A 4 min 31 second crash course on the www, and all that
Boing Boing pointed me to a link on a concise introduction to everything we need to know about the internet, and the revolution called Web 2.0 -- delivered in true Web 2.0 style.
The video is the result of Professor Mike Wesch's research on digital ethnography. Courtesy answers.com, I found out that ethnography is a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of specific human cultures.
Here's a detailed description, again from answers.com, which describes ethnography as A descriptive study of a particular human society. Contemporary ethnography is based almost entirely on fieldwork. The ethnographer lives among the people who are the subject of study for a year or more, learning the local language and participating in everyday life while striving to maintain a degree of objective detachment. He or she usually cultivates close relationships with “informants” who can provide specific information on aspects of cultural life. While detailed written notes are the mainstay of fieldwork, ethnographers may also use tape recorders, cameras, or video recorders.
Go on, point your mouse on the eviated text to get an idea of what digital ethnography is. ;)