Pro's and Con's of Web 2.0 Application

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 represents a fundamental change in the use of the Internet  from a medium mainly used for finding and viewing information to one which now also realising large-scale personal publishing and social networking.
 
 
 
Web 2.0 tools (blogs, Wikis, social networking sites etc.) tend to be relatively unstructured, easy to publish in, have a high level of interaction, and self-assigned semantics (tagging), and they are often media rich. Web 2.0 is great for chat, banter and networking,
The Web 2.0 application I use reguarly is facebook, I am going to look at the advantages and disadvantages of it.




Advantages of Using Facebook

 Facebook is a social networking site which is free and it's one of the best mediums for communication. With so many users around the world, you can connect to almost anyone, using status, photos, video’s, events, blogs, Skype or promoting a group or company. Students can use Facebook for group study by creating a group only for studying, where they can share any information about projects, assignments, exams, due dates etc. Facebook like button is connecting their user to every other website and if you have a Facebook login ID than you can easily access other websites and social networking using this and without registering. It has a good privacy setting which allows the user to customise their profile to exclude other users from seeing what they have shared. Additionally, it allows for private messaging and chat so no other user can see what you’re sending other than the recipient. You can stop spamming by hiding the post of the spammer or block them permanently.

Disadvantages of Facebook

 If you have a facebook account you will probably know that it can be quite addictive, notifications allow for users to know when someone has shared something with them, however, if you have a mobile app or notification via texts, it’s hard not to quickly check who has posted on your site.

As with any social media site, they can be dangerous if they are not being used correctly, with the ability to search for anyone and message any user, if you’re using Facebook you should really take advantage of it privacy settings.  As it is so easy to set up a profile there is a problem with fake accounts which have proven to be dangerous, furthermore, there have been many cases of cyber bullying, abuse, fake accounts and groups set up with the intent to harass, discriminate or bully. Although it is not a chat room and the people that are on your profile should be your friends, if you don’t set your privacy settings correctly you can be searched for by name!  Facebook does give an option to report abuse, but really such things should not be happening in the first place. There isn’t thoroughness in the age restrictions and younger and younger children are using Facebook all the time, and they don’t all know what the implications of sharing information with other people are. You can locate a post or ‘check in’ which allows others to see where you are at what time.

My opinion is that on creating your profile, everyone including individuals, fan pages and groups should give their address, administrators should send a letter containing a unique code to the address to finalise set up of the account, they should have to type in their code to be verified.

Conclusion

As I have already suggested, Facebook as far as I am concered is the biggest and best social media site, which allow you, in various ways, to keep update with family, collegues and friends. However, it becomes dangerous when you do not use it properly or take advantage of it to bully or abuse others.