Web 2.0 Article for Presbyterian Outlook
In the beginning, there was Gutenberg. Those who owned printing presses printed the text, and everyone else merely read it. To be sure, copies of a text might be circulated among friends, discussed around the dinner table, or used to prop up a short table leg -- but the text itself remained static. Any underlined passages or notes in the margin remained isolated from the general public, existing solely in that copy of the text.
The beginning of the internet (what we'll call "Web 1.0") was much the same: Websites were created by a limited few who had the technical or financial resources to do so. The World Wide Web was a great source of information, but not really a means of self-expression or conversation for the masses.
In the past decade, things have changed quite a bit. E-Commerce websites like E-Bay, Craigslist, and Amazon.com have created entire communities where users either supply the products that are sold, connect with buyers/sellers, or add value to existing products through reviews, ratings, and recommendations. News websites like Digg and Newsvine allow users to submit or write interesting news articles and websites, and vote articles up or down a ranked list. Media sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr allow users to upload short video clips or pictures, then rate, label, comment, and share them with others. Social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook provide places for friends to create an online "profile," then find, meet, and interact with each other. The elements that these sites share are hallmarks of a new generation of websites -- participatory, interactive, user-driven. Collectively, these sites (and many more like them) are referred to as "Web 2.0."
Perhaps most interesting of all are two types of uniquely "Web 2.0" websites that have surfaced in the past five years: Blogs and Wikis.
Contents
Highlight why Web 2.0 meshes well with Presbyterian structures.
(you're the expert here--I'm still a "noob" Presbyterian!)
Every member a minister = every member an editor/author/contributor
Discern as a community = creating as a community
Allows for minority voices to be heard while the majority still make the decisions
Give a few brief hypothetical/real life examples of Presbyterians using Web 2.0
(we'd have to make sure we aren't repeating something from another article being written).
Top Ten Web 2.0 sites for Churches
- Google Docs (our church uses this extensively for planning and sharing info)
- Google Calendar (get your church scheduling syncronized)
- SourceForge.net (find free/open source software for church use, i.e. OpenOffice.org and music/slide/presentation software)
- PayPal.com (great for small-church fundraisers)
- facebook (community building)
- Wordpress (great choice for maintaining web 2.0 church website)
- SurveyMonkey (church polls & surveys)
- Wikia (free wiki hosting service that could be used by church groups)
- Doodle (website that each member of a group goes to to input and see available times to schedule a meeting)
