Grumpy old web developer
[02]
Web 2.0 - like Web 1.0 but the other way round
Some people are telling us that the web is dead and social media is the way to go now.
Sorry? Isn't social media just part of the web?
What do we do in social media but, essentially, tell others about things we've published on the web? Whether it's a photo on Picasa or a blog article or something we've found, what we're doing is publicising something elsewhere on the web to our circle of friends/contacts/followers (depending on which social media site we're currently on).
So the web is alive, just evolving! What's really happening is that social media is turning the web around. It's no longer just a huge repository of information we can search and pull things our for ourselves, but a 'place' where we can hang out and get things pushed at us whether we want them or not. Those sneaky advertisers that used to plague our TV programs have found a way to reach us on the web too (pun intended!).
The trick now is to sort out what we're really interested in from all the MegaBytes of 'stuff' that bombards (and distracts) us. And now we hear about search engines going social. So far there's still an anti-social switch - by staying logged out of Google/Bing/Yahoo/whatever I can still find what I want, not what I found last week or what all my friends, contacts and followers want me to find.
But, like trying to maintain a semblance of privacy on Facebook, I'm sure that anti-social searching is going to get harder to do!
[01]
Hello, hello... look at me!
I just had a Web 2.0 experience - and it was b!**&y unnerving when I stopped to think about it. I'd just opened up a forum site I 'contribute to' now and again, not even logged in, when up popped an advert for ebay. OK, nothing too bad about that, except that it was animatedly waving things at me that were similar to the last item I bought.
Presumably it got that information via a cookie. I don't have a problem with ebay remembering what I've bought in the past, it's even useful at times, but I do have a problem with it waving that knowledge around when I'm not even on ebay. That's online stalking. Maybe worse. It's like the owner of the camera shop shouting to me across the street to ask how my shiny new macro lens is working. Hey, shut up sunshine! My wife is with me and I haven't told her about that yet!! (Good job it was only the camera shop!!)
Why is the web getting not only in my face, but right up my nose these days? It's a brilliant resource, and I've relied on it for years, but when I walk past a bus stop I don't want the advert for Marks and Sparks showing me, and the rest of the street, what sort of socks (?) I bought there last time - and telling me how many of my mates bought the same thing!
And if that seems far-fetched just think about the RF-ID and 'contactless' technology we're starting to carry about, and how many shopping centres show digital adverts on large screen TVs. Hmmm!