Today, our children grow up with computers and the internet as part of their daily lives. They are called ‘net genners’ (Howe and Strauss 2000), digital natives (Prensky 2001), the net generation or net kids.
Social networking, also know as social web has grown rapidly among the younger crowd in last few years.
What is social web? What is SNS? (social networking service). The so called social web allows users to create and manage their own information and also share their information with friends and possible make new friends. They are learning to communicate their thoughts and put them in writing. In doing this will it make better writers out of us? The opportunities are great and so are the risks of social web for the young. Web 2.0 involves blogging, vlogging, sns, gaming, downloading, uploading. Sharing our own information and then learning how to bring this information together and share with others on an electronic basis is where we find ourselves today.
In a recent brainstorming meeting done by Tim O'Reilly of O’Reilly’s Media, formulated their sense of Web 2.0 by the following example:
Web 1.0 / Web 2.0
Double Click / Google AdSense
Ofoto / Flickr
Akamai / BitTorrent
mp3.com / Napster
Britannica Online / Wikipedia
Personal website / Blogging
Evite / Upcoming.org and EVDB
Domain name speculation / Search engine optimization
Page views / Cost per click
Screen scraping / Web services
Publishing / Participation
Content management systems / Wikis
directories (taxonomy) / Tagging ("folksonomy")
Stickiness / Syndication
The chart above clearly shows that the way we use and distribute information is changing. The older crowd is involved heavily in Web 1.0 and our younger crowd is doing more of the right side of the chart which is Web 2.0
Recent studies show that Web 2.0 (social web) offers an abundance of new and extensive possibilities for e-learning, which means no more minimal amounts of learning materials. Are we heading for Web 3.0? (Wageneder and Jadin 2007). Will it be our kids that will take us there? Let’s watch them closely.
International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics
Volume 6 Number 1
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