Five Years Later...

So, I haven't posted a blog post for nearly five years.  As might be expected, there have been many technological developments since then...

I last posted when I was doing my BSc in Computing and Internet Technology, at Bournemouth University, back in 2009.  While I was studying my degree, I thought I might write myself a blog that showed some history to the 'Semantic Web' which I was building my degree project around.  As part of this I read a lot about the history of the Web and its creator Tim Berners-Lee, (TimBL), and also of the work of the University of Southampton in establishing a unit to research 'Web Science'.

Unfortunately, my degree project to produce a genealogy application using modern file formats never reached completion.  A classic case of biting off more than I could chew and I still like to think I could bring it out of hibernation.  But my interest in 'Web Science' remained.

When we look back, I think we can see that those users of social media at that stage, (08/09), were 'early adopters'.  We have grown familiar with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc.  We can now see many examples of the 'digital migrants' or 'baby boomers' also using social media.

I think that 'Web 2.0' was 'Social Media'.  Now we should start looking for the next evolutionary step.

In my work I have since worked with developing the XML 'Web Services' that I wrote about in 2009.  These now feature as part of the standard toolkit for a developer.  I have also begun working with Microsoft's SharePoint, which has come on in leaps and bounds since 2008/9.  Looking back on my posts it might be interesting to contrast them with the approach taken by SharePoint.

Virtualisation has also become a major part of the IT Professional's toolkit, particularly in the form that we call 'the cloud'.  The cloud comes in a few varieties which I shan't discuss right now, (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS).  Cloud computing puts an enormous amount of computing power in our hands.  Yes, it has been around for the past 5 years, used by those social media sites mentioned earlier, but now it is becoming a serious option for the lone worker.

Another major development has been the coming of the MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses.  I first became aware of MOOCs from the BBC exposure of EdX.  In addition to the American providers, in Britain we also now have FutureLearn.

FutureLearn recently offered a course from the University of Southampton on 'Web Science', covering the research that they have been undertaking in the past 5 years.  As hinted at above, there have been many developments in web and related technologies and it is the role of Web Science to look at the effects that these developments have on us.

I hope that in the future I can find time to blog about these developments and possible future ones.