Only when users and designers collaborate within the Web 2.0 environment, can design directions be attained thru consensus

With an increased focus on user participation, a role of a designer in this user-generated medium should by one of “conversational leader” (Leadbeater 20). The user experienced gain in Web 2.0 is based on a system of reciprocity (Leadbeater 20). Designers should actively engage in establishing values and norms, they should continue to forge pathways to there network of peers, and offer these users access to their resources.

A metaphor I like to use in regards of how user participation in Flickr enriches it's service is, Flickr being a blank canvas in which users become the artists in painting a communal experience. Each new contribution of content, becomes a new colour in the awaiting masterpiece, where their user interactions within Flickr, becomes the force behind a new stroke of the brush on the canvas, melding the colours, creating vibrancy and creating depth. And Flickr says, PAINT ON!

Designers in a User-generated medium must offer Users trails to their Resources. . . Cos Sharing is Caring Y'all!!!

Above is my Showreel of the scenes I had inbetweened as an intermediate IB at DisneyToon Studios Australia.

The advent of Web 2.0 services can be viewed as extending a familiarity of the importance and value of graphic design across disciplines (Gromala 55) as a designer acting within such a community can assist in a role of “creative interlocutor”. Traub and Lipkin describe a creative interlocutor as a navigator of associative trails of thought and resource, who enables others to freely and creatively manage their human interests. This individual is one who is integrated: his creativity functions as part of an organic part of society, and he acts to connect for the common good…In doing so, he enables others to further their creative potentials (in Heller 82).

To view my Show-reel as an IB trainee, plz click on the link below:
http://chasing-sandcastles.blogspot.com/2006/10/disney-ib-showreel.html

A picture tellz a thousand (key)wordz

After doing a case study of Flickr for my thesis, one of the key points regarding connectivity is Flickr’s view of photos as a tool that prompts interactivity. As expressed this post's diagram, photos no longer lie dormant in photo albums, online they become “living entities” that are used as a resource that foster online activities. They add description to Websites, they enrich online libraries, they attract our attention in self-made slideshows, and they even become the instigator of dialogue between users. Photos once relegated for private collections have now been opened up for public consumption, and Flickr has upheld such opportunities by developing places “for the audience to take part in the action” (Shedroff 227), by permitting them to generate metadata to the library of the service.

To visit my user foto-sets on the Flicker Website, plz follow the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/sets/

Existing Online; Its like opening ur diary and preaching ona soapbox... "C'MON READ THIS, BETTR YET READ THIS OUT-LOUD!!!"

C'mon users 4get ur pride. .. .Share ur artwork. .. Just enjoi da ride. .. .



To view my personal sketch-book made public on DeviantART, plz follw the link below:
http://chasing-sandcastles.deviantart.com/gallery/

To get where ur goin' u gotta kno where u've been. .. .

In an analysis of the current trends found in Web 2.0, it is important to review it’s position in the context of the historical evolution of the Internet. By doing this, it makes the task of understanding how it came into being, the pioneering vision and objectives behind its development and its possible directions in the future much more definite. For this reason a timeline that tracks these events is presented here.

Share Your Photos Y'all!!!

As a designer acting a user, it was important to promote the need to be community active (figure 39), as user participation has become the new vehicle for designers to enrich the understanding of Web 2.0 audiences. This should be an objective for any designer acting as a user; this should be the objective for every ordinary Flickr member.

As ‘Interaction is a cyclic process in which two actors(users) alternately listen, think, and speak (Chris Crawford in Shedroff 142), the role of a designer in a user-generated medium is to uphold the conversational and participatory nature of the community. They can achieve this be being community active in their own designated groups (figure 40, 41, 42), and being visible in accumulated community resources.

To view more of my photo-collections, plz follow the link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/

My procedures for doing Qualitative Research on Web 2.0 services

The steps undertaken to establish an online presence included:

• Creating a user account for a Web 2.0 service

• Generating content within its user page

• Enrolling my accounts into Web 2.0 search databases

• Making informative contributions to the service’s public library so that other users can benefit and can deviate to my user page

• Communicating with other users of the service by offering opinions, joining user groups, and participating in communal discussions.

• Becoming community active by establishing trails to resources of information within the service, and offering links to contacts in other Web 2.0 services.

• Promoting a convergent use of Web 2.0 services by interlinking the content amongst my various user accounts.

It was important to establish a sense of connectivity with resources found in various services, as the features of Web 2.0 services promote the circulation and re-circulation of online content. In my qualitative research as a user, it was a goal to create opportunities for open dialogue with other users to as certain emerging user needs, and as a designer, co-develop appropriate design directions through this exchange. In linking my online activities and resources in my various user pages, the probability of this occurring became highly likely.

The main Web 2.0 services I participated in are:
• My Blog (http://www.chasing-sandcastles.blogspot.com/), which is a form of an online diary,

• My Wiki (http://chasing-sandcastles.pbwiki.com/), which are online places where people can easily add and edit content, and are therefore often used for collaborative writing (Kloos 2006 8).

• Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing-sandcastles/) which is a photo-hosting service which manages content through folksonomy

• Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/chasing_sandcastles), an online bookmarking service which heavily relies on a user self-tagging system.

• DeviantART (http://chasing-sandcastles.deviantart.com/) Which is a image-hosting service where users upload their art, for critiques and opionions from the DeviantART community.