While I was sleeping ...

I first heard of Web 2.0 technology a few months ago when I started a new job. The term was brought up at every coffee break, meeting and water cooler interface. I asked a colleague to explain. So it’s YouTube, Wikipedia, Face book, and all those facilities that put publishing power in the hands of us all without editorial interference. Life’s a gas. We were at a bbq yesterday and two of the younger guests (in their 20s) sat huddled together looking at a phone screen. Zoe was checking out Face book to try and piece together her vodka fuelled clubbing the previous night. Apparently, if Face book were a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world after China & India. Completing memory blanks is clearly one of its uses…

Alex got a new Blackberry at work last week and its strength is e-mails. She can deal with and delete so much before she even gets to the office. It’s amazing how many pings she got over the weekend – do some people not have a life? In the light of Alex’s acquisition I revisited my own i-phone and checked out the latest apps and downloaded some new ones.

The “on this day one” tells me that Shakespeare was born on this day in 1564. My mind-mapping tool, gives me perspective on complex issues I deal with daily and allows me to come up with creative and innovative solutions. I have a to-do tool, where I can schedule in tasks, resources and the order I need to do things in. The torch is useful when I drop my wallet in the car in the dark and the level tool helps when I need to erect shelves correctly. The gizmo that plays sounds to fall asleep to (garden, airport etc) also doubles up as a joke thingy to play birdsong sitting in the doctor’s windowless waiting room. To appease my sporty adventurer side I play bowls, pool, solitaire and even fly in with my helicopter to rescue strange business men while weaving my way around a series of hazards. I can convert stones and pounds into kgs, which make being overweight not quite so serious. I can read a novel (Anna Karenina currently), and check out 3 articles a month, free from the Financial Times.

As we lay in bed yesterday comparing our telecommunication devices, the i-phone won out on style, functionality and general sexiness. So, while I have my home e-mail linked in to my i-phone, it wasn’t until I got to work this morning that I became aware of another instance of Web 2.0 publication – the Marryoke. In my inbox a round robin e-mail from a distant colleague thanked us for our good wishes on his marriage and provided a link to a 3 min clip of his wedding. It’s hilarious. It’s a Marryoke. Geddit. Marriage combined with karaoke. So Web 2.0 has truly arrived.