i MARK.... my experience

i MARK is an abbreviation for Information Management Resource Kit. It is a collective source of information on web 2.0 for development.
web 2.0 in a nutshell refers to a way in which people share information and collaborate online more easily using low cost interactive web based tools like face book twitter etc these set of tools make it easier for people to interact and publish on the world wide web.

HOW CAN SOCIAL MEDIA BE GEARED TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT
 A development oriented  organisation for instance  can tap into the potentials of web 2.0 tools in order  not only to share information but also to give it a face on the web but also to connect with others, collaborate with others, content creation and sharing and finding organizing and reusing content.

organisations can share information on their activities,success stories and lessons learnt, this(successes)  in turn can be replicated by others around the globe.

BENEFITS OF CONNECTING VIA SOCIAL NETWORKS
social media allows us to;

• create profiles
• find people with common interests
• share content
• create discussion platforms
• share contacts
• form groups  for specific social action

it also allows us to share text, photos,videos, audio files and also link to websites

CHALLENGES FACING SOCIAL MEDIA

1. Overload: since there are too many groups, your group or cause might get lost among all other social networks
2. Not every one has access to internet, those connected will have endless access to information while those not connected will have access to nothing yet they may be more in need of the information.
3. Participation on social media is optional, the organisation cannot therefore force any one to do so

COLLABORATING VIA GROUP WARE

Group ware are tools that aid in the coordination of a remote work group by creating an online communication channel among themselves and with other organisations. more importantly group ware gets things done regardless of the distance. in this regard it enable people to;

• plan
• do tasks together
• share resources
• communicate
• create joint action and collaboration

CREATING AND PUBLISHING USER GENERATED CONTENT

Social media via the internet allows people to publish  and link text, photos, videos, audio recordings on the world wide web.

This content is made possible to people on heir network by sharing tools available on these social media services.

People on these network can choose to receive content by subscribing,

Finding, organizing and reusing content

there are 3 main ways in which this can be done.

1. Collaborative searching. this simply means asking others how they search for information and it can be done via collaborative search tools.    
2.  Finding organizing and reusing. this is facilitated by

•  Tagging which is simply the labeling of an online item, to enable easy categorization
• Rating and commenting through tools such as polls and ratings

    3. Reusing and remixing. this is simply taking content and changing it to make it work in a new way.