Tag Archive for: Aaron Kim

Web 2.0

As mentioned yesterday, I wanted to share a few observations from my time with Aaron Kim earlier this week. He delivered an excellent overview of the trends behind Web 2.0 with some interesting Canadian data points.

At a very high level, Web 1.0 is viewed as the “read-only” Web. Although somewhat arbitrary, the read-only Web consisted of roughly 250,000 websites offering content to roughly 45 million global users. There was little collaboration in the Web 1.0 model. Web 2.0, the “read-write” Web, engages well over a billion global users with the content of 80 million or so websites.

In Canada, over 28 million people have broadband access to the Internet. 84 percent of the population is online. And of that number, 86 percent of online Canadians regularly visit a social networking site like Facebook.

Aaron shared a model to profile online users:

  • Creators: people who write blogs or publish their own websites
  • Critics: people who post comments on blogs or feedback on articles
  • Connectors: people who subscribe to feeds from websites
  • Joiners: people who participate in social networking
  • Spectators: people who read or consume content
  • Inactives: people who do nothing

In Canada, most of the population are Joiners, Spectators and Inactives however the number of people who are becoming Creators, Critics and Connectors has grown significantly.

Back Home

I was off on vacation during March break and then off to Toronto earlier this week for a series of meetings. Tonight will be the first night back home.

The trip south was a terrific time with family. I really enjoyed the unstructured time with my wife and my youngest son. I also really enjoyed reading John Boyne’s Mutiny on the Bounty. Being an avid reader, I find that I am usually reading “serious” books about business, technology and photography. Every once in a while, it is a treat to get into a good read. A book that grabs you and holds you until the last page. John Boyne is that class of author.

It was also nice to be in a warm and sunny environment. Many Canadians struggle through the long, dark winters and our reward is when spring finally shows up. The time we spent south gave us an early preview of spring. Fortunately our return home to Kingston was supported by some bright sunny weather.

I met some very interesting folks in Toronto. Aaron Kim, an evangelist for Web 2.0 and Carl Abrams, a research fellow from IBM’s research lab. Lots of insight from both gentlemen. When I get a few moments to pull my notes together, I’ll share a few of their thoughts on the shift in technology patterns.