It’s over! So what did you really think?

So Taste 2.0 is over. Well, sort of… We hope that you will continue to experiment with these new technologies. After all, it is the spirit of web 2.0 that we want you to remember (sharing, collaborating, tagging, recommending, personalizing content, etc.), not just the individual sites we visited.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our final session (and got to taste the yummy cake you see above). The discussion was really great. If you’ve got a minute we want you to take a second and fill out a brief survey about your Taste 2.0 experience (it doesn’t matter how much or how little you participated – we want to know what you think!).

Check your email for a link to the survey;

Don’t worry, the survey is anonymous and non-nominal!

2.0 Be or Not 2.0 Be

You’ve been off exploring the Web 2.0 Awards (supposedly the best of the best) on your own, so now it’s time to share what you found.

• What site did you look it?
• In your own words, what does it do?
• Was it interesting? Useful? Silly? Too complicated?
• Can you think of any ways we can use the site you chose at U of G?

The Dirt on Digg

Digg can be a confusing site – especially when you know the content is generated by users. What did you think of your Digg experience?

• Did you find anything that was interesting or useful?
• Does the “social recommendation” aspect (i.e. people “digging” stories) work?
• Should we digg Digg or bury it?

Summary – Chapter 4

Ah multimedia… where to begin? Or, perhaps more appropriately – where to stop? Many of you discovered new things in audio (“Bad at Sports” or “Strange music for strange people”), video (“The Evolution of Dance”) and mash-ups (Where to eat in Toronto) this week.

As you no doubt noticed, not everything that you came across during this chapter is worth your time; however, good content exists – finding it just takes a little persistence (and a lot of time).

Robin made a great point when she said that “people seem more accepting of home-made stuff now since YouTube’s conception.” It’s true. Our users are accustomed to searching and watching “non-professional” media – in fact, many of them make and share their own media. We might be able to learn something from that.

Checklist – Chapter 4

Here’s a list of tasks that you should have completed (or should be in the process of completing) this week:

• Explored YouTube
• Posted a link to a funny video that you found
• Searched various podcast directories
• Posted a link to an interesting podcast that you found
• Played with some mash-ups
• Found a mash-up of your own and posted a link on the Taste 2.0 blog

Multimedia is fun… but you knew that.

More thoughts? – Chapter 4

The “buzz” post is intended to encourage you to think beyond our activities for the week and imagine using these technologies in academia. This week the discussion is about Audio, Video, Podcasts, & Mashups. Commenting to this post is completely optional, but here are some questions to get you started:

• Could we use these technologies here (or use them more effectively)? Where? How?
• Are mash-ups too specialized? Too hard to learn?
• Is multimedia only for corporations with deep pockets, or is there a place for it in academia?
• How might you use audio, video or mash-ups in the future?

The floor is open for any and all comments…

It’s All Mashed Up

What do you think of your experience with mash-ups? Confused? Inspired? Or just plain scared? Some mash-ups attract a large following and others wallow in relative obscurity.

• What mash-up did you find?
• What does it do?
• What applications does it combine or remix?

This is just like “show-and-tell.”

Nod to Pods

Podcasts require a small investment (i.e. you have to listen to them), but sometimes you can find some extremely useful content. Comment on your podcast experience.

• Did you find anything useful in your travels?
• Were you surprised by what you could find?
• Did your podcast have an RSS feed (to let you know when new content was added)?

Don’t forget to include a link to the podcast you found and provide the other Taste 2.0 participants with a brief description of the content.

YouTube Hilarity

Post a link to your video so that others can watch it. Don’t forget to include a short description of your video and why it should win the “Taste 2.0 Funniest YouTube Video” title.

There will be a prize for the video that causes the most hilarity. Your judges will be the Taste 2.0 planning team (perks of the job) and if we’re luck we’ll add a celebrity judge or two. Your short description/sales pitch will also be considered during deliberation – so be creative!

Don’t forget to check out what the others are posting (we don’t want any repeat entries).

Summary – Chapter 3

Chapter 3 was an interesting social experiment – especially for people who work in academia and are accustomed to finding “peer-reviewed” information from “experts” on a topic. Wikis level the playing field, allowing anyone to edit, contribute, delete, or vandalize information.

For many of you, knowing that you can track the changes made to a wiki page with the “history” feature was somewhat reassuring. Wikipedia suddenly became a more inviting place to explore. Interestingly, by the time most of you got to the third recipe, you were editing with abandon (inhaling a little bit of the “wiki crack” as Pink said in his Wired article) and that’s a good thing.

Next week we’re going to continue the fun by looking at multimedia. Hang on – it promises to be a wild ride.