January 2008 General Meeting
Program Review:
Web 2.0

by Chris Novell and John Lansdale
(A biased review of our own presentation, and who was that other guy? – Oh, Jim Scheef.)

Now that they attended the meeting, Wondering William has become Wise William (WW), and Fact Finding Francine has turned into InFormed Francine (IFF), and they may have had this conversation, with fellow attendee, Observant Fred (OF), joining in.

IFF: So what did you think of the presentation, William?
WW: hmm…(small chuckle) Which one? There were three of them!
IFF: (smiling) Yes, and each speaker was so eager to tell about their Web2.0 experiences…and each covered such different aspects of the topic.
OF: This is DACS, we have some of everything. Chris is a technically savvy user who has discovered Web 2.0 from using the web and has thought how much it could help her in everyday life, she wanted to show many cool applications. John is an application developer who might think of writing a Web 2.0 application. He talked about the theory. Jim is an experienced system admin who would consider developing a Web 2.0 application for a customer. He talked about ZohoWriter which could be used as a replacement for a more expensive Office product.
WW: I learned a lot…had no idea that there were so many Web2.0 sites out there to try.
IFF: Yeah, and now that I know there is a site that lists many Web2.0 sites by category, I can go check out the ones that fit my interests.
WW: There was some web site listing over a thousand of them organized by category?
IFF: I remember, Chris placed the site in the DACS del.icio.us account. All we have to do is browse to it. We don’t have to sign in or anything.
WW: del.icio.us is a funny name but it can be very useful. John explained how it works at the PIG SIG . He, Jim, and Chris all have del.icio.us accounts. Whenever you find a site you like you just mark it. There’s add-ins for the browsers to make it as easy as creating a regular favorite or bookmark. The difference is that this goes onto your account on the web. If you work on more than one computer the shortcuts are there, not only that but instead of using email you can link to something you want your friends to see and they can pick it up later. It’s a lot better. I think I’m going to get an account. John swears he doesn’t get any spam from it, and you can transfer your favorites in if you want.
OF: I think not getting Spam or intrusive cookies is part of the Web 2.0 idea.
IFF: I like the way you can go to many of these Web2.0 sites and take a look around, see if you like it. You can be as public or private as you want on most of them, too. Just have to customize the settings and disclosure to what you want.
WW: I liked those book sites, LibraryThing and Goodreads Chris showed us. You get many choices.
IFF: GroupRecipes, was good too. Everything about cooking. Store your recipes there, get recipes that others have stored, watch a food prep video, get recommendations that match up with your taste preferences…and if you want to ask someone about their recipe you can send them a message. Makes for a pleasant community atmosphere.
WW: I wound up spending close to an hour reading the posts on ReadWriteWeb A few days after the DACS meeting I went to that site and there was a post about that OpenID thing that is in the works. RWW reported that Yahoo! announced they will support it…it’s a decentralized single sign-on service. I’m going to find out what TechCrunch has to say, too.
IFF: I read something in TechCrunch blog about how Yahoo! has been testing integrating del.icio.us into search results….
Speaking of Yahoo I was hoping to hear more about Yahoo! Answers, but I can go look there myself. As I understand it, a person can both ask and answer questions; the site has a point system. The more you answer other people’s questions, the more points you get toward having yours answered. I think I heard of several other sites working the same way…I chatted with Chris as the meeting was wrapping up. Did you know that YA (Yahoo Answers) already has over 10 million participants? Flixster, a site for sharing movies, has over 15 million users. Not just reading but contributing…
WW: If it were me on those sites I’d be careful volunteering information and giving away my creativity. You should read what the terms and conditions are with that one, Francine.
IFF: Well, I really enjoy reading reviews of movies I want to see, and I like writing reviews of movies I’ve seen that, but I appreciate your reminding me to make sure I understand. I’ll check it again.
WW: How about a wiki or a blog? I wonder if DACS could set up a wiki or a blog we can use. Sometimes I have questions between meetings…it would be great if I could submit a question to the whole membership – there are so many knowledgeable people in the group – I could probably get an answer quickly…
OF: You know those web sites Chris showed us were great, but I didn’t know what they had in common until I heard John Lansdale’s presentation.
WW: How’s that?
OF: Well, Lansdale’s a web application developer himself and apparently he’s more interested in writing Web 2.0 applications than using them.
WW: What difference does that make?
OF: Well, as he showed us, the term Web 2.0 was made up by some computer application developers. After the early 2000s e-bust they were trying to find new ways of making money with web applications. Some like Google, Facebook and Wikipedia were doing very well. They made a list up of what they had in common so future developers could copy the pattern. John was more interested in the list so he could do it himself rather than using any of the applications.
IFF: WW and I aren’t application developers - why should we care?
OF: Because everybody benefits from it. That’s one of the rules of a Web 2.0 application. Look at the neat stuff Chris just told us about.
WW: Well, should we even care what Web 2.0 is, why not just use it?
OF: That’s a good point. I’ll give you a couple of answers. One, of course, is that it makes it easier to find all these cool new applications… just search for them. Two, if you think about it, this kind of application has the potential of changing the way we learn about the world.
IF: Change the world?
OF: John has also been studying public relations and has discovered a great portion of the producers of the new sites are in this business. It’s becoming a new way of advertising. The regular news and advertising media like TV and newspapers have been having hard times. If you want to find out what’s going on in the world you’ll need to understand Web 2.0.
WW: It seems a little far fetched, but maybe I should look into it some more.
OF: His talk was a little fast and technical but the ideas were interesting and I see he had some links I’m going to look at - some of those links in his slides later. I heard at the Pig SIG he used another Web 2.0 application, www.tinyurl.com to make a short link to his presentation notes so it can be found at http://tinyurl.com/26sg2t.
IFF: Oh, I’d like to watch that live Google Maps Wikipedia mashup map again (http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/) every time a Wikipedia change is made it is shown in Google Maps. And I saw a lot more links at the end of his presentation but there wasn’t enough time for him to show us.
IFF: How about that ZoHo Writer in Jim Scheef’s presentation? That’s Web 2.0 also and it could save somebody much money.
WW: How?
IFF: Did you see how he used it for writing and making presentations? The very nice Wiki he created about the OLPC laptops he and John brought in.
OF: But that didn’t save any money.
IFF: No, because Jim has every kind of software there is on his laptop so he could have made the presentation in a more expensive office type product. You know the kind you have to buy and upgrade every few years?
WW: Oh, like in my company. They must have 100 copies of that Office product. The Wiki would be good for us too; we’re going to try one of those for the machine shop.
IFF: They’ve got Zoho Writer, (spread) Sheet, Show, Meeting, Wiki, Chat, Projects, Planner, Meeting and … They’re always adding stuff.
OF: That’s Web 2.0 isn’t it? Software as a service, rich user interface, user creativity, and some of that other stuff John was so excited about. You know though I’m not so sure I’d use it to replace Office. Jim had a few problems, and I don’t think it was that secure. Our company is always worried about that.
WW: I guess I should ask Jim before deploying it.
OF: One other thing, what do you think about those One Laptop Per Child XO1 laptops - Jim and John both had one. They passed them around. They were so light and they ran the whole meeting on batteries, didn’t come close to running out of power and that clear display. No hard drive, or CD, just three USB ports. You could turn the display around and read it like a book.
IFF: And those big ears for connecting to a mesh network. If one kid is on the web, they all are. I would like one of those myself just for browsing the web.
OF: I didn’t like the Sugar operating system much but it worked. I tried out the Word Processor and the built in camera.
WW: I know the number from some nonprofit work my company was involved in. There are about 2 billion kids under the age of 17. Kids go to school a lot longer now than they used to. Even in poorer (WEI) countries the average number of years of education is 13 (HS plus 1 year of college). I am sure a large number of them would like these sophisticated learning machines. Just having access to the Wikipedia must mean a lot.
IFF: I heard Intel is trying to make their own, maybe with Windows on it, and India is working on a $40 model.
OF: Even at their current price of $188 these laptops are going to change the World. Not just by themselves but by what the kids are going to learn. I’m afraid America is going to lose its lead in technology.
IFF: Maybe though all that education will make the world a safer place too.
WW: DACS is so laid back and unpretentious. Yet they bring us stuff like this.
OF: And so many other interesting programs: renowned expert John Patrick, MySpace, Digital Music, RFID, the latest Mac news, stuff about how to secure your PC, that Smart Computing Magazine deal. Browsing can’t replace DACS.
IFF: Hey, I’ve got a new term. DACS 2.0

P.S. You are welcome to write a better review. That’s what 2.0 is about.