Two recent studies reflect the increasing activity in technologies related to Web 2.0.Tagging
First, on any given day, seven percent of Web surfers in the United States engage in an activity known as tagging -- categorizing and labeling material they upload or find on the Web. Four times as many (28 percent) have tagged online content such as blog entries, photos, Web sites, video clips, and news articles. A complete review of this trend is available for download (pdf) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Web 2.0 Survey
Second, companies are using Web 2.0 features to engage with their customers at an increasing pace, according to a survey completed in the United Kingdom. The results reveal the following percentages of companies that plan to implement respective Web 2.0 technologies in 2007:
- apply user-generated content (UGC) to their websites (42%)
- implement corporate blogs (35%)
- implement videocasting (35%)
- implement podcasting (33%)
BarCamp
If you would like to learn more about these and other technology trends consider attending an unconference to be held this weekend at MIT in Cambridge. BarCamp is a series of technology gatherings coordinated around the world that are organized on the fly by attendees, for attendees.
A few of the topics that may be of interest to Web designers and developers include the following:
- user interface (UI) design
- programming languages
- open source software
- Ajax
- RSS
- the future of technology
- startups
- entrepreneurship
- mobile computing
- social software
- hardware hacking
- robotics
- bioinformatics
Details are available at the Boston page of the BarCamp wiki (pronounced BAH-camp), including dates, times, directions and registration instructions. Please note that if you are looking for alcohol at BarCamp you will be disappointed. Alcoholic beverages are not permitted on site.
Digg It! 
Bookmark to del.cio.us
