I guess we can add the Web to the list of things that are officially “dead,” at least according to Wired‘s cover story. Is the web really dying? The New York Times doesn’t think so. But making the ridiculous statement that the Web is dead sure got everyone talking about Wired. Think that’s what they wanted?
Previously: The death of everything
Internet Explorer 6, the bane of web designers for years (including me, when I worked on my company’s websites and web-based software), has an interesting story behind it. The browser was first released by Microsoft 10 years ago, but even with Internet Explorer up to version 8 and alternatives like Firefox and Chrome freely available, 20% of web users continue to surf with this behemoth. It can’t display modern websites correctly and is no longer supported by giants like Google. So why do people continue to use it?
Internet Explorer 6 came out when the web was still the Wild West, so to speak, and Microsoft and Netscape were battling over browser dominance. Microsoft won that war and so developed a browser, Version 6, that ignored many of the standards the web had been built on. This forced many web developers to hack their websites so they would “work” in both browsers, or to eschew leaps forward in web design like Cascading Style Sheets because IE6 didn’t display them properly. You could say that IE6 kept a lot of web developers employed, since we had to spend so much time forcing our sites to work in that one browser, while still displaying correctly in the standards-compliant browsers.
Now 10 years later, IE6 is the second most popular browser, behind IE8. But why does it keep hanging on long after the plug should have been pulled? Is it because dinosaur corporate IT departments won’t upgrade their employees? Is it because users just don’t know any better? It’s a mystery for the ages, although this PopSci article does a good job of delving into the reasons.
In the meantime, try to remember what the web was like back in the Year 2000. That was the age of Web 1.0. We had barely survived Y2K. We didn’t have blogs or Twitter or YouTube or RSS feeds. What a desolate time for us all. Isn’t it time we moved on?
Inside the Excruciatingly Slow Death of Internet Explorer 6 (PopSci)
IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On (Mashable)
Modern browsers for modern applications with upgrade links (Official Google Enterprise Blog)
Save IE6 and IE6 Funeral
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Posted in Geeking Out
Tagged Browsers, Google apps, IE6, Internet Explorer, Stories, Web
Google launched Google Buzz, its social media application for Gmail, over the last couple of days, and everyone on the web has an opinion, including me. Some opinions are unnecessarily hostile for a new software application. The social web is a very friendly place for the knee-jerk reaction.
After using Buzz for a little while, I have decided that I mostly like it. Here’s why.
Most people are comparing Buzz to Facebook and Twitter. Buzz does a lot of the good things Facebook does, only much, much better. The interface is cleaner and easier to use. So far, I have not had to worry about catching spam, malware or viruses from Buzz, and it avoids all the inanities of Facebook. The commenting and like features are super-easy to use; the privacy features take a little more figuring out (especially if you don’t use Gmail’s Groups feature), but not much, and they are also easier and more versatile than Facebook’s, as far as I can tell. The integration with Google Reader is especially powerful, and I would like to see that strengthened over time, particularly so that I don’t have to read everyone’s shared items twice.
I like that Buzz lets me communicate very easily with people I email a lot, particularly friends and family. It’s great for quick, asynchronous chat sessions that I would normally carry on over email. I like to see what my friends are reading on the web and quickly comment on them. I would close my Facebook account today and only use Buzz if there weren’t so many people on Facebook who I want to stay in touch with and who seem unlikely to move. Regardless, I think I will be visiting Facebook even less in the future.
Buzz is not a competitor with Twitter, though. It does not even try to do the things that Twitter does well. I use Twitter to find news, links and trends. It’s basically my window on the social web. I like it because I can drop in when I have time and ignore it when I don’t. I would never try to follow high-volume posters like Mashable or the New York Times on Buzz. That would quickly get overwhelming.
Also, my audience on Twitter is very different. It is larger and made up mostly of people who don’t know me, who I assume are more interested in specific topics I frequently write about and post links on. So I will continue to use Buzz and Twitter as complementary networks, rather than try to replace one with the other.
I suspect that Google knows this and that is why they let you feed your Twitter content into Buzz. I disconnected my Twitter feed from Buzz, though. There is too much possibility for redundancy, and besides, I tweet a lot. I don’t want to overwhelm the people following me on Buzz with too much noise. I also didn’t connect my FriendFeed to Buzz for the same reasons.
Some people are concerned about the privacy of Buzz. These people didn’t take a few minutes just to learn the software before getting all upset about it, I suspect. You can turn Buzz off — look for the link at the bottom of the page. You can block people from following you. You can make your posts private. Buzz launches with suggestions for people to follow culled from your email and chat contacts and people you’re sharing with on Reader, but you don’t have to follow any of them.
The biggest concern may be that Buzz posts the list of people you’re following and people following you on your Google Profile page. This is no different from what Twitter does, but it’s a bit more personal, since these people are also your email contacts. It is very easy to turn this public display off, which I did straightaway. Just go to your Google Profile page (click your name in Buzz), click Edit Settings and then uncheck the box beside “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me.”
So you can choose to follow me on Buzz (via my Google Profile) or on Twitter or both. I post more to Twitter and it’s more impersonal but possibly more interesting. But on Buzz we can have conversations about the links I share. Both have value. Where you likely won’t see much of me anymore is Facebook. I don’t think I’ll miss it.
More opinions and help with Buzz:
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Posted in Geeking Out
Tagged Buzz, Gmail, Google, Google Buzz, Google Reader, Opinions, Product reviews, Social media, Twitter, Web
Image via Wikipedia
Probably one of the best innovations of the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon is tagging. A tag is “a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information” (source). Tags can be used to identify blog posts, bookmarks, photos, videos, presentations, events, etc., and are supported by pretty much every Web 2.0 tool. Tags are generally assigned informally and without regard to a structure of categories; they are more like annotations and are often assigned in addition to categories, such as on blog posts.
The genius of tagging is that it organically builds connections over time between seemingly unconnected content. If my blog post and your video and his bookmark and her photograph all have the same tag, then we can start to see how they are related in some way. This leads to a bottoms-up classification system for web content that is often called a folksonomy.
The problem is that tags are arbitrarily decided on by the content creator, and with language being what it is, one tag can mean many different things to many different people. Take the word development, for instance. In my own little industry, it can refer to the process of creating software or giving aid to low-resource countries. In other contexts, it might refer to child development or personal development or a large and ugly subdivision.
The nonprofit field has bypassed this limitation by coming up with some unique tags to identify our content. If we use these tags consistently, we can easily locate a wealth of content in our particular niches. Here are some of the most useful tags I’ve come across:
nptech: Short for “nonprofit technology,” this tag refers to nonprofits’ use of technology, mostly internally rather than as part of the program offerings.
Examples:
ict4d: Stands for “Information and Communication Technologies for Development.” Refers to groups that are using technology in their development programs, usually international development.
Examples:
web4dev: Using Web technologies, mostly Web 2.0, for supporting international aid and development.
Examples:
km4dev: Stands for “Knowledge Management for Development.” Using knowledge management tools and techniques to support international development.
Examples:
m4dev or m4d: Using mobile technology to support internatonal development.
Examples:
I’m sure I haven’t discovered all of the tags being used by nonprofits using technology, especially in international development. If you know of any other good ones, please leave a comment.
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Posted in Geeking Out
Tagged Blogs, Conferences, Connections, Groups, How to, ict4d, Information technology, Keywords, km4dev, Knowledge management, m4d, m4dev, Nonprofits, NPTech, Photos, Portals, Presentations, RSS, Tagging, Videos, Web, Web 2.0, web4dev, Wikis
shannon.turlington AT gmail.com
