/2007 22:41 a4/p4
Document Name “Web 2 Tour”
Tags “mjcs lesson mikejcsmith web2 web2tour ace aceweb2.0”

Web 2.0 Tour v3.2 by Mike Smith on 2 April 2007

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