How do You keep up with Technology?

When I went away to college I was only 100 miles away from my hometown, yet I seemed detached from what was happening in the world. I didn’t know what the cool songs on the radio were anymore; I didn’t know the lingo that my younger sister was talking (I felt like the parent in the text messaging commercial with the girl that talks to her BFF jill all the time). I fell behind in my area of expertise: web design!

One day I received a call from a friend who wanted to partner up in a new classifieds website he was starting. He asked me what my opinion was on Ruby on Rails, Ajax and Web 2.0. I was stunned because I was a web developer who used to be ahead of the curve when it came to new web technology, but this time I had no idea what he was talking about. I said I didn’t use them of course and tried to hide my embarrassment. So, naturally the next day I ran to the best place I knew to find out what this stuff was he was talking about. While at the bookstore, I didn’t really learn a lot about the stuff; there weren’t many books on the subjects, but I knew I needed to learn whatever he was talking about.

After about a month of researching this new ruby on rails, and during this process switching to a mac because of all the macs I saw on web developer’s vodcasts, I learned what ruby on rails, ajax, web 2.0, and all that jazz were about. I knew these were revolutionary technologies that would change our internet lives. Over the next year, I watched new websites pop up in the news and magazines such as Digg, Flickr, YouTube, etc. and I knew web 2.0 was going to be big. It’s another Y2k explosion of new companies arising, except this time I think new entrepreneurs may think twice before they raise a half million dollars in startup capital and buy a new porsche before their company becomes successful.

Web 2.0 is big. It’s more than just moving layers on HTML webpages and dynamically updated content without your browser refreshing. If you’ve noticed, web 2.0 websites bring TONS of amazing content to the web. They aggregate what would usually take hours and hours to find and put the content right in front of your face, like “Here it is. Read it.” Sites like Digg and 9Rules filter out the bad stuff and the cream always rises to the top. Eventually, websites like Digg will replace newspapers, where the community generates the news it wants to hear. Websites like 9rules will be a gathering place and content aggregator for those in need of new technology and articles to read. Wikipedia will replace old-fashioned text-book encyclopedias and membership-only websites such as Brittanica. Wikinomics is a great book written about the subject of web 2.0 websites replacing the way we think and work as a community. As Apple says, Think Different.

In conclusion, if you want to keep up with what is going on in the world, get yourself a computer, go to websites like digg and 9rules, or search for blogs on google and read up! Don’t feel like reading? Watch some videos on YouTube.

Web 2.0 is the new way of communication and keeping up for me! What about you?