Web 2.0: Quality vs. Quantity

Tony Karrer is having an interesting conversation regarding Web 2.0 and the implications for content creation, and more importantly the quality of the content that is created. I agree with Tony that the new tools for generating and sharing content are great, but shouldn’t there be some sort of arbitration? We are so used to peer reviews and publishers who decide what is worthwhile reading. Web 2.0 is leveling the playing field and any ‘old schmo’ can voice their opinion via the web.

My feeling is that we may be heading towards a tipping point. At the moment tools such as blogging, wikis, RSS feeds etc are really coming to the fore even though some of the technology has been around for a long time. Many companies currently require their employees to blog as part of their job description. Personally I see that changing in the short term, primarily because of the world load that people have. In the end the experts will create a community of bloggers (which I already see in the eLearning industry) and debate important developments in the industry using the new technologies.

The ‘average’ working is in the trenches putting out the fires. I think I mixed two visual metaphors there, but you get the point. In my humble opinion the web will self regulate and we will see more focused blogging by fewer individuals. The usefulness/ROI of blogging is hard to measure so companies will eventually dismiss most of it as hype and move on. Most employees will cease blogging and the experts will remain.

Blogging is just one aspect of web 2.0. I need to catch my breath and consider the broader implications. Back in a bit.

Where are the Examples of eLearning?

This month's Learning Circuits Big Question really hits close to home.

The b?g question is:
Where are the Examples of eLearning?

Unfortunately most custom development vendors like Cyber Media Creations are bound by NDA with our customers. This means that we can't post any of our demos on our website, so potential customers can't see the type of work that we've done in the past. You can read through our project fact sheets, but this doesn't give you a sense of the interesting work that we've done.

Even if we could post some examples we would be limited by the internet. Some of the high quality video work that we've done has been deployed on CD at full screen video quality. We really couldn't demo that on the web without redeveloping the interface and dropping the video quality which would defeat the purpose.

I do show/demo potential customers some of our recently completed projects as long as they are not direct competitors or in the same industry as the customer that the project was developed for. In the case of eLearning; where the product offering and quality is so diverse; it is important to show your products, but unfortunately most customers are not willing to let you demo their custom built product on the web. That's our reason for not showcasing our eLearning projects. In my opinion it is a competitive disadvantage but a reality of custom eLearning development.