The recent and dramatic growth of Web 2.0 and social software fundamentally changes the way that organizations must interact with information, and with those who produce, analyze, and consume that information. Government is no exception. The landscape of wikis, blogs, video sharing, and other social media has evolved and grown so rapidly that government policy has not kept up. The power of Web 2.0 and social software, if properly managed, can have a tremendously positive effect on the way the government interacts with the public, interacts with its employees, and conducts its own business. 

The series aimed to tie together 3 big trends, all based around structured data: 1) the still nascent "Web 3.0" concept, 2) the relatively new kid on the structured Web block, Linked Data, and 3) the long-running saga that is the Semantic Web. Greg's series is probably the best explanation I've read all year about the way these trends are converging.

The mantra of the information age has been "The more information the better!" But what happens when we search the web and get so much information that we can't sort through it, let alone evaluate it? Enter the semantic web, or Web 3.0. Among other things, the semantic web makes information more meaningful to people by making it more understandable to machines.

Tim O'Reilly, co-founder of the Web 2.0 Conference, gave a short address on the 5th anniversary of that event at tonight's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and offered some thoughts on what's going to come next. He discussed five applications that he believes point the way. Two themes stood out: sensors will surpass humans in front of their keyboards as the primary data source on the web and Moore's Law will need to be applied to humanity's greatest problems.

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Yesterday something terrible happened. I got home early thinking I might try this 'working from home' thing, which means you can sit in the garden, stroke the cat AND pretend to be thinking about work at the same time. A nice concept, but rudely thwarted when I tried to turn on my computer. It all started when trying to log into Messenger - no success, Wireless network is showing full reception so I start scratching my head and wonder whether Airport Base Station is having hiccups. Go downstairs, plug laptop straight into router, router blinking happily showing what is known in IT circles as 'activity', to me I just know the thing isn't bust yet - but no, nada, niente - plenty of blinking but NO INTERNET. Panic grabs hold of me - this can't be...surely. Reset Router, faff around with ports and cables, unplug from phone filter, replug, phone works, router still OK, but Internet? No way, Jose. What to do?

Explore your destination online with our unique integration of maps, photos and place reviews. Now also optimized for iPhone and Nokia users

Scott Karp over at Publishing 2.0 has an interesting discussion going about the unnecessary frustration users experience at the sites of mainstream media publications. In a previous post, Scott attributes the problem to the fact that stories are written with the print mentality even for the online version.

Social-networking companies such as MySpace and Facebook have loyal fan bases, but they're not exactly minting money. MySpace's projected $600 million revenue in 2008 falls far short of parent News Corp.'s (NWS, Fortune 500) billion-dollar sales target for the site. Messaging service Twitter has no business model. Video-sharing site YouTube was the only big sale; Google paid $1.65 billion for it two years ago but still hasn't figured out how to make much money off it.

OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you. OpenStreetMap allows you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth.

Ask any question in conversational English from a cell phone. Call 800-2ChaCha or text 242242 and get the answer as a text message in a few minutes. Learn more.

For a lot of people, the term "Web 2.0," ceased to mean anything real a long a time ago. For some, it never really meant anything to begin with it. As someone who writes about the so-called second version of the web for a living, I think I've held onto the Web 2.0 term as long as I could. But today, "Web 2.0″ has officially jumped the shark for me. That doesn't mean I'll stop using it - as a blanket term to describe the industry that I write about it can be helpful - but I have to admit that it has now become somewhat of a parody.

I've been impressed by the rock solid design of Brightkite.  If you don't use it, try it out, it has an amazing community and feature set. Here are 5

The air seems to be coming out of the Web 2.0 bubble, squeezed by the economic downturn and the absence of many solid short-term business plans. Dire market conditions have forced virtually all social-networking firms to scale back. In October, the third most popular social-networking site, Hi5, announced that it would cut between 10 and 15 percent of its staff. And in November, the business-focused networking sites LinkedIn and Jive said that they would slash their workforces by 10 and 40 percent, respectively.

Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will.  Although social networking is possible in person, especially in schools or in the workplace, it is most popular online.  This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the internet is filled with millions of individuals who are looking to meet other internet users to develop friendships and business relationships, too.

Timetoast is a quick and easy way to create timelines that you can put on your blog or website. You can create historical timelines of past events, or just create a timeline of your vacation. It's all up to you.

Rejaw is not YATC (Yet another Twitter Clone). Sure, it has some similarities but it's really more of a hybrid of twitter, Plurk, and Meebo. It's a micro-blogging service with a hint of chat. Here's the quick and dirty rundown of its best features.