Spaghetti on the Wall: 10 Web 2.0 Expo Memes That Stuck

1. Don't do the crime if you can't pay the time

Have you put in your 10,000 hours yet? That's how much time you should expect to devote to a skill before you achieve mastery. If I apply this to my blogging, then I am true neophyte, a "young grasshopper" with lots to learn and improve.

It's not enough to read about the participatory web, social media, and social networks. You need to put some skin in the game, and use the tools and platforms out there to establish your identity and connect with others before you can start building your own community.

Think back to being a teenager, and figuring out who you were by the friends you hung out with, the places you went together, and the things you did together. It's similar on the web, where you can spawn multiple identities for each of your interests, and you seek and follow others who have experienced places and things ahead of you.

A good user experience means staying focused on the task at hand -- whether that's configuring your computer online, searching for an answer online, or adding a blog comment. Housekeeping tasks like logging in, adding a favorite item to a wishlist, saving your shopping cart for later, and so on should never detract from the core task. Clever use of AJAX and similar RIA can help here.

Participation comes in many forms. Even if the silent majority isn't actively participating by uploading photos, writing blogs, or commenting on videos, it doesn't mean the community as a whole loses out. Learn to incorporate their actions in most visited pages, activity heat maps, popular sections, and so on, to build a better experience for the people who follow.

This one struck fear into my heart. When I think of posts I've written that didn't receive a single comment, I feel like a parent of many stillborn children. So much effort, passion, and intent, to what end? The lesson here is comments create and extend the conversation and add value. Someone please comment on this blog post so I can die happy.

Imagine walking into a drugstore and seeing your cherished family photos on a greeting card. Wait a minute! Just because I develop my pictures here, it doesn't mean these guys can use my photos this way, you think. Some Flickr users felt the same way when they discovered their photos were being used to promote an (ahem) Yahoo gaming site. They rebelled, and the folks at Flickr learned a valuable lesson about respecting your users. Do right by them, over-communicate to them, seek permission when in doubt, and they'll reward you.

Watching YouTube is like eating potato chips. The effort to grab a bag of chips and start munching is low, and the results are immediately gratifying. Short, funny videos that are interesting and tell a true story resonate, and make us want to come back for more. The same holds true for bloggers. Tell your story, tell it often, be true to yourself, and good things will follow.

People are hungry for meaning in their lives, and when meaning is grasped and recorded with a tag, it has immense value. A tag seems so simple, but it captures your viewpoint and feelings at the time you encountered or created something — a photo, a web page, a video — that matters to you. Magic happens when shared experiences form around tags, and kindships, friendships, and communities are born.

Imagine standing up in front of a ginormous crowd of people and having five minutes to convince them the product you've poured years of effort into is worthy of their applause and respect. Kerry Fleming from Humanix started his talk about Inpowr with this statement, and its one of the most honest and beautiful things I've ever heard anyone say. I admire his courage.

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