Emerging+Trends+-+VoiceThread

Emerging Trends - VoiceThread
For this assignment, we were tasked with teaching the basics of a Web 2.0 application using VoiceThread. VoiceThread describes itself as "...a powerful new way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos." (voicethread.com, 2010) I used VoiceThread to create an online instruction for the social networking application Twitter. The VoiceThread, entitled "Home //Tweet// Home" can be accessed by clicking the image above, or clicking here.

I chose Twitter because until 6 months ago Twitter was a complete mystery to me. I often heard people talk about and had a vague idea of how it worked, but the purpose was lost on me. I dismissed it as "useless" until a friend twisted my arm into experimenting with it. I quickly found that my impressions of Twitter were based on a lack of understanding, and I hope that with this basic tutorial for the "newbie" Twitter user I can help expose more people to this powerful tool.

A significant portion of the VoiceThread is devoted to why you should Twitter, which is an aspect of online tutorials that I sometimes find lacking. With any technology the "how" aspect is extremely important (ie: the mechanics of the application) but the "why" aspect is what will bring the user back for repeated uses after learning the basics.

I found that the more I read about Twitter the more I found real-world uses for this "simple" social networking tool. I was already aware that businesses, celebrities, and politicians used it to update their fans or customers with information, but the breadth of applications astonished me. Certainly there are people who just post amusing thoughts or anecdotes, myself included, but the business and educational potential reaches far beyond what I initially imagined. Just as I state in my VoiceThread, Twitter is what you make it, which is both the blessing and the curse of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 applications demand two way communication and interaction to be effective, and Twitter succeeds because it not only demands it, but inspires it from the user.


 * SOURCES:**

Voicethread.com (2010). //VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and video//s. Retrieved from http://voicethread.com/#home