Web 2.0 - who's doing what?

Fascinating survey of Web 2.0 use by 1369 students, academics and others from this JISC funded SPIRE project:

http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/survey-summary.pdf

Calendars top the poll
What struck me was the popularity of the rarely mentioned Web 2.0 application – the calendar. It would seem that everyone’s using them. There’s a lesson here – that web 2.0 is part of one’s everyday life through tools and desktop add-ons. Everything else hangs off these core activities.

Wikipedia storms ahead
Then comes Wikipedia, blogs, YouTube and Myspace comimg up the rear. The scale of Wikipedia use is astonishing. It really is becoming the world’s most important knowledge and reference source. Blogs are analysed in detail – they really are a force to be reckoned with.

Communications
Messenger and Discussion forums are the two big ones, then Google Talk and Skype. RSS feeds had a surprisingly poor showing.

File sharing
Napster, Kazaa and Limewire were neck and neck, with Grockster a poor fourth.

Games
On online games Second Life was less popular than World of Warcraft, with a surprising number playing online chess and Half-life.

Web 2.0 age sensitive
Engagement with web 2.0 services were tracked across age groups and, not surprisingly; the younger the group, the higher the use. Interestingly the converse was the case for institutional service such as email, library services etc. The older the group, the higher the use.