Week 3: Web 2.0 and Podcasting where is this heading?

Web 2.0 is a new way of web development, it has the services like social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, etc. which based on everyone’s participation, and the sharing between users. Some examples of web 2.0 are Google map, RSS, APIs and widgets. The web now allows us to do our personal things, like the APIs, we can use the Word, Excel or some other applications through the web so that we don’t have to buy them and install them to our computer. We can check for the most recent news by RSS, and also find a place through Google map. So nowadays we do not just use computer to store our own data, through the World Wide Web, we can interact with people everywhere.

The web or companies like Google or Youtube are adding more and more applications for people to use. They are trying to find more space in the web for users to store their information. In the future, all those software that inside a computer could be found on the web, people may then trend to use the virtual drive and not the hard drive or software. This will make a competition between the companies that create hard drive (e.g. Microsoft) and the companies that focus on the web (e.g. Google and Youtube).

Podcasting is like a radio, the different is people can listen to the audio everywhere at anytime. Not like the radio, we have to follow the radio station’s time schedule so that we will not miss anything. But the podcasting is, people can find the audio through the web, then download it to iPod or mp3 player, then they can bring it to everywhere and listen to the audio as many times as they want. In the university, some professors would record their lectures and put those audio online and let their students download it so that they can transfer the lecture audio to their iPod and study in anytime.

The future of podcasting could be expended more on education. Since nowadays everyone has an iPod or mp3 players, it is easy for students to upload the lecture audios to their iPods and study for it. It could be a replacement of radio because people can now download the radio programs online. The future of our technology is an unknown, but the web must going to be more efficient, faster and cheaper.

Week 3: Videopodcast

Week 2: Seeking a best of...

Pharyngula which located at the ScienceBlogs.com is a very good blog that talks about evolution, development, and random biological information.

The Pharyngula is created by Dr. PZ Myers who is the professor at the University of Minnesota. When I first entered to his blog, the simple background and the well organized sections make me feel relax to keep checking his site. His blog has divided into different sections like the most recent posts and comments, the top science stories, and also separate his posts into years and months so that people can search for his posts much easier.

In this blog, I can learn about science. In the "A Taste of Pharyngula" section, it has some postings like Octopus brains, Lobster sex, Wells and Haeckel's Embryos, etc. all those posts have very detailed explanation and also provided pictures so that readers could understand more about biography and science. Since the owner of this blog is a professor, so I belief his postings are more creditable than other random blogs.

I always think that science blogs are boring and the postings would be words by words without any interesting things, or maybe postings by professors would full of logical boring arguments. When I look at Dr PZ Myers, I changed what I thought. His blog is not just showing science news or some textbook things, he also write about what he did and thought when he's in his university. This make me know more about a professor's life. Also his blog is not boring at all, like the post "I don't think I could make something this ugly if I tired" which is a video clip of a bad designed game. The other like "So begins my descent into madness" which is his thought of his first day of classes.

This Pharyngula is interesting which it's not just words, it has some interesting video clips and the blog owner provided his own opinions and also some questions to make readers to think about and give comments on. Also, I can really learn about science in this blog, it is a valuable blog.

Week 1: What is the biggest issue facing blogging, citizenship and the future of media?

Internet is the main communication platform for most of the people today, and blogging is one of the methods for people to communication through the internet. A blog (web log) is a website that has different sections for users to display their information. Users can display their articles, pictures, music, videos on their blogs, and there are links to other blogs or web pages. It also allows readers to write comments on others’ blogs.

Blog helps people to interact and keep track with each other. We can get or exchange information through the blog. It is a good place for us to share information, but since there are many blogs and most of them are not creditable. Which blog’s information should people trust would be the biggest issue of blogging, citizenship and the future of media.

In cyberspace (or blog), it is easier to express our feelings. Not like the normal social situation which people need to communicate with each other face to face. Everyone could be braver to share their opinions online. But some people may have some radical views or exaggerated about their information. This will mislead other readers by those wrong messages.

The growing of blogging is becoming one of the major news or information sources. For my own opinion, I don’t think it can replace those traditional medias since it is not creditable. Readers should be careful by choosing the right information to receive and make their own decisions. And bloggers should behave themselves on their postings.