There has been a ton of information in the readings so far. however, there have been several concepts that have jumped out as being more important than some of the others. These concepts are :
~Understanding the different phases of the web
~Participatory Culture
~The organization of information
~Wikipedia
--- first of all, it is important to note that the web as we know it today was not always so. Just like a living breathing organism, it has grown, and changed as it has evolved over the past twenty-some years. At first the internet was limited, Web 1.0. It contained mostly corporate informational websites. It was accessed with dialup modems, and with paid for services, such as AOL. Then, it evolved to web 2.0. The websites evolved into the first social networking sites such as Myspace, and personal websites and blogs. In today’s 3.0 web, it has evolved even further. The web is incorporated into phones, and tablets, and half of what we do in the developed world is on the internet. It can be argued that the web has become this melting pot of ideas, that can grow and change on its own.
---Which moves us into the participatory culture of today’s internet using world. As internet users, we are not content just to sit back and watch the web role out in front of us anymore. We feel as if we have to be a part of it, and that in itself has driven the web forward. Between wikipedia, and Twitter, and blogging, and polls, everyone that utilizes the internet is adding their own input and ideas. Corporations have cashed in on this by using crowd sourcing. They can simply get information from people and their product, and in general over the internet. It is free to them, and people love speaking their mind and giving feedback.
---The way information is organized also plays a huge part in the internet as we know it today. Electronic information is organized much differently than physical information. Physical information exists in a real space, therefor, it cannot be infinite in how it is organized. It would not make sense to put pie filling in 6 places in a grocery store. There would be no logical way for people to make sense of it . However, in the electronic world, where information does not occupy a physical space, it is much easier to list information in many different place. Hash tags are social networking’s answer to this. One post might be listed as “blue” “ocean” “hawaii” “summer”, and appear in each of those categories.
--- Finally, there is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a massive online encyclopedia. It is non profit, and anyone can edit it. However, there are people that monitor very strictly what can and cannot be put on the pages. However, not all of the details are caught all the time, which can result in some interesting facts on the pages. My favorite was in middle school when for a brief time ( when my class mate was doing their “research” ) it had stated Edgar Allen Poe had died in the year 2203. Though it is a great idea to allow people to edit pages, this just goes to show that not everyone has positive insight to add. But wikipedia offers for the most part, a great background for research, if used the correct way. Unfortunately most students don’t, which has resulted in many schools banning it. It was such an issue in my high school, that they taught us a correct way to use it. Say some one has to do a research project on a subject which they have no prior knowledge of. They would have no idea where to start. So they could look up their subject on wikipedia, read through it to get a background knowledge, and to pull keywords from the article. These key words can be used in research in more reputable sources. Also, Wikipedia requires people to cite their sources, you can follow their sources to learn more, and research further.
The internet is a very interesting place. It is like its own little world, that will only continue to grow. As it grows, its ways of organization, and how we interact with it will only continue to evolve and change.
No comments:
Post a Comment