Videos
Podcasts
Blogs
Quizzes
GamesPosts Tagged: ‘web 2.0’
I have very little time to write this blog post. The holiday weekend is approaching and our office is preparing to close up shop for a couple of days. Soon, everyone in the company will be doing some deep, personal research on how fireworks and barbecues work. On top of that, I’ll be going on vacation for a week. But don’t worry, Chris will keep you company while I’m away. And now, on to the TechStuff topics we covered this week.
According to Julia Angwin and Geoffrey Fowler of The Wall Street Journal, volunteers who contribute and edit entries in Wikipedia are leaving faster than new contributors are joining the site. Angwin and Fowler present several possible explanations for the net loss in editors.
One is that the site’s rules have become more strict over time. In the early days of Wikipedia, it was relatively easy to create an entry. But as Wikipedia’s library of content grew, it became obvious that the site would need to establish firm policies to remain credible. Entries on controversial topics can lead to bickering among contributors. It was important for Wikipedia to create ground rules to reign in the chaos. But those same policies can discourage people from contributing to the site.
The Journal also points out that it’s getting more difficult to find a topic that doesn’t already have its own Wikipedia page. Some volunteers may feel that they can no longer contribute to the site — others have already covered their area of expertise.
The 1,000,000th Word in the English Language is Web 2.0
by Jonathan Strickland | June 10, 2009
I think the two most prolific contributors to the English language have got to be William “Billy” Shakespeare and the tech industry. But while the bard was known for his poetic turn of a phrase, the tech industry is better known for laying waste to linguistic beauty.
Perhaps I’m a bit too harsh. In school, I was an English major. In fact, I focused my studies on Shakespeare. Now I’m a tech journalist and make my living reporting, analyzing and explaining technology to the public. Surprisingly, these two worlds mesh together quite well. But some days the English major inside of me screams in agony as technology shapes my native tongue.
Today is such a day. According to Reuters, the one-millionth word to enter the English language (as designated by The Global Language Monitor) is “Web 2.0“. Some linguists dispute this designation. For one thing, how do you determine when a word becomes official? For another, how do you determine how many English words exist?And how do you decide the order in which a particular potential word becomes an actual one?
A recent Nielsen report found that visiting blogs and social networking sites is now the fourth most popular online activity, replacing e-mail. According to the report, 67 percent of the online population visits “member communities,” which includes social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace as well as blogs.
This trend helps explain why so many companies and organizations have embraced social networking. The Web’s capacity to support interpersonal interaction has been present for years. We’ve really seen people use the Web to connect with one another over the past decade — the so-called Web 2.0 era. The Nielsen report suggests that there’s no reason to expect this trend to level off any time soon.
The report found that three out of 10 people online visit Facebook on a monthly basis. Perhaps even more impressive is that in Brazil 70 percent of the online population visits the social networking site Orkut regularly.
Will Facebook’s blunder change the way we write contracts forever?
by Jonathan Strickland | February 27, 2009
February has been a rough month for Facebook. The social networking site implemented new terms of service (ToS) that had the Internet in a tizzy earlier this month. The ToS implied that not only would Facebook have the right to use any current content uploaded to the site in any way imaginable, but also any content that users had deleted or removed from the site. Under this ToS agreement, anything you ever put on Facebook stopped being yours from that moment on.
The ensuing uproar from Facebook members was enough for Facebook to backtrack and revert to its previous ToS agreement. Since then, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, has posted a blog entry in the official Facebook blog. Zuckerberg says that from this moment on, Facebook will solicit input from its user base when making policy decisions that affect all users.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: In the Lair of the Rat King
- Mandala: Memory Palace, Inception and Simulated Worlds
- Virgin Galactic: $200,000 Ticket to Ride
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
How-to Stuff
- How to Make the Most of a Gallery Crawl (When You’re on a Shoestring Budget)
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 40: Did movies ruin love?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 39: Urban Legends
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 38: Defending Disney Princesses?
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
