E-NEWS VOL2 ISSUE 3

New Social Standards

Part of what Web 2.0 stands for is the ability to allow people who use the internet to contribute to it and share content. This new way of thinking encompasses the idea that people on the web don’t just consume the information that’s available any more; they are becoming the major contributors of it.

For example, the delivery of news over the internet isn’t solely provided by major corporations such as CNN, MSN, Yahoo!, etc.. any more. Users are now finding news and contributing it to the more independent media outlets such as Digg.com and people can vote for the stories that they like or dislike and leave their comments for the world to see. In the “old days”, this type of contribution wasn’t possible because there weren’t such technologies in place that allowed the common non-techie person to develop and provide online content easily.

Blogging is something that is excelling and becoming more and more popular every day. From 10 year-olds in Australia to 103 year-olds in nursing homes, almost anyone from any walk of life can create their own “online journals” to tell their story and get their word out. It is now as easy as a few clicks and a paragraph to educate the world on any subject and have it be absorbed and discussed by anyone. Not only that, but there are now business start-ups that bring in all of their revenue just from blogging by providing unique and fresh content and selling banner space to online advertisers. And because of the new easy-to-use web-based applications available today, even that business model can be used by anyone as a source of income.

Combined with RSS Feeds, information from blogs and other outlets becomes even easier to access from virtually any where at any time. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and that’s exactly what it is. RSS creates live news feeds from any content that’s available on the web. If you have a mobile phone, an email address, or even just a computer with internet access you can have headlines from your favorite sites delivered to you in real-time. On the other side, if you have a website and don’t utilize RSS, imagine being able to deliver content to your users and supporters without worrying about emails or other means of manual notification.

In short, information is now moving faster than ever because of these new online applications that allow anyone to create and deliver content around the globe. People are communicating, getting more involved, and most importantly gaining access to massive amounts of information and learning from it. The world is now connected and more social than ever. I can only imagine what the future will bring.

Resources and more information:
Web 2.0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
Blogging - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging
RSS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss