Riding the wave of 2.0 2013 VOF Week 1



Grabbing the reader’s attention and bringing the story to life is exactly what Web 2.0 does. It takes community and collaboration to highs we could only dream about before technology linked us to this possibility.
When I began thinking about the story surrounding the Web 2.0 we know and use today, I wanted to dig deeper and learn more about the humble beginnings. I was very interested to find that the very first person who used the term Web 2.0 was a woman in 1999 by the name of Darcy DiNucci. She was a consultant on electronic information design (information architecture) and included the phrase in her article, \"Fragmented Future\", DiNucci where she told the world that “The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be understood not as screenfuls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens. It will [...] appear on your computer screen, [...] on your TV set [...] your car dashboard [...] your cell phone [...] hand-held game machines [...] maybe even your microwave oven.”
While in 1999 as Ms. DiNucci presents we were in the embryo phase of Web 2.0, we certainly have to be in the adolescence phase now using the technology to power things like twitter, Facebook, Instagram, online games, cell phones and more. We are learning and applying this technology at a rapid pace making choices and enhancements daily. The world is full of talented people who take this to new levels enhancing our collaboration and making the world a smaller.
The concept of Web 2.0 for me is the community and collaboration we can achieve. We have the ability to contribute and participate with this technology at our fingertips. The world is an open for us to explore and learn.
Personally, I have the opportunity to engage with people from all over the globe daily in my career as a community relations manager for a global company. Without Web 2.0 the world would be much larger and I would not have the friends or the daily interactions and experiences that make my life complete. I cannot imagine a day when I don’t log onto my computer to experience the freedom while I contribute to with global teams, talk with my college age daughter or my mother. Web 2.0 spans the generations making it easier for us to work, play and connect.
With my daily life surrounded by applications that utilize Web 2.0, I wonder about the people who choose to “go off the grid”, back away from this technology, shaking my head, I wonder why they would elect to do that. Are we getting to be an earth with too much access? Are we too addicted to the constant interaction and collaboration we are not able to turn this off? That is certainly something we need to think about, for me, I think the next hurtle is to make certain we get this technology into the hands of women and children all over the globe so they can have these same enriched experiences I have daily. Then we let people make their choice to stay on the grid or get off.
It does still stuck in my mind the irony that while we are talking about Web 2.0 and the influence it has on women’s lives today, in 1999 it was a woman who first used the term.

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