Flickr, Spurl, Shadows, del.icio.us, Simpy... all so much

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$var
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Flickr, Spurl, Shadows, del.icio.us, Simpy... all so much

Post by $var »

So, I'm looking into what this tagging jazz is, as I am interested in taking my company from 1.0 to 'Web 2.0'...

I know that bloggable news entries are flashy, and generate good hits by the Google... but I've been reading about tagging. There are so many options to set an account up on and keep track of your favourite pages. I initially started out with the idea of having site users be able to post little comments on subjects, via Flickr tags... but now that I'm researching the 'revolution' I find that there is a lot of burgeoning ideas, but not a lot of clarity as to what exactly it's uses are...

I thought for posting comments on subjects, I see now that people use it more for tracking sites...
What other things can be done with this technology?
Gambler
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Post by Gambler »

Yeah, I'm interested too. I want to use Web 2.0 but I have no idea what it is. Can someone help me? <--- this is sarcasm
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Post by matthijs »

O yeah I heard about it too! I heard it's really cool, with all fancy AJAX stuff, tagging and folksonomy :lol:

No serious, “Web 2.0” is kind of buzzy at the moment, but in fact means something different to just about everyone. Lots of people who "jump the wagon" focus on the technology while (maybe?) forgetting what it's all about: the users. Jeff Croft said it very well:
Web 2.0, to me, is a way of thinking about users and your service of them. It’s about providing rich user experiences that are easy and pleasant to use. It’s about caring for your users enough to let them own their data. It’s about letting users interact with one another in new and innovative ways. It’s about device independence, and letting your users access your content in any way they like. It’s about letting your users add value to your site. It’s about letting users contribute in all sorts of ways, to content and even to code.
in one of the comments on an article http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archive ... n-industry by Keith Robinson.

So I think that if you follow Jeff's statement, it all starts by thinking about your users and what they want and want to do. And if some technology can help with that, then that's nice.
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$var
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Post by $var »

I was reading in Fast Company, and it had a little diagram of what makes a web site 2.0

- Blog Friendly (Users can click to blog an article in their own web log... perfect for generating hits to your site)
- Open Architecture (Allows users to contribute, as well, make changes ... via Wiki)
- Strong User Community (Entice them with your site, keep them with your sites users)
- Tagging (Users contribute their comments to a topic)

I know it's all buzzy, but the fact is that web sites have to step up to accomodate users who are looking for simple and effective websites that they can contribute info and take away from it when they are looking for.

I don't really even know where to start with this sort of thing.
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Post by Gambler »

Let's start from where it should start. What is your website about and what is its purpose?
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$var
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Post by $var »

well, that's a good call...
i have a bunch of sites...

let's say that the site that i am interested in implimenting tagging and click-to-blog on is an event site.
my vision would be:

a button that says 'blog this' and it directs them to their blog.
- for this would i need to offer many blog software options?
- is there anything that can be to have one button for any blog tool?

a field that allows a user to add a comment, or tag...
- like how Flickr works where friends can comment on a photo
- i suppose that this could be a simple input form, nothing to special there i guess...

- tools like spurl and shadow are neat, but are really a service onto themselves.
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Post by matthijs »

Let's start from where it should start. What is your website about and what is its purpose?
Gambler says it well, in my opinion.

Maybe what so-called web 1 was:
What do you offer your users?
- we do this
- we offer that
- we are good at this and that

But the "web 2" takes it a step further:
What is a user looking for?
- what problem does someone want to solve
- what is the easiest way to solve that for him/her?

A "user" doesn't care about you, an organisation or a tool. He only cares about the problem he wants to solve. He wants an easy way to store and show his photo's (flickr). He wants an easy way to mail and chat with friends (gmail). etc etc

To take your example, I think the questions you should ask yourself are: What does someone looking for an event want to do? Needs to do? How can that be done as easily as possible? Don't think how cool it would be to do something with tagging and search a use for that. Only add for example tagging if that is one way you make sure a user can do what he wants to do.

So, what would a user want to do with the event site?
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$var
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Post by $var »

[quote=matthijs]A "user" doesn't care about you, an organisation or a tool.[/quote]

This is true and false though...
If you are specifically targeting a group, to buy a product, or use a service,
you are trying to build a community where the user feels (somewhat) part of the culture of the company.
That's something that can be said for Google's architecture.

Culture is how large companies survive in tangible profit, and can(will be) true for the web.
Interactivity builds a mental connection to something,
right now the effort is in creating loyalties by creating a fool-proof site.


The whole point of incorporating more 'stuff' on your site is to allow the user to feel
like they are contributing to the shaping of a company.

The trick is the balance, that does make the 'user'/'client' feel something positive about your company,
not just your site.

---------------------

I think 2.0 is about bridging the gap between site and company.
The web site should be an extension of your company.
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Re: Flickr, Spurl, Shadows, del.icio.us, Simpy... all so muc

Post by Roja »

$var wrote:I know that bloggable news entries are flashy, and generate good hits by the Google... but I've been reading about tagging. There are so many options to set an account up on and keep track of your favourite pages. I initially started out with the idea of having site users be able to post little comments on subjects, via Flickr tags... but now that I'm researching the 'revolution' I find that there is a lot of burgeoning ideas, but not a lot of clarity as to what exactly it's uses are...
Lets start with the core concept of what tags do.

We have information on the internet. But not just some information - we have a truly mind-numbing, impossibly large collection of information. According to a 2001 study, there were more than 550 *billion* documents on the web. Thats over 90 pages per person alive on the planet today!

How do you find what you need in that mess? Search? Word of mouth?

Both require some level of categorization of the information. What information does a webpage have? Is it about PHP or Perl?

Thats what tags hope to accomplish. Flickr shows very quickly why tagging is useful. You upload a picture, and you give it a couple of tags - perhaps "Dog", and "Bee". Suddenly, your picture is part of a grouping of pictures showing dogs in bee costumes.

Tags help categorize information. Whether that information is websites, blog articles, poems, or even, yes, dogs in bee costumes, it helps people find them.

Web 2.0 is about information with few restrictions, highly categorized. Google maps provide high-quality maps, categorized by location, with few restrictions on use. Yahoo news provides high-quality news, categorized by news type, with few restrictions on use.

All of which helps other sites incorporate that information into their site - getting the information out to more people, faster.

Think of it as the worlds biggest dewey decimal system. Without rules.
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Post by matthijs »

This is true and false though...
you're right. My point is not always true, or maybe even only in some situations. Maybe people don't care about an organisation in the beginning, but will when a community is build around the organisation, products or services.
Roja makes some good points about the tagging thing.
(ha, those beedogs are cool)
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Post by onion2k »

The problem with tagging is that they'd be pointless on any site that isn't attempting some sort of social networking .. and lets face it, that's 99.999% of websites.

If you're looking to integrate "Web 2.0" elements into your own sites I'd look at rich user interfaces (autocomplete forms, revealing hidden elements, etc), AJAX (only if it's really necessary though), and really good usability and design. Tagging, blogging, that sort of thing .. it's just not applicable to the average shop or brochure site.
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$var
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Post by $var »

thanks for the thoughts guys, sometimes i don't have anyone to bounce ideas at or clear up what i'm missing in my learning process.
that's for being here.
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Post by Roja »

onion2k wrote:The problem with tagging is that they'd be pointless on any site that isn't attempting some sort of social networking .. and lets face it, that's 99.999% of websites.
I don't agree with that.

How about Amazon for example? Tagging their books by category makes a ton of sense, and makes it easier to include their content on your site to offer to users. Ditto to yahoo's news, weather.com's weather reports, and even google's maps. None of which have anything to do with social networking, and all far from useless.

In my opinion, one of the key points of Web 2.0 is that it is a form of the unix philosophy for the web - small components, done right, and reusable. It saves time, development effort, and allows you to focus on the bigger picture.

If you are an average shop, and you want more sales, you'd do well to provide your items (ala amazon) via a webservice, and with clear categories (tag) for other sites to include.
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Post by Gambler »

But the "web 2" takes it a step further: What is a user looking for?
I'd say that usual web is also about user expectations, so it's not "2.0" prerogative.
a field that allows a user to add a comment, or tag...
Well, comment is comment. Although, it really helps when you can preview comments without refreshing the page. (This is a reasonable thing to use JavaScript for.)

As for the tags, I don't use the likes of del.icio.us and probably never will. However, non-2.0 tags can be useful for simulating overlapping categorie (like genres). And they're fairly easy to implement too. You tables would look something along these lines:
items (id, attr1, attr2, ...)
links (itemId, tagId) <-- added by people who add items
genre (id, name, description) <-- added by site admins
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Post by Moocat »

If I had to sum up Web 2.0 in the simplest fashion possible...

Ultra-connectivity

Definition
Users now want the ability to connect everything to everything. They want to be able to get news from your site on their phone, their blog, instant email, rate your story, comment on things, tell other users, congregate in social areas, share ideas, feel important, learn new things, see news related to things they like, find new sources of information and generally be in the area they feel information is the most "free".
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