The 2 key areas addressed in our Web Art course are Web Design and Network Literacy—with a particular focus on how these two topics relate to designer-makers and visual artists.
An important aspect of both of these is promotion. Just how do you go about promoting your creative practice in a Web 2.0 world? We will discuss this at length throughout the course of the year but before we can get to this perhaps we need to start from the beginning and ask—what is Web 2.0?
As discussed last week, Web 2.0 refers to the ‘second generation’ of the World Wide Web. Calling it a ‘second generation’ is somewhat misleading as it suggests a newer, updated version of the original World Wide Web. There have, however, been no updates made to the technical specifications. It has simply been a change to the way in which we use the web and a change in our thinking regarding the outcomes we might achieve.
Web 2.0 encourages communication, interaction, collaboration & information sharing in the web environment. Many applications, hosted services & web-based communities have been created and evolved out of these basic Web 2.0 concepts. Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace & forums have been established and grown exponentially in popularity in recent years; video sharing sites, such as YouTube, have been developed; and blogs have grown astonishingly in numbers. All of these are examples of Web 2.0 in action.
During the course you will also be introduced to e-commerce for designers. This will include a more in depth look at some of the following Web 2.0 sites already introduced: Etsy, Art Flock, Cafe Press & Red Bubble.
Posted in Web 2.0
