I was surprised to find some of my friends, who are in college studying computers and techonology, not knowing what Web 2.0 is. The conversation started with my friend telling me he didn't have SMS on his phone since it was "too expensive." I was asking him to test my new Mozes.com keyword. I told him he should get a plan since text messaging is so huge now.
Him: why? I can call people that I need to get in touch with?
Me: sometimes you can't speak
Him: well then there is voicemail. if I cant talk, its likely that I shouldnt be bothered by technology
Me: lol you? not be bothered by technology? wow are you following web 2.0?
Him: whats web 2.0
Me: :-O :-O :-O
He's studying electrical and computer engineering at a technical university. Another friend who never heard about Web 2.0 is majoring in software engineering. Even if you were to just read a newspaper or magazine you would have heard of Web 2.0. I suppose I could forgive an average Joe or Jane in missing this, but someone at a tech school? Maybe it's just because my work involves monitoring the Web 2.0 industry heavily, but if you think about how approximately 80% of college student use Facebook, you have to wonder how many of them realize they're in the midst of Web 2.0. I think if you look at this BlogPulse chart below, you can assume that as far as social networking's concerned, most use Web 2.0 services but just don't know what it's a part of.
Sadly, my friend also asked what's so great about blogs? He had no idea their influence and how it's creeping past traditional media in many cases. "I would rather read the Wall Street Journal," he said. I replied, "The Wall Street Journal has a blog!"
2 Comments
24 Apr 2006 at 14:37
“He’s studying electrical and computer engineering at a technical university.”
Wow, so did I. I can honestly say that the course of study had better things to deal with than web development/technology. Do you even know what computer engineers study? Designing memory systems, processor architectures, etc, etc have little to do with blogs, xml, and javascript.
But of course, you may be right. They guy could probably design and write a web server with VHDL to run purely in hardware (an overkill example). But because he has no use for blogs and text messaging, he’s obviously a technophobe and should thus be banned from all computing circles.
Sorry, had to randomly vent…
24 Apr 2006 at 17:00
It would be interesting to see how many people outside the United States of heard of it……..
Leave a Reply