Web 2.0 Boot Camp

A funny thing happened…

• In the late 20th century, traditional media was all powerful and saturating

A funny thing happened…

• Media barons were the world’s richest

A funny thing happened…

• Newspapers were “rivers of gold”

A funny thing happened…

• The “media” controlled the message.

• Governments implemented media ownership laws to stop one individual or group becoming too powerful

“You can be Prince of the Papers or Queen of the Screen, but you cannot be both”

A funny thing happened…

• Then a funny thing happened…

A funny thing happened• People began by-passing the media

– They advertised and bought stuff on ebay instead of in newspapers– They read and wrote blogs instead of reading newspapers– They watched Youtube and surfed the internet instead of watching TV– They listened to podcasts instead of radio– They found information by Googling instead of from watching, listening and reading the media– They flitered the information they wanted using RSS readers

A funny thing happened

• This changed the economics of the media

A funny thing happened

• And empowered the population to think for themselves

A funny thing happened• Now society is becoming engaged with itself again• Communities of interest have sprung up everywhere• Activism has found a new voice• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDWqQSgCgH0

The “long tail” phenomenon

• Traditional media tries to get a single message out. A “sound bite”

• New media allows you tailor the information you want to read or the audience you want to reach…

• To a ridiculous level of detail• http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/04/how_to_make_a_luxury_ant.html

The “long tail” phenomenon

The “long tail” phenomenon

• For example, while an individual blog may only have six readers, small blogs have more readers combined than the largest media websites

• What about for environmental managers? Isn’t most of the information we need in the long tail?

• What about farmers?• Bureaucrats and planners?

What does this mean for you?

• Find your voice• Thrive in the information overloaded world

– More efficient in managing information– Survival skills for 21st Century

• More complex, detailed information to be created and distributed at relatively low cost

• Interact easily and cheaply• Communities of interest can spring up, not

limited by geographic closeness

Learning with the Fang

• Note to self: Mike has immersed himself in this world for three years and is participating in debates on where it goes next

• If he goes too fast – yell out!

What do you need to leave with?

• You need to be able to write a blog

• You need to be able to read more than one feed per day for two weeks through an RSS reader

• You need to have an awareness of the power of this new set of tools

• Question: Are we committed to spending two weeks writing a post a day?

Extra learning

• Comment on other blogs and participate in conversations

• Use RSS to pull in multimedia files – Text, audio, video, images

• Have ideas on how to use these tools to participate in communities of interest

• Have ideas on how to use these tools to build communities of interest

Blogs are messages

• An email is a message sent to a defined audience

• A blog is a message left for the world to read, which invites comment back

Blogging

• Number of blogs is growing exponentially

RSS

• RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is used to publish frequently updated content such as blogs, news or podcasts.

• RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.

• RSS content can be read using an "RSS reader". • You subscribe to a feed by entering the feed's link into

the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process.

• The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

Podcasts

• Podcasts are audio recordings that can be downloaded from the web

• They can be professional radio shows – (eg. BBC, ABC, HBR)

• Or very unprofessional anything– Runescape phone call

• They are relatively inexpensive to produce

Podcasts

• iTunes podcast directory has 125,000 podcasts.

• The Podcast Network Stats 2007

Youtube

• During November 2007, 138 million people, or about three-quarters of Internet users in the United States, watched on average 3 hours and 15 minutes of online video, or 45 minutes more than they watched in January 2007.

• Those that have been lost by TV are likely to be found on YouTube, where 74 million people watched 39 videos each on average in November

Social networking

• Social networking is a loose term that describes all the ways people interact with each other on the web

Social networking

• Growth in $USD economy on Second Life

Social networking

• Growth in the use of ebay