Blog #1 Web Squared

Describe what you see as the most important idea from this article given your own future professional goals--what can/should you take with you? 

Within the article, Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On, by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, there are many important ideas that relate directly to my future professional goals. Specifically, my goals include the ability to convey a message, both accurately and efficiently, through the use digital media technology. While the direct relation to a specific career remains unclear, a crucial point that I intend to implement in my professional future is the idea that "data is being collected, presented, and acted upon in real time"(1). Therefore, in order to accurately communicate a message in a professional setting, I need to understand the importance of time as it pertains to data collection. 

As the article stated, "data analysis, visualization, and other techniques for seeing patterns in data are going to be an increasingly valuable skillset"(8). The main idea that data is collected, presented, and acted upon in real time is again demonstrated in the article when the authors stated; "WalMart may not be a Web 2.0 company, but they are without doubt a Web Squared company: one whose operations are so infused with IT, so innately driven by data from their customers, that it provides them immense competitive advantage"(9). This is the most important idea from the article, given my future professional goals.

What is the most exciting web application you've seen in the past year? What is exciting about it?

Netflix.com is the most exciting web application that I have seen in the past year because it has revolutionized how people watch movies. This application enables viewers to stream movies and television shows on your computer, mobile device, and television, without leaving your house. Considering the different mediums through which people can access this web application, I was impressed to find that after testing it on four different devices, the only change was the application’s appearance, not its capabilities. Another convenient feature of this application is its ability to suggest movies that you might like based on a rating system. Just recently the application has even begun to show suggestions based on the genre of movies you’ve previously selected. While this has always been a feature of Netflix, the ability to get instant suggestions based on specific movie suggestions makes this web application unique. These suggestions are based on your personal movie preferences, as well as other people’s choices that appear to have similar movie ratings. This allows the individual to not only find a specific movie, but to discover a wide variety of other movies and television shows.