Notes from Millie D

What is it about Web 2.0 that I like?  That is an interesting question that I tried to answer today when mowing my lawn today (I don’t know why).  I thought about the interactivity of the tools but I’m not thrilled about handheld devices that are interactive.  I thought about the laziness time-saving ability of RSS but I have that with digest versions of listservs that I belong to (yes, they still serve a function).  After some time I think I came up with my answer:  structure.  Every Web 2.0 tool has a structure that it works within but it is still customizable for the user (mashups)

If you think about the different tools you understand where I’m going.  Del.icio.us allows me to store my bookmarks in a web based manner but I can the structure allows me to look up my bookmarks as well as other based on tags.  This way I don’t have to remember what exactly the site was about but use the keyword tags.  Flickr works the same way.  Wikis allow me to work collaboratively on a web based project but the end user is not stuck with seeing the final product.  The user can use the structure of wikis to look at previous versions and make comparisons between versions. Blogs allow people to carry on a conversation or evolution of a concept through the comments.  The user is not limited to a static page which presents I version of the conversation.

Are Web 2.0 tools perfect?  No, but these tools are starting to change the culture of conversation which is a good thing.