It’s surprisingly difficult to find a social bookmarker who seems interested in the social implications of Web 2.0. After wading through a swamp of bookmarks pertaining to the latest Facebook application crazes and how to amass a following of Twitter users, it’s apparent that many users of social media sites are engrossed in this new technology. In fact, there only seem to be a select few who are interested in examining the way these social media are changing our lives. After much searching, however, I unearthed a de.licio.us account by the moniker of Minnesotajones, a user who seems to be an invaluable resource with regards to emerging internet technology and how this change will affect its users.
Jones seems to be a power user on de.licio.us, having bookmarked nearly 2500 sites since 2006. His interests seem to focus on Web 2.0, social media, and advertising, which dovetails nicely with my own area of focus; he has roughly 1000 tags pertaining to social media alone. Jones’s tags are also nicely organized, employing a consistent tag language throughout that creates a distinct hierarchy of bookmark topics. Clearly, this user is web-savvy, and consequently I had no trouble finding provocative editorial commentary to inspire my own writing.
One of Jones’s most recently bookmarked posts, entitled How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation, takes a rather unusual look at how the advent of Web 2.0 has changed the way IBM operates. At 114 years old, IBM isn’t exactly a new company, yet new forms of social media are helping it stay abreast of current trends, helping employees from around the world communicate and interface with one-another. In fact, IBM has gone so far as to create its own company-run versions of many of today’s social networking websites, creating a rhobust internal network of communication for IBM and its affiliates.
Internally, 100,000 employees have registered on the blogging platform to rate and comment on posts across 17,000 blogs. […] An internal wiki serves as a hub of information, drawing well over a million page views every day. Additionally, downloads in the company’s user-generated media library now total 11 million. An IBM tool called Dogear functions like Delicious, a social bookmarking site. Blue Twit mimics Twitter. A tool called SocialBlue acts like Facebook, helping employees stay connected with former colleagues and get to know new ones.
Clearly, IBM recognizes the power of online social media, helping it transform its own company culture to embrace these rapidly developing technologies. Such a change for a corporation founded in 1896 has surely had a great impact on the way it functions, a rather unexpected outcome for technology aimed squarely at consumers.
Another post tagged by Jones, a Harvard Business Review opinion article entitled Welcome To Vancouver, the World’s Largest Social Media Experiment, provides an eye-opening view of how the Winter Olympics in Vancouver will also operate as one of the first large-scale social media experiments. While Web 2.0 was around for the advent of the Beijing Olympics, this is the first time such an environment that encourages – let alone permits – a full-scale implementation of social media technologies during such a large-scale event.
The Vancouver media has been covering the Games since the first inkling of a possible bid, but social media has dramatically shifted the media landscape over the years in ways that affect both local and international coverage. At the Vancouver Sun, which is the city's leading daily newspaper, Managing Editor Kirk Lapointe has had to reckon with the impact of online media. "Everyone is a journalist because of the tools and platforms now available and accessible," Lapointe told me, "And that is bound to change the dynamic of content and audience....I don't think it'll be unruly or chaotic, but the environment for new voices will certainly mean a larger public sphere for content."
These two articles are just a small sample of the wealth of links which Jones has amassed relating to the internet and social media. He’s a great resource for those interested in the social implications of Web 2.0, with a proven track record of finding interesting articles on a daily basis relating to the ever-changing face of the internet and Web 2.0. I’m looking forward to seeing what other information Jones is able to uncover in the future.
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