Beware of Web 2.0
by Michael HoffmanFriday, March 30th, 2007
Nonprofits are, and have been, talking a lot about “Web 2.0″ technologies over the last couple years and how to use them for their benefit. Blogging, RSS feeds, social networking sites, user generated content of all kinds, and of course video streamed in embeddable video players. There are few “best practices” for these things, but they are emerging.
We are lucky to have the political campaigns to help move the ball. The politicians, particularly those running for President, are highly motivated to push the envelope, be aggressive and use whatever tools there are to use. The Howard Dean campaign is widely credited with having mainstreamed the idea and execution of tapping online social networks for support, for example.
But as they push the envelope and act aggressively, they also screw up. And thank God we have Jon Stewart to be there to make fun of them. Check out this recent Daily Show clip which is a cautionary tale about being open in open networks like MySpace and YouTube. I also noticed how Dennis Kucinich is made fun of for being low-tech — because of the location of his online video! This is progress.
