Day 5

The term Web 2.0 describes today’s online applications, interactions and devices, how is this technology changing my professional career?

Think beyond the basic web tool we use for social networking such as e-mail, DoubleClick, they were just about publishing, not sharing in other words not participation. However, I think web 2.0 practices and facilitates creating, sharing and interacting with information. It has been seen as the market for conversation. Back to mid-February, I was invited to do a Lady Gaga design for a photographer’s photo-shoot, both for hair and make-up. It was a fun to working with different people and I value each experience as the opportunity to build up my portfolio.  After the shooting was done, everyone was waiting for the photos while the editing was in process. Normally, from my past experiences, photographers used to send us discs or printed photos via post but now there is a quicker, more convenient way for sharing work. Most popular website is Flickr, photographers give out the ID and we (the make-up & hair artist, stylist and models) log in and access to all the photos and download them to our computers. Before having my own business website, Flickr was chosen as my online portfolio for potential employers to view and secondly, it has been used as my own display room for people to view and leave feedbacks. I think the web 2.0 technology has made changes in terms of improving the work efficiency. As the same as Dropbox, which is an online free service that let people to bring, upload and download photos, also for documents and videos anywhere and share them easily. So there is no need to email yourself a file again! I find this web tool is helpful, efficient and is becoming essential in my career life. Moreover, I even use this website for my diaries which I am writing now because you never know what will happen to your computer or your diary book might get lost. Every time when I finish writing the next step I do is uploading the documents to Dropbox and it only takes seconds to complete. In comparison to similar services, Dropbox offers a relatively large number of user clients across a variety of desktop and mobile operating systems. For example, when I am at a friend’s home and use her laptop to upload work and it is a Microsoft Windows version and mine which I normally use is Mac, I can still use Dropbox on her computer because this tool is specially designed to all different versions. As well as versions for mobile devices, I can access this tool on my boyfriend’s Android and it functions exactly the same as on my iPhone. As a student, a professional and a social networking participant, there is no doubt that web 2.0 is transforming my or our society, such as mentioned Flickr and Dropbox, they have supported collaborative communications, improved work efficiency and lowered the interaction costs. They are part of my life now because they simplify my life!