web 2.0 – Shannon Kay

I *heart* Web 2.0

I do, I totally Web 2.0 sites, the concept behind them, community, open source, web-based content, no paper! hooray! So I’m attempting to learn to use Ajax in the hopes of being able to use it for my own projects. Yesterday I got to print my own check from a logo I made. That was pretty fun. It had all the thrill of printing my own money, yet it was legal. Normally, though, I try to avoid printing. My uncle is getting married next month, and although I’m perfectly happy to design things like invitations, the actual printing of said invitations is dubious. I can handle printing ordinary card sized invitations, I’m just glad I don’t have to mail them. Mailing is the true evil. I already intend on building my own website software to run my future wedding site including invitations and RSVP system and everything in the hopes that I will not have to use paper invitations with actual mailing involved. I hate mailing things. Plus it’ll be alot easier when my guest list is stored in a MySQL database. I used to think I’d have to mail to the few hold-outs without email… but I can’t think of any now. Hooray!

Oh well, I love Web 2.0. It seems that every day there’s something else new and shiny to check out on the various tech and Web 2.0 blogs. Does anyone have a Vox invitation? I really fancy having one…

Some Website Recs

I’ve been joining more and more “web2.0” sites lately, and there are a few newish ones or ones I’ve just recently started using alot that I’d like to mention.

First of all, there’s Birthday Forever. This is especially important since my birthday is coming up in about a month!

It gives you countdown graphics to your next birthday like these:

(click to go to my birthday site!)

That alone would’ve been enough for me to use the site, but it also lets you add a wishlist including import from Amazon, add contacts and send them newsletters, and add photos(presumably birthday photos). It even has fun facts about your birthday on the front page.

I’ve also been using Stylehive alot. It’s social bookmarking for shopping! It works similarly to delicious. You put a bookmarklet in your browser, and when you see a product you like at an online store; from purses to furniture to electronics, you just click the bookmarklet and tag it, plus you can pick the picture to represent it and add the price and even send your pick to a friend.

Another I’ve been using lately is Last.fm. I’ve known about it for a while, but what really made me start using it was the mashup site combining it with Pandora, PandoraFM. It tracks the music you listen to and you can find other music that you might like based on what you’ve played. You can also get an output of your recently played songs for your website or forum signature.