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Commoncraft

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Twitter Search in Plain English. Social Media in Plain English. Electing a US President in Plain English. Twitter in Plain English. Wikis in Plain English. These four friends are going on a camping trip. They need to bring the right supplies because they're backpacking. The group needs to plan and plan well, so coordination is key. They're all computer users, so they start planning with an email. It's start with one, but then becomes a barrage. Email is not good at coordinating and organizing a group's input.

The important information is scattered across everyone's inbox. There is a better way. Most wikis work the same. The buttons are really important. Here are our camping friends and here is a wiki website. Once you're finished editing, you click save and the document becomes a webpage once again, and is ready for the next person to edit it - easy! Edit - Write - and Save. Mary signs up for a wiki site and then sees the new site for the first time. Now it's John's turn. Henry visits the wiki, clicks edit and he can edit the page. Frank saves the page and realizes something awesome. But wait! Social Networking in Plain English.

Networks get things done. Whether it's sending a letter or lighting your home. Networks make it happen. To get from Chicago to Santa Fe, we need to see the network of roads that will get us there. We see that Chicago is connected to St Louis, which is connected to Dallas, which is connected to Santa Fe. Of course, people networks can help us with finding jobs, meeting new friends, and finding partners. You know how it works.

Bob is your friend, he knows Sally, and Sally's friend Joe has a job for you. The problem with social networks in the real world is that most of the connections between people are hidden. This problem is being solved by a type of web site called a social networking site. Here's how it works. When you find someone, you click a button that says, "Add as Friend". What's really cool, is that you can see who your friends know, and who your friends' friends know. This solves a real world problem because your network has hidden opportunities. Blogs in Plain English. RSS in Plain English. The Internet has problems. Technorati says there are 50 million weblogs, and as you can see, it's going up.

This is overwhelming. Today's show is about a new and efficient way to keep up with all this cool stuff that's happening on the Internet. I'm going to talk about two ways that you can keep up with what's happening on the Web. There's the old slow way - Boo. Then, there's the new and fast way - Yay! Here's the difference between the new and the old way. This is you, and here are your favorite websites. Now, let's consider the new and fast way, which is simply taking these arrows and turning them the other direction. So, what we're talking about is using a single website that becomes your home for reading all the new stuff that's coming from your favorite websites. The first step is you need a home for reading new posts. Step number two, is to set up a connection between your reader and your favorite websites. After you click that button, one of two types of pages will appear.