Meadowlark: Sheffield based computer consultancy

DanceCentral (dancers web portal)

My understanding of Web 2.0 is that it is not about network computer technology, it is about how its users can contribute, and help to build something grander than by any other means.

Social networking sites have enabled computer literate users to publish and share their content with a world wide audience.

Web portals have gathered together related information into a hotspot of trading, sharing and learning. As a result new players have emerged from nowhere with multi-billion pound businesses that have originated sometimes from the most modest of places.

Dancecentral is both a web portal and an event management system. It gathers together a large and growing source of information about dancing in (among other things) the form of an event database. Users can look for the dance class, dance, instructor, demonstrator, DJ, venue, or demonstration that interests them, or perhaps publish new events. The site seems to be a resounding success. On only the second web log I examined there were 671,000 hits on the site. Why not take a look at www.dancecentral.co.uk

What you can expect from I.T in the future?

- The Web 2.0 concept - that potentially everyone can publish information to the web seems likely to gain further momentum. There is so much more information that can be shared. Whether it would be prudent to do so is another matter. Would you be happy to share details about your diet, or your medical information? Your supermarket may have the former information, and your GP the latter. Aggregating this information for a large population, may provide a goldmine for the medical industry who might be able to deduce medical outcomes as a consequence of diet. But why stop here?

If the above information can be aggregated with lifestyle information, how much we drink, what drugs we take, what exercise we get, the human condition becomes a known. We should be able to predict our lifespans, or the factors that shorten them.