Mike finally got me off the dime when he posted the video above. The Web 2.0 video, by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at
A couple of asides…you may wonder why (or you may not) I hadn’t embedded video in the past. Answer: bandwidth, or lack of same. It takes me a lot of time to view any given video due to the slow speed of my connection, so I tend to pass most of ‘em by. If I do choose to watch a vid, my M.O. is to let a vid “play through” in a minimized window with the sound on mute, and then replay it once it’s been written to a temp file…and will play all the way through without buffering. That’s a right-royal pain in the nether regions and a powerful disincentive when it comes to videos. I went and refilled my coffee cup (and did a couple of other things, too) while the Web 2.0 vid was playing.
But…no more. If I find a video that I do like, and I take the time to actually watch it, I’ll share it directly.
That second aside (I said “a couple”)? After watching the Web 2.0 video I had a twinge of regret that I’m not still “in the biz.” Yeah, the hours were long. Yeah, those hours were affecting my health. But, Dang! It sure was exciting to be in the right place at the right time.
Wow. Thanks, Buck. I've sent the link on to my boss and a co-worker. Wesch's is definitely the one.
ReplyDeleteIt went a bit fast for me at the end (a bit, she says?) but it was entertaining enough to watch more than once. VERY helpful AND thought provoking.
Heh, yay for University provided cable internet service...and a g-standard router.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the video. The internet in general has always fascinated me (the fact that I could chat with a friend who was in Mongolia last semester like it was nothing, once I actually sat down and thought about it, absolutely blew my mind) but Web 2.0 even more so.
I had never actually read the Wired "We Are the Web" piece that is briefly mentioned; googled and read it yesterday. It's hard to believe that a little over 10 years ago people were pooh-poohing so many things about the internet that we take for granted now.
It'll be interesting to see where we are in another 10 years, but I think the one thing we can guarantee is that it'll be nowhere close to where we think we'll be in 10 years.
Mike said: It's hard to believe that a little over 10 years ago people were pooh-poohing so many things about the internet that we take for granted now.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean. Back in '96 I was wrapping up a consulting gig for a large international re-insurer based in London. The central piece of our recommended IT plan was for them to base their applications on the web. I managed to grab one of our internet gurus (quite a coup, actually) to assist with the presentations, and he gave a superb and quite visionary talk about the web's potential for business and how it would give these guys a strategic edge. Bottom line: they rejected our plan, calling the web a "toy." They were acquired by a competitor 18 months later, and the entire IT org was sacked.
Poetic justice, that.
Bec sez: Wesch's is definitely the one.
ReplyDeleteIt IS good, innit? You should thank Mike, LOL...he's the one that motivated me to get with the program.