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| Picture 1: Social web (Source: www.squidoo.com) |
Welcome to my third tutorial blog. Today I will talk about the world wide web in the 21st century as it has tremendously changed the way people communicate with each other. The term social web describes online tools that help people communicate nowadays and is one part of the concept of web 2.0 which sees the end user of web content not only as the user but also as a participant. So in essence, social web describes the way people interact with each other by creating a new universe of web content - the social web.
One important part of social web is social networking. Social networking sites are numerous and the most well-known and popular for personal use and to connect with friends are Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and for building business networks linkedin. There are also other networking applications like chat programs such as Skype and Windows Live Messenger. These networks build a social structure in which people are connected due to some kind of interdependency like friendship, common interests, knowledge or beliefs. Via these networks, people exchange their own created contents like commentaries, photo albums, videos, blogs and so on. The following website and video gives some more information on the topic.
Another popular part of the social web is blogging. This is actually what I am doing right now. I am creating my tutorial blog 3 and you are reading it. Blogs are websites maintained by an individual or a group who post regular commentaries or descriptions of events. This blog is also interactive in a way that you can add comments to it. Blogs are also usually about a specific subject. Many people document their experiences that they have on trips or write about another topic on a regular basis. The following video will give you deeper insight into blogging.
Another interesting topic in the social web is the so-called podcasting. This word actually replaced the initial name of webcasting due to the popularity of Apple's iPod and the use of that format on this device. A podcast is a series of digital media files, audio or video, that are released episodically and then downloaded by users using a so-called podcatcher, a program that downloads podcasts and checks them for updates. ITunes for example is a popular podcatcher and I frequently use it for downloading podcasts. The lectures of my Computing in the Business Environment course and other courses at the University of Florida are also offered in the form of podcasts. It is a very useful technology and most contents are free for everyone. If you plan on learning Chinese for example, you can download free Chinese language podcasts and start today! The following video will give you some more insights into the world of podcasting.
There are numerous other parts of the social web such as forums and social bookmarking and so on. The web is more and more becoming a place that is not only created for end users, but by end users. I spend approximately half of my time on the web by creating content. I am active in a number of social networks and right now, I am blogging. I even manage some contacts to people that I almost never see in person over the web. Without this possibility I would most probably have lost these contacts eventually. As you can see, I am a fan of the social web and web 2.0. I think it is highly valuable as long as you do not let it become a replacement for your real life. Social networking via the internet can also be dangerous. A proof of that is a computer game called World of Warcraft. It is half game half social network. People there build personal avatars with which they walk through a simulated world and can interact and even talk to other people's avatars with their computer's microphone. Some people get so addicted to this game that they spend all their time in this virtual world just to eventually lose their contacts in the real world. These people are more the exception though and it should just give you an example of the dangers of social networking via the internet.
I hope you have enjoyed my blog and will come back soon!
Best,
Funky Fred
Sources:
http://www.squidoo.com/whatissocialnetowrking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
http://www.youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com
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