Week 5-Thing 11 - Web 2.0 Awards Winners

This is a cool staircase from the Edgartown Bookstore in Martha's Vineyard, for your enjoyment.

Having just spent quite a bit of time on airplanes, I have been thinking about social interactions and non-interactions. Looking at some of these social networking sites and tools, I am struck by the issue of physical and virtual proximity. Consider the relationship between two people who might spend hours together seated uncomfortably close on an airplane, for example, who might never speak or interact with one another. Unless these travelers decide to engage in conversation, their sole apparent common link is that they are on the the same flight and are sharing that experience. It can be a bit like the non-relationship among people on an elevator, but the duration is different.

However, people seated in front of their computer monitor, quite possibly isolated from any physical human contact, can opt to join a community based on common interests. Relationships can grow and flourish and can even become intimate, though a physical meeting might never take place. The only thing that comes to mind that existed prior to the advent of the internet is a pen-pal relationship. But those communications would have been relatively few and far between.

I visited Blue Rectangle, which received an honorable mention in the Book category. The best part of the site for me was the video book reviews. Wow. This bumps up the concept of voluntary book reviews, such as those at amazon.com, to a much more personal level. With a video of the reviewer, you are able to see facial expressions, hear voice intonation and get a better sense of their personality. Here's the link for children's book reviews. It was especially fun to see kids' books reviewed by a real kid. The site gives you the opportunity to purchase the books through Alibris.com. A person submitting a video would have to be willing to put themselves "out there" much more than simply writing a review. I wonder if some of the book vendors, Barnes & Noble or Amazon, might consider posting video reviews.