Is the Web dying?
Frieda’s
question was that now e-Tribes had ceased to be (fallen off its perch; gone
to meet its maker ...) “How do we solve the
issue of web 2.0 reliability without falling into the hands of VLEs? Can it be
solved?
What's
the plan B ??? ”
1)
–
First of all: There is no plan B! I'm afraid that the answer is as bleak as that.
2)
–
Next: I don’t think we can solve the problem of
Web 2.0 – it is what it is ...
We’ve always
known (I think we have always known) that the web is flaky and that we
should only trust it as far as it can be convenient. E-Tribes and similar
document hosting web sites (I’m thinking of e-Snips here) have always had the convenient
tag for me. I’ve always kept a back-up of any materials posted and simply used
the convenience offered by world-wide and round the clock access to host
materials for use by or to be shared with others. I lost patience with e-Snips
a long time ago as it sought to ‘groovy-up’
the stuff I’d posted and to fix me up with some girl or chap somewhere else on
the internet who was gagging for it!!!
Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) and to a lesser
extent YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) are exceptions to
this rule for me. Although I keep the majority of images posted to Flickr and
most of the video clips on YouTube as files on one of my computers – these are
not as ordered or easy to access as those online. Should Flickr fall by the
wayside I would have a serious case of depression, which I suspect is what
Frieda feels now, as she has invested the same amount of time and effort into
e-Tribes as I have into the photo hosting site. The difference between the
sites for me is that Flickr has always had a ‘Pro’ level, for which you pay
a minimal amount. It’s also backed by Yahoo! I suspect that if Yahoo! went
belly-up – it would be the time to worry.
So – does
partnership with a world renowned web presence (Google, Yahoo, AOL etc.) mean
that a loved Web 2.0 facility will survive? Not
really. Jaiku [http://davidsugden.jaiku.com/overview] became part of the
Google juggernaut a while ago and is now slowly dying from a lack of real
support. Unlike Twitter [http://twitter.com/dsugden], another micro-blogging
site, it provide (used to provide) the opportunity to import RSS feeds and to
be updated from a phone. This gave huge educational potential, which colleagues
and I had begun to explore. It has the ability to ‘group’ discussions in such a
way that all contributors could follow the thread – not just those who were
being ‘followed’ by the contributor. On Twitter this leads to confusion as only
a fraction of any wide reaching discussion can be followed. AND Twitter is now Spam-ridden.
Gabcast [www.gabcast.com] started charging
for their provision in March – which caused many of us to back off. It’s still
worth paying for the service, if the service fits your needs but (finally a
positive point) others have leaped to fill Gabcast’s place. See www.ipadio.com
See http://dsugden.posterous.com/gabcast
and http://dsugden.posterous.com/gabcast-replacements
3) – Finally: “without falling into the hands of VLEs” Nice one Frieda – much more discussion there I think! :-)
David
