What is Web 2.0?

Yes, we know. The very phrase makes you want to puke through your nose. But, we're stuck with it. So then, what the blazes is it?

Allow us to introduce you to Michael Wesch, the assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology from Kansas State University:

+Who did that?+

'Wesch graduated summa cum laude from the Kansas State University Anthropology Program in 1997 and returned as a faculty member in 2004 after graduate studies at the University of Virginia. There he pursued research on social and cultural change in Melanesia, living in the Mountain Ok region of Papua New Guinea for a total of 18 months from 1999-2003. Wesch has received numerous grants and fellowships for his research, including a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, Explorer's Club Grant, and a Fulbright-Hays International Dissertation Research Fellowship.

'Currently Wesch is launching the Digital Ethnography working group at Kansas State University to examine the impacts of digital technology on human interaction. The first outcome of this work was a short video called "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us." The video was released on YouTube on January 31st 2007 and quickly became the most popular video in the blogosphere and the #1 featured YouTube video on February 7th 2007.'

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Michael Wesch

Mike Wesch's video is the best take on Web 2.0 and every programmer should take five minutes out to watch it.

Recent interview with Mike Wesch