Week 4 Lecture

This week Nathan took the lecture and it was on the new aspect of the internet, web 2.0.

He discussed the new technologies that make web 2.0 (rss, xhtml, xml etc.), the differences between the old and new web forms, and what I think to be the most important aspect of web 2.0: user contribution.

Everybody has a point of view nowadays and they want to express that view as soon as possible. Radio can do it so why can’t the internet? Well now it can thanks to remarkable new technologies that make up web 2.0 This new facet of the internet has a total focus on user contribution and allows users to leave comments on articles (which express themselves and their opinion) and to participate with the website/company. People can express themselves by leaving comments, creating their own blogs or making themselves a social network page such as facebook or myspace. This gives the user tremendous freedom and provides them with a powerful experience whenever they visit a webpage.

Another aspect of web 2.0 I find interesting is that website designs are focusing on simplicity. I thought that with all the new technologies (xml, xhtml etc.) availabe that websites would be beefed up (design wise); I thought that there would be more complex graphics and colour schemes, that there would drastic new and funky designs but I was wrong; it’s the complete opposite. The website designs are getting simpler and easier to use while the technologies grow, with the focus now not really on the design aspect but on user contribution. Websites are providing a service to the user now, not just a product.

Lecture – Carving up the world

The week three lecture was entitled “Carving up the world” with references to both the physical and online worlds.

The main point that I took away from the lecture was that there are more ways than one to accomplish tasks in the world and in networked media forms. Michael used the example of clothes in different cultures; every culture has its own unique way of dressing themselves. What we would wear down the street would be different from, lets say a person from the Middle East, and both would be considered acceptable in their different cultures. This is relevant to media forms as there is no one way to create a piece of media, there are many different ways and each has their unique characteristics.

He then went on to say that books and websites are conventions, that they have a certain structure and design pattern associated with them. Michael also said that we should follow these conventions and design patterns but also to break them and expand upon them. I agree with this because this will bring about exciting new options and designs in any media form, not just networked media. If everyone sticks to the basic patterns and design structures then most pieces of media would become repetitive, stale and boring. I know I will take this into account for the first assessment task.

To finish the lecture Michael summarised the Web 1.0 style of a website and the more modern Web 2.0 style. To me the modern 2.0 style seems a bit less casual than the Web 1.0 style. My understanding of the 2.0 style is that it is breaking and expanding on the convention of the 1.0 style (hierarchy of pages of Web 1.0 compared to a loose organisation of pages for Web 2.0).