What Web 2.0 is and why it matters
Howard Lake | 8 November 2007 | Blogs
As more charities embrace social networks like Facebook, enable their staff to write blogs, and develop online communities for their supporters, it can be useful to remember that lots of people still don’t understand Web 2.0, let alone its significance to fundraisers.
One of the better primers on the subject is a video by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University. In four and a half minutes he summarises why digital text and the growth of social networking facilities are such important developments. Even better, he integrates these tools within the video to demonstrate his arguments. The result is compelling and even inspiring.
It’s weakness is the speed with which it carries its argument, and the assumption that the viewer has some understanding already of these tools. There is no mention of fundraising, but it’s focus on users/individuals, and its closing argument that these tools mean “we’ll need to rethink….” copyright, authorship, identity, business, privacy etc shows that these changes are directly relevant to fundraisers who wish to communicate effectively.
Nevertheless, if Web 2.0 is still passing you by as a fundraiser, see if this makes things clearer.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.