While pondering produsage #2, I have also been thinking about the roughly 3 dozen (soon to be 6 dozen) new tools and websites created by the students in the Web 2.0 class. Many of them will not see another visitor after this class is over, some may have visitors that fade away with time, and hopefully others will not only being used, but will flourish and gain popularity with dedicated users.
I think about the thousands (or more) of web sites, blog, wikis, user profiles, etc. that are created every day and are left to languish in the purgatory of the Internet, and what their creators had in mind when they began their creation. Since not everyone's latent community actually evolves into a mature, self-sufficient digital community, at what point does a creator decide that they should essentially give up and delete their creation?
Currently, we've all heard of a few FSU IS websites and tools created that simply aren't being used, or are used so infrequently that not many people even know they exist. There is always the potential that a particular class will resurrect the site, or that an instructor decides to use the long-dormant tool for a class. Other than these examples, the tools created in the past for the FSU IS students and departments may very well suffer the same fate as my Geocities account, eternally existing in a server somewhere, but never seeing the light of a computer monitor.
I would be interested in reading (well, reading more) on different traits, characteristics, and techniques website and tool creators have used, and to see different statistics on how the differences translated into success, failure, or somewhere else in the large range in between. If such a thing is found, it would then make me wonder how the information is being used for corporate and for-profit companies to give their web sites the most use as possible. This alone sounds like an entire college program one could take: "Digital Success and the Theories Comprised of It."
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Let me add to your list of things that might impact use of a Web 2.0 project: user interest, user need, user time. And need is a wishy-washy thing to target. What is need? In the strictest sense, no one needs this stuff, but in the more general sense a creator is either tapping into an existing need or has to have a way to create a need. The latter has been the focus of many a marketing campaign. Hygiene products immediately come to mind. Yes, we need to have a way to get clean and we need some basic items to help (soap, water, etc.) but P&G etc would have you believe you need a particular kind of razor, a certain shave gel, an aftershave, and then whatever else they think they can sell around shaving. Then for your hair you need a shampoo, a conditioner, and a dizzying number of post-wash products. And this list goes on. So, can we create the same sort of public belief about "need" when the topic is Web 2.0?
ReplyDeleteOnline communities, when left untended, do need to die. Or be tilled over and reseeded in another way. There is a life cycle to these things.
ReplyDeleteIRT Vanessa's comments:
ReplyDeleteI have a perception about marketing. It seems to me that most companies are feverishly working to find new ways to reach into my pocket (hair care example is apropos). I try to give my business to companies who try to position their products to best address my need, then work to build brand loyalty. Maybe I'm not explaining it well, but there is a definite aura of trying to sell things not for what they are worth, but for the most we can get.
Ranting about American consumerism aside, I think the same is true about Web 2.0. How many tools are really useful and help people in their lives (or, topically speaking, help in the learning environment)? Or are these tools simply fun distractions?
I coined the term social compulsion in another blog comment about Web 2.0 and am growing more fond of it. There are some great tools for our trade out there, but I feel like there is a lot of chaff to sift...