18 September 2008
Web 2.0 Expo Day 3: Why Tim O’Reilly wants you to Stop Throwing Sheep!
Tim O’Reilly put everything in perspective for us this morning by contrasting the current mega-problems of the world (disease, poverty, hunger, slavery even!) with developers' apparent passion for Facebook apps like the one where you can throw sheep. Tim thinks we can do better, folks. Perhaps some “Applied Web 2.0” is called for (BTW: I think what we are doing on MSDN and TechNet is actually "Applied Web 2.0" - more on that another day).
Clay Shirky followed with observations on how silly it is that we think we have this ongoing "Information Overload" problem, when the problem is actually a filtering problem. Social filtering with voting, rating, bookmarking, etc. should help with this. Shirky advises to watch for when our filters fail and find out why.
Side Comment: If Shirky ever has a movie made of his life, it’ll have to be Tom Hanks that stars. I think he sounds and looks a lot like Shirky! (Sorry for the awful pixel hack, Clay...and Tom.)
Q: Am I the only one? (I can’t be.)
Andrew Baron’s odd but interesting session later illustrated the problem of filters and credibility, showcasing various online spoofs and pointed to a future where your fridge would consume RSS feeds. Far out, but I can see it.
My favorite session of the day, however, was W. James Au’s session on Virtual Worlds Marketing. Data from reputable sources will supposedly soon say that a majority of people on the web will be active in virtual worlds within the next 5 years! Au showed us some great examples of things that worked (like interactive Buzz Agents for Harry Potter) and things that did not (like virtual clothing stories where you can buy the same old clothes you wear in the real world). And, it got me to thinking…
Q: If MSDN or TechNet were something like a person (or a thing, like a vending machine) in a virtual world, what would you want them to be? Do? What would you want to do to them?
To help spark your creativity, here is a video of what Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) decided to do:
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Director & Lead Evangelist, Microsoft Server & Tools Online - the group that manages the global MSDN, TechNet, Expression, and CodePlex sites.
