#19 - Web 2.0 awards

There are so many Web 2.0 based applications out there... I've checked out the awards list and had a look around some of the 'winners'

Care2 comes under the Philanthropy category. I've used it for a number of years, especially it's petition site. I recommend it regularly for people looking for an alternative to Hotmail and all the usual web-based email providers. It is a site worth checking out. It's only downfall... it's American-centric but still provides good information.
Amongst other things it provides a News Network, Photo storage and sharing, email, e-cards, healthy living tips, environmental information, animal activism updates, newsletter and much, much more.

The next one I checked out was SpringWidgets... well, I have actually checked it out before but haven't had much success with the RSS Feed custom widget... lots of feeds didn't work properly in it... so not much of a recommendation there!!! Tried a couple of other widgets too but no success so I guess they're still ironing out the bugs!!!

Of course, then there's Facebook - apparently everyone's on this and I can't understand why... after joining it a while ago I'm afraid I just think it's a big wank!!!!... pretty much the only time I go into it these days is when I check my current games of scrabble - that's the only thing that really interests me in it, and apparently one of the only things you need to use your brain for... all people seem to do in this application is poke, slap, spit, throw things at you, invite you to join causes (which apparently means all you have to do is sign up to, you don't have to support the cause in any other way - don't quite understand that - obviously by doing this people think they're 'political' and don't have to do anything else!!!!); and then there's the endless stream of useless crap... every time someone sends you something you have to download a new application... frustrating and not at all mentally stimulating!!!!

I can understand if you're away from home (overseas maybe) that it could be a useful way of staying in touch regularly, but can't think of any other reason to use it. Guess I'm just not that social (if that's what being social means)!!!! My idea of socialising is actually conversing with people, sharing time, food, wine and intimacy!!! I must be a bit strange - much prefer playing around with my blog!!

This letter appeared in the Sunday Life magazine of The Age today... I did get a laugh out of it because apparently there are other people out there who feel the same way as I do about "Crap"book.

And then there are all of the applications we've used throughout this Learning 2.0 process... LibraryThing, Del.icio.us, Technorati, PBWiki, Zoho etc. Some are extremely useful and easy to use, others not so useful or easy to use. I also wonder about all the tools you upload things to, such as Flickr, Photobucket etc... seems to me there is still a need to back everything up to disc if you're trying to save your hard drive space - it would be terrible to lose everything!!!!

So all in all, the technology has a lot of potential... but there are still problems with some of the applications.

Guess what???!!!! Now it's on to Podcasts, Video and Downloadable Audio - YAY!!!! Made it through all those tasks that sounded so boring to start with!!!!