Week 3: Web 2.0 and Podcasting where is this heading?

Web 2.0, according to Tim O’Reilly is described as the second generation of the web. It aims to catalyze creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. In the past the web being a start in a sense had limited offerings, as in it wasn’t developed well enough for us to know what it would bring about. The platform and base was created, but to what extent it would grow was unsure. It held with it a vast amount of promises, such as search engines and information. But to what extent and what efficiency those search engines would go to was unknown. Web 1.0 was Britannica.com, and it evolved into stronger information based sharing system known as Wikipedia.com. The webmaster no longer provides you with information, you can now update, change, and add more information. Web 2.0 is about sharing information; everyone contributes to the single process of viewing or sending information. Everyone on the web is an equal participant of the web. Just by viewing a page you become a participant of the sharing process of Web 2.0, which helps in for example as listed by Tim O’Reilly, ‘cost per click’, ‘folksonomy’, and ‘syndication’. Web 2.0 is now the basis of the web that is ever-growing, and that foreshadows limitless opportunities of participation and growth. In Web 2.0, just by being connected to the internet you are a participant and donator to the World Wide Web, just as Tim Burners Lee had imagined it.

I see Pod casting’s future as this: you don’t need to add a display picture any more, you don’t need to type out your thoughts in your blog or your information for Wikipedia.com, you can just turn on your webcam, and boom you can podcast your face, with your voice, and what you have to say to the world. Podcasting and Web 2.0 show us a digitally wireless enhanced future in communication. Every communicative devise built into your computer, and you do not have to move of your chair to work, or learn. Information is not only your fingertips, but communications is at its BEST and maximum. Web 2.0 promises the web as a central revolving basis to life. According to the Museum of Media History people have “access to a breath and depth of information, everyone participates to create a breathing living medias cape. The year 2014 the press cease to exist”. Automated personalized recommendations will govern the web. According to the Museum of Media history, Information will be custom tailored to each customer, and everyone will not only create but also consume media at the same time. Real Simple Syndication feeds can allow the placing of information automatically, with the creation of Googazon, a mixture of Google.com’s grid and Amazon.com’s recommendations. I believe EPIC is the future of Web 2.0 and pod casting. Evolving personalized information construct, which will help organized and sort the “chaotic” (Museum of Media History) amounts of information and also “unshackle” us from the constraints of not only commercials, but time, computer screens, keyboards. The future is human emotion generously attached to the web. Human emotion, action, thoughts, and energy will be the feeding wire to the web along with its own technology.

Week 3: Video Podcast

Week 2: Seeking a best of: Karen Cheng's Snippets of Life

Karen Cheng’s Snippets of Life
http://www.karencheng.com.au/

This blog is a perfect example of organization. All entries are organized properly and written under subheadings under particular headings. The website has beautiful colors and has a very simple yet attractive layout. The banner is very nice and simple, since the background is white a single picture with looks great. The links on the right go perfectly with the banner layout and sit perfectly on the entire website.

This web-blog is very homely. The author of this blog, Karen Cheng is not solely a publisher or an author, but is also a “designer, writer, artist, web chick, mother”. She writes about all the roles and responsibilities that she holds within her. She doesn’t write just as a mother, author, artist, web chick, or designer. Her blogs are a collaboration of all the jobs she does. This idea is very unique and attractive to the mass population of females who either do or do not work. They can keep up an online diary regardless of their busy schedules as mothers, wives, employees, employers, designers, or whatever it is that they do as an occupation. Karen Cheng invites people to take an insight into her life and what she does. She writes in her first hand experiences in life such as her pregnancies and the upbringing she performs on her son. She talks about her shopping experiences. She even writes about her family and friends and the people she interacts with on a daily basis.

A web blog like this is very insightful and luring towards people who make require inspiration in life. It is also an inspiration for those who can relate to Karen Cheng. Its an experimental devise that women can use, without experiencing those certain things themselves. They can actually learn from Karen Cheng. She has not only her personal emotions and experiences, but also factual information alongside her experiences that can help mothers. It is also an inspiration for those mothers who find themselves to be bored at home taking care of children, and not working. Karen addresses the issues related to those roles of a girl, a mother, a wife, and a partner. Karen talks about pregnancy, sex, and doctors appointments. These are issues that women face on a regular basis whether they are married, in a relationship, or not in a relationship.

Week 1: What is the biggest issue facing blogging, citizenship and the future of media?

According to http://www.dictionary.com/, a blog is “an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page. Blogging has replaced the physical entity of a diary through a virtually visible and endless diary of thoughts which maybe changed and altered with time stamps, as opposed to scratches and white-out on actual (scented, coloured) paper. We are in the future of the media we had imagined some generations ago. Anyone with access to the internet is considered a citizen of blogging, but is every citizen in this world a citizen of blogging as well? No, not every citizen is. In fact most third world countries do not even have CPU’s let alone access to the internet and therefore weblogs. The digital divide is the biggest issue facing blogging, and citizenship and the future of media.

North America inevitably has access to the internet, as well as laws that support the future of the media. I would like to put my focus towards the South of our borders, where newly emerged internet access, leading to blogging, is being demoted. I have looked at 2 cases in which internet bloggers were persecuted for typing out their thoughts and views online on their personal blogs. The first case includes a man named Wei, who was beaten to death in China recently. Wei observed a confrontation between villagers and inspectors. The villagers were protesting against the dumping of waste near their homes. Wei took out his cell phone to capture the protest, and within a few seconds he was attacked by over 50 municipal inspectors. In another case taken place in Saudi Arabia, a blogger (who was also an IT professional) was arrested on December 10th, 2007 for including politically revolting writings and thoughts. His blogs included resistance and criticisms of religious extremism. In both these cases, freedom of speech has cost 1 man his life, and another man his health (we still do not know what will become of him). Although China is considered a middle class country and is emerging tremendously economically, its citizens freedom of speech and rights are still not protected. Saudi Arabia condones any person who goes against the governments teachings. These are the biggest issues facing blogging right now that in some nation’s blogging and freedom of expression costs people their lives, even though those people are citizens of that nation. Where the internet exists, and blogs exist, anyone is a citizen of blogging and the internet, but unfortunately blogging doesn’t have its own laws and regulations on a global level. Blogging should not lead to arrests of citizens. If a country accepts the internet, they must with it accept everything that the internet has to bring with it, which is freedom of expression and thoughts and freedom of the exchange of information.