Web 2.0

Our assignment this week on Web 2.0 reminded me of the incredible wealth of information the internet has become. I use it constantly for work and school. I remember the days when I used to spend hours and hours researching articles at the library to write papers. Now much of that can be done online without ever leaving my house. My kids are on it all the time for school work, Facebook and the like. At home I found it useful as well. Just the other day, I was struggling with how to remove the screws from our deck boards that have become rusty and difficult to turn. I went to Internet Explorer and typed in couple of search words and up came a variety of links about how to deal with this problem. Within a few minutes, I had a variety of suggestions and ideas on how to remedy this issue. I’ve done this on numerous occasions to deal with home related issues. Gaining access to information is becoming easier than ever before and for the most part it is free!

Just the other day, I was reading an article that was describing how patients are becoming more savvy at diagnosing the problems they are having by researching their problems online. Thus, patients can become better educated on what may be going on, and doctors can move more quickly at diagnosis and treatment. Even doctors are using the internet to gather information to make more appropriate diagnosis and recommendations. One story I read described a patient with a very rare disease that nobody on the hospital staff could diagnosis. One of the doctor’s went onto the internet and typed in the symptoms and found a reported case in another part of the country with very similar symptoms. The doctor was ultimately able to use this information to diagnosis and treat the patient.

I was reading a book on Google the other day. The founders (i.e., Brin and Paige) would like to have access or scan every article and book that was ever written and make it available to the public. What that will look like and how they will do this is a mystery to me. Additionally, as more information becomes available, the challenge will be how to turn data into knowledge that will lead to better decision-making and results. Ultimately, that may be the next frontier.