The good and not-so-good of Web 2.0

an you be definitely ambivalent about something? If you can, then that's what I am, at least for today, about this whole Internet/Web 2.0 thing.

First, the good stuff. Late last night, I was preparing for today's stop-motion animation (more on this later) when I discovered that my camcorder automatically powers down after six minutes to prevent damage to the miniDV tape and to save power. All very laudable, except I want to film over several hours, and I refuse to stand beside the camera to switch it off and on again every five minutes.

After a quick search on the Internet, I found the Panasonic 3CCD Users Group, registered and posted my question. Six minutes later, the topic's administrator had posted the solution. Where else could I get instant help at midnight on a Sunday? Brilliant. (And although it doesn't look like a Web 2.0 site, its value derives entirely from user contributions.)

So today, my camcorder is able to click away, twelve times an hour, recording the street outside and the arc of the sun across the sky. (Actually, it's just a grey murk becoming slightly paler, but never mind - the forecast is for a dry spell later.) I'm using Framethief, a programme I downloaded from the Web that I can use free for thirty days, and if I wish to continue using it I can pay a small fee to do so. Also brilliant.

Now for the not so good. Feeling grateful to the Panasonic Users Group, I did as they asked, and added myself to their Frappr map of the world, to show my location. While doing so, because it's a Web 2.0 site, I created my own Frappr account, with my own homepage, the opportunity to invite friends to join and the ability to add my own photographs and identify their location on the world map.

I know it was only an automated message, but it's not nice to be told "Currently, you have no friends". It merely rubbed salt into the wound of trying to join the social network Orkut last week, purely in the name of Web 2.0 research, only to be told that I couldn't because nobody had invited me. I know I'm not part of the MySpace generation but at least I was invited to get a GMail account.

The rest of my ambivalence is my own fault. The number of RSS feeds that I'm tracking each day has crept up to 70, though fortunately not all of them provide updates every day. It's all just too interesting, and I spend far too much time following links and discovering the weird and wonderful. I tell myself that when I've finished this research project on Web 2.0 then I can delete most of the feeds, but I probably won't. And anyway, a large number of them are connected with photography and animation rather than Web 2.0, so they're stimulating and challenging as well as useful.