SLATES

SLATES
The SLATES acronym was created by Harvard Business School professor [|Andrew McAfee]. It is used to highlight the core elements of Web 2.0 technologies and evident in typical social media tools (ie. Facebook, Wikispaces, [|Twitter,] [|Digg]).

[|See the article]

//S is for searching//. For information to be of use we have to be able to find. Massively complex sites like Amazon would be useless if the we could not search and find what we need. Although internet search is nothing new, what is interesting to note is the multiple ways to search and find information. Google has made it possible to traverse the web universe, while search mechanisms in Facebook make it possible to connect and find friends.

//L is for links.// Although hyperlinking has been around since Web 1.0, users of Web 2.0 technologies have the ability to create their own linkages. A good examples of this is [|del.icio.us] in which people post links to web sites of interest allowing others to navigate the web through these built in linkages. Another example is blogs, which allow for self-published pages with contextual links that connect to references within the authors own articles.

//A is for authorship//. Blogs and wikis are two examples of authoring capabilities of Web 2.0 technologies. People can post, comment and discuss in many possible directions (one-to-many=blog, many-to-many wiki).Wikis are an example of collaborative authorship while blogs are mostly singularly authored.

//T is for tagging//. Tags are simple one word descriptions of content that are created by users, not constrained by a controlled vocabulary.The power of tags is evident when content is correlated through tags that emerge and overlap, opening new avenues for connecting information. Social bookmarking can be a robust mechanism for the searching and finding of related material through the use of emergent tags. Good examples are Flickr and Del.icio.us

//E is extensions//. This is the opening of technologies and their traditional boundaries. While hacks are modifications without the producers endorsement, extensions are built in openings that promote new modules that extend the platform. For example Facebook has opened their API ( Application Programming Interface) that fosters a community of developers to build upon the Facebook platform with new add-on applications.

//S is signals//. Signals are the ability to "push out" or broadcast feeds to subscribers as new content is added. Because it is so onerous and time-consuming to search for updated content from your favorite site, if RSS feeds can send you a new signal as content changes.