Let's Talk Web 2.0

We're excited to get folks posting here again; so we thought it would be good form to give everyone an idea of some of the tech we think is worth talking about on Communicate or Die.

In a nutshell, we're looking for posts about Web 2.0 - its promise and pitfalls - in relation to the labor movement.

Also known as social media, collaborative media or new media, Web 2.0 refers to any web-based application that takes advantage of the interactive nature of web itself to involve lots of people in the production and dissemination of information - and in the construction of online communities. Much of the technology is multimedia - allowing people to use text, images, audio and video indifferently.

This kind of democratic and democratizing technology is potentially perfect for a labor movement that is looking for ways to keep its dwindling members involved and engaged. But it's technology that still sees uneven use by unions and their allies.

So in this post we'll just take a quick look at the major types of Web 2.0 applications:

Social Networks
Sites like Facebook and Myspace are the classic examples of successful social networks on the web. Though many other types of sites make use of social networking technology. Social networks offer individuals and organizations a presence on the web, a variety of tools to expand that presence, and many ways to interact with other people in the social network. Members of such networks can form interest groups, and keep in touch with other members using built-in instant messaging and internal email systems - in addition to being able to post messages to group pages.

Social Tagging/Folksonomies
The ability of members of the public to create lists of words they think particular web pages relate to should not be underestimated as a motive force in the growth of Web 2.0. Over time, large social tagging sites have amassed millions of such tags - allowing users with any interest the ability to find other users with similar interests, just by searching on the relevant tags. Organizations looking to expand their web presence, ignore such applications at their peril. Other forms of Web 2.0 also make heavy use of social tagging, and may or may not connect to specialist social tagging sites like del.icio.us.

RSS Feeds
Allowing the titles and summaries of posts to a blog or website to be aggregated by a tiny application called RSS (Really Simple Syndication), and then making the resulting "feed" available to all site visitors via an RSS reader - either built in to web browsers or as a stand-alone program - has vastly expanded the reach of many websites.

Microblogging
This variant of RSS feeds makes it possible for people using microblogging services like Twitter and Pownce to send shot blog messages about their daily doings out anytime from their computers or cell phones or PDAs. Very popular among students, the immediacy and portability of microblogging technology has also been useful to organizers of many silly parties and serious demonstrations alike - and has helped fuel the new organizing technique, the flash mob, together with specialized SMS applications for mass messaging cell phones.

Wikis
These simple websites are notable for their ability to allow any number of people to work collaboratively on a project - constructing the site's content as they go. Invented by Ward Cunningham in 1994, who gave them their original Hawaiian name "wiki wiki" (meaning "hurry quick"), this technology only came into its own over the last few years in the form of "wiki farms" - offering an alternative to the "blog farms" where many bloggers got access to free or cheap blog hosting. Wiki farms offer participant wikis many social networking features free.

Mashups
The idea that media from various technologies can be thrown together to create a new form of media predates the web, but has come to flower thanks to social networking media sites like YouTube - most often in the form users taking digital video, images and music from various sources and merging them together into a new creation.

Virtual Worlds

An outgrowth of video game technology, these 3-D online environments function simultaneously as social networks, games, and a new environment for human affairs of all kinds to be carried on without respect to international boundaries or at times, the laws of physics. Some are web-based, like Google's new Lively world, but the 900 pound gorilla of purpose-built virtual worlds is Second Life, which runs on its own software.

Machinima
A portmanteau created by merging the words "machine" and "cinema," machinima are digital videos taken made entirely within virtual worlds like Second Life.

In closing, it would be remiss of us not to mention older, interactive web-based or web-friendly technologies that have played a role in the development of Web 2.0, and continue to see heavy use on the Brave New Web. The main examples are:

Blogs
The short version of the term "weblog," these very simple interactive websites allow a person or a number of people to make regular updates to their sites in the form of posts which usually displayed in chronological order. The blog software of the 1990s formed the building block of the content management systems of this decade - that now run a large percentage of all sites on the web. More importantly, however, they have inspired the development of much of social networking technology that has now become indispensable on the web. Most blogs now features social tagging and are part of one or more social network - usually via the blog farms that host them. Variations include vlogs (video logs), blikis (blog wikis), and audio blogs (a.k.a. podcasts).

Forums
Developed out of the bulletin board systems of the 1980s and early 1990s, forums - be they web-based or part of other forms of internet-connected software - are an easy way to organize conversations between large numbers of people. Topics of interest are organized as subjects, and forum members can talk to each other about each subject in question by posting to the forum. Posts can be via email, as a variant of listservs, or directly to the forum. Many forums have internal email systems and instant messaging like modern social networks.

Listservs
The granddaddy of all interactive technology, listservs remain in constant use even as new tech comes online daily. A listserv is a just an email list. All list members can post to a single email address and every post is then received as a single email by all list members. Straightforward and becoming old fashioned. But it works, and none of the applications listed above have yet supplanted them.