Thursday, March 8, 2007

Ted University Class Speech and Powerpoint Presentation

Making the Most of Web 2.0 (powerpoint presentation 1.6 MB)

Is good to start with the meaning of the Memes that I use to attract you to my course:

I am sure the more attractive meme is Web 2.0

The Web 2.0 is now a platform full of free tools that helps us to communicate and be part of the evolution of the information ecology.

We are experiencing a paradigm shift and we should start with some history.
The new meme “Web 2.0” was coined by Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty back in 2004. Lately they wrote a document were I am sure you can find the best summary definition for this meme, which is better to quote.

“Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet— a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.”

In my opinion, Web 2.0 is our own human evolution, part of our nature, is a complete new way of doing things in and with the Internet. As Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message”, but I will say “the medium and the message is us” evolving in the way we socially live with and within it, networking, participating and contributing, using and enhancing it every day. It is a step toward the creation of our virtual intelligence.

What is a meme? It will be better to explain this word that was coined by Richard Dawkins to understand the power of these ideas that once they are inside you they never leave your mind and some like web 2.0 has the power to attract you to my course. It is better to tell a story to understand what is a meme.

There was a man looking for money, he didn’t know what to do so he went to see a wise friend he had, and told him about his ambition, after hearing it, the wise man told him to go back home and dig a hole in the garden where he will find a treasure. The man was so happy that he decided to leave immediately, just before leaving his wise friend said: “Oh I am forgetting something, if while you are digging you think of a pink elephant you will never find the treasure”. As you can see there is no possible way to get out of the mind the idea of the pink elephant, it is a meme.

Web 2.0 brands names are also memes and they are entering our mind. I only choose some of them to drive you here, they are part of a group with the Web 2.0 that is growing every day, as you can see.

I decided to choose only 4 of them to show you how to make the most of web 2.0. These are the memes and links to the 4 tools: Blogger where we can have a free web with a Content management tool, this helps us post our content, Flickr an Internet digital image repository from where you can get images and photographs, YouTube a digital video and audio repository full of dynamic content and finally Digg, a social advertising infrastructure.

The meaning of TED helps to understand this concept, T forTechnology we use 4 tools of web 2.0 technology, E for Entertainment we will have fun mixing them together, and finally D for Design which is how creativity helps us to combine this Technology and Entertainment to create value.

It is better to learn an Idea by an example, using an auto reference or eating the tail at the end of how to build a free dynamic web of this class with multimedia content and social advertising.

What we need? An Idea, in my case is the content of what you will learn in this class, a working email account, a browser I recommend the popular Firefox 2.0 and Internet access.

Now comes the recipe: First select the Memes, the name for your site’s address or domain - I used web20demo that ends up as http://web20demo.blogspot.com, and the title of your Idea, in my case I use the subject of our class “Making the most of Web 2.0” this is part of the auto reference I mentioned, and the key part of your Blogger registration.

Follow the registration process at Blogger, Flickr, YouTube and Digg, it is straightforward, just sign in and fill out the online forms, confirm your registrations and then login to the platform.

The design part is to create a mashup, an hybrid web, this means to creative combine online content from different sources in order to generate value. Value in the combination and in the way we communicate others about it.

Lets see how this happens, and see the relation we create between the tools, a point to mix all up Blogger, blog Multimedia content to enhance the overall experience with Flickr and Youtube, and finally spread the word using Digg a social advertising infrastructure.

We need an advertising strategy, more memes, an attractive title and some extra explanation, remember Digg is a community.

Finally what we get? Take a look at my Blog, my content, the links, the memes, the images from flickr and the selection from YouTube’s video about the web 2.0 with the tutorials about blogger, flickr and digg. Now you have the memes and they will never leave you. Remember the pink elephant. Use your creativity, it’s the time to get the most of the Web 2.0. Be part of our evolution.

The end of the lesson is the beginning of the experience. Thank you.