Week 5

Week 5’s lecture discussed the very relevant topic of social media and web 3.0. Within the lecture, we all discussed the different forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. and the concept of ‘churn’. It was interesting to learn about how serious churn is to social media; that the different ideas and culture around a particular website could disappear once another improved social networking platform come along… Which was very much the case for MySpace when Facebook was launched in quick success. The decline in popularity and users of MySpace was exponential once Facebook arrived and saw to the depletion of MySpace entirely. It’s only a matter of time before some of swanky new social media website comes along and overtakes Facebook. Since Facebook’s launch, other sites like Tumblr, Twitter and Instgram are becoming hugely popular and aren’t as heavy on the information sharing as Facey is, which is nice because as a tumblr user, I don’t have to provide details about when I was born or where I live or how I am feeling.

I found it pretty interesting to learn about the ownership of the content we publish online via these social media websites. I wasn’t really aware that Facebook claim they become the rightful owner of content published whereas Twitter allows the user to maintain ownership of the content they publish.  I thought this to be alarming, although I personally don’t have any real qualms about this because I barely publish content on any of my accounts. I also thought it was pretty crazy how much of an effect social media has and how much is can feed unhealthy habits among its users.  Stress and anxiety, jealousness, addiction and a false sense of identity are all very real consequences and I thought this article on social media and its effects on teenagers was really interesting. You can find it: here

We also discussed the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.  From what I understand, Web 2.0 has created a far more personal way to use the internet by introducing social media platforms and has increased the ways to find information and share content. It’s described as ‘the widely read-write web’.  In Web 1.0, ‘the mostly read only web’, its main focus was about owning content and information and people generally absorbed information, not contribute to it. Within the tutorial, we discussed the features of Web 3.0, ‘ the portable personal web’, which is focused on the individual and ‘consolidating dynamic content (digital Inspiration, 2013). 

References:
-Digital Inspiration (2004-2013). Web 3.0 Concepts Explained in Plain English.  Retrieved 25/08/2013 at http://www.labnol.org/internet/web-3-concepts-explained/8908/

Tutorial Task: It would be cool as beans if you guys could fill out my survey! You can find it: here