[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4Cast #275: Websites and communities

[Editor]

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. 
<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/>
OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4Cast #275: Websites and communities
March 28th, 2012

<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/www-cobwebs.png>Since 
about the turn of the century, when the World Wide Web became a regular 
part of most people's lives, the conventional wisdom has been that it 
was important for every organization, whether a business or a library, 
to put effort into an attractive, well-built website. Your website is 
your initial point of contact with online users (we've been told) and 
can be a community space, much like your library building. Some 
libraries have even managed their website as they would manage a 
community branch library. Now, however, some people are beginning to 
question this conventional wisdom. While it's still very important to 
have an effective website - so people can find your hours, contact info, 
etc. - perhaps it would be wise to take some of the effort you put into 
trying to build communities on your website and instead spend more time 
engaging with people in communities that already exist on the Internet.

    * Google+ and the post-Web Google
      <http://chromebytes.com/2001/google-and-the-post-web-google>
      (ChromeBytes) "I've noticed an increasing number of ads that no
      longer send people to the company's sites. Instead, the ads only
      include a link to the official Facebook page. Sites suddenly look
      outdated, no longer include the latest information and people stop
      visiting them. There are still people that visit those outdated
      sites and many are coming from search engines like Google."
    * No corporate website? You don't need one. Welcome to the post-Web
      era. <http://strom.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/opm/> (David Strom's
      Web Informant) "My wife is an interior designer and supervises a
      small staff. Some of her business is coming from the communities
      that she participates in with HGTV.com and Houzz.com, two places
      that people go to look at pretty rooms and get ideas for their own
      decorating. By writing comments on these and other discussion
      forums, she is sharing her knowledge with the people most likely
      to hire her."
    * Web officially dead: Sources
      <http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2158197/web-officially-dead-sources>
      (ClickZ/Andrew Edwards) "One of the keynotes at eMetrics San
      Francisco was given by an engaging pair of digital media experts:
      Rand Schulman and Pelin Thorogood. Both of them have been at the
      cutting edge of web measurement and digital communications for
      years. And they contend we are now shattering the website-centric
      engagement paradigm in favor of a new world of 'apps, sapps, and
      mapps.'"
    * The case against Google
      <http://gizmodo.com/5895010/the-case-against-google> (Gizmodo/Mat
      Honan) "And as it turns out, the open Web is kind of shitty real
      estate. Yes, the mansion itself is huge, but it's not built to
      code and is in constant need of renovation to keep it from falling
      apart. Meanwhile, there are all these new homes going up in the
      same neighborhood. Nice places. Built from the ground up to
      perfectly fit their owners' needs. Places that people can can get
      to from the Web, but aren't really made of Web. Those are the kind
      of joints users want to go hang out in."

*/Web prediction fact:/*

Looking at the future of the Web from a somewhat different angle, Pew 
Internet just released a survey 
<http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Future-of-Apps-and-Web/Overview.aspx> 
on /The Future of Apps and Web/ in which 59% of respondents agreed that 
"...the World Wide Web is stronger than ever," but a significant 39% 
felt that "...apps will be seen as superior when compared with the open 
Web."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The */OPLIN 4cast/* is a weekly compilation of recent headlines, topics, 
and trends that could impact public libraries. You can subscribe to it 
in a variety of ways, such as:

    * *RSS feed.* You can receive the OPLIN 4cast via RSS feed by
      subscribing to the following URL:
      http://www.oplin.org/4cast/index.php/?feed=rss2.
    * *Live Bookmark.* If you're using the Firefox web browser, you can
      go to the 4cast website (http://www.oplin.org/4cast/) and click on
      the orange "radio wave" icon on the right side of the address bar.
      In Internet Explorer 7, click on the same icon to view or
      subscribe to the 4cast RSS feed.
    * *E-mail.* You can have the OPLIN 4cast delivered via e-mail (a'la
      OPLINlist and OPLINtech) by subscribing to the 4cast mailing list
      at http://mail.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/OPLIN4cast.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20120328/fd681a59/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: kubrickheader.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 38379 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20120328/fd681a59/kubrickheader-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: www-cobwebs.png
Type: image/png
Size: 35665 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20120328/fd681a59/www-cobwebs-0001.png