Once again I'm late to the party

To prove exactly how much I've been working in studio this semester, let me tell you about what I've been researching: Web 2.0. Okay, that's a terrible buzz word that does not provide any information. Basically, the internet seems to be transforming into a series of software applications that 1) ease social interaction and 2) are completely internet based, meaning that it may be possible, quite soon, not to need software on a single computer located in a specific location, but to use applications at specific websites, that can be accessed from any computer with internet access. The recent Google and Sun Microsystems announcement that they're partnering to make OpenOffice.org a fully web-based program is an example. OpenOffice is currently my favorite free open source word processing/spreadsheet/presentation software. Open source means a lot of things, but here it refers to the fact that programmers volunteer to work on this program and the code is available to the public for viewing and editing. Microsoft is not open source. (By the way, Sun calls this the Participation Age, which is a better description of the current web developments, but still not great.)

Amazing things are happening with websites that allow the users to add information. If you've followed any of my past links, then you're familiar with Wikipedia, an open source encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There are debates about whether this is a good model or not, but it is certainly democratic.

A site that I have been watching recently, called eHub, lists websites that fit these new models. Today, I was looking through some past posts on her site and found Etsy, a site where you can buy and sell handmade items. And this is damn cool. Or how about Pooln carpool network, or LibraryThing where you can list books that you've read and browse other lists. What is the point to all of these? I don't know, yet, but they seem to be going in a positive and useful direction.