August 05, 2008

The People of Web 2.0

I have given dozens of presentations and led many discussions on web 2.0 for various audiences. In addition, I teach a 2-day workshop for the Kent State University School of Library & Information Science so that future librarians are not afraid to "play" in this user-generated social web environment.

If you talk to anyone associated with one of my activities, I focus the discussions on people rather than the tools. I show the tools and the students play, but we also come back around to the user of the tool on the other end of the 'net. The tools come and go with no rhyme or reason, but the pull of people is driven by specific needs and desires! I feel for librarians and information professionals to be equal partners in the new web phenomena, we must understand the human drive or addiction to the social web.

I have seen the first talk/presentation/movie that really highlights the points I try to make. I am sure this video collaboration led my Dr. Michael Wesch does it much more eloquently than my attempts.

Anyone that wants to understand the viral nature of the web must watch this presentation. It is almost an hour but it beats any prime-time reality TV show I have seen recently.

By the way...
He talks about "gaming the system" where the middle frame of your video becomes the thumbnail that everyone sees. After watching this movie, you have to ask yourself did he purposely use the kids to drive traffic? Hmmm?

I thank Bill Claspy my colleague in the Kelvin Smith Library for making sure on added this to my consumption of everything web 2.0.

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Comments

Posted by James
Posted on August 27, 2008 04:03 PM

Definitely used the kids to drive traffic. Ppl are getting very creative these days in their traffic generating methods... check out this http://www.gettingmorevisitors.com/2008/08/23/how-do-you-make-viral-link-bait-for-a-boring-site/ and you can see how true it is