Elements of the Web 2.0

The web 2.0 implied a move from traditional internet, in which webpages were owned and operated by companies and individuals and offered little interactivity, to an environment in which users can actively participate in a variety of multimedia activities by sharing fotos, videos and personal interests.

This has spawned a variety of social networks and platforms including Facebook, Wikis, Blogs, Twitter, Flickr, and Moodle.

Facebook is a social networking site used by millions of people around the world to keep in touch with their friends and people they know and to share pictures, videos, and small user-created applications. Users can also join networks arranged by workplace, school, region, etc. Facebook users can are only allowed access to confirmed friends' profiles. The service can be used by anyone above the age of 13 from any country in the world. It can be found at http://www.facebook.com/

A Wiki is a collaborative website which allows users to add, modify or delete all of its content by using a very simple markup language. It is similar in structure and usage to a blog, but is different in that blogs only allow the original author to modify their content. Wikis were originally devised as the simplest form of an online database. Wiki websites consider themselves to be part of a Wiki Community. http://www.wikipedia.org is perhaps the most popular wiki encyclopedia.

The term Blog is short for web log. Blogs are webpages that act as personal journals, newsletters, or places in which to comment on events, allowing the user to post their opinions and share part of their personality online. Typically blogs also allow the user to upload pictures and videos. Most of them also include a comments section for the readers to respond to the topics raised. A popular blog-service providing website is http://www.blogger.com.

Twitter is a social messaging website which allows users to answer the question: "What are you doing?" either by sending an SMS mobile phone message, e-mail, through the use of third-party software, or instant messaging. Twitter also supports Myspace and Facebook. Its function is similar to that of a blog, but only allows for shorter messages. It has grown in popularity because of its extensibility: users don't have to access the website directly, but rather can do it through a series of relay services. Twitter can be found at http://www.twitter.com.

Flickr is primarily an image and video hosting site, although it also acts as an online community where people can comment on other users' content. This content is organized by using tabs and headings, as well as by creating groups of pictures or videos, all of which allow the user to search for a particular theme or category. It has become popular as a picture and video storage site for bloggers, allowing them to host the images they later upload onto their blogs. This service can be found at http://www.flickr.com.

Moodle is a free open-source learning and teaching environment adopted by various schools, colleges and universities. Its objective is to provide with a more open and interactive learning experience, and allow teachers to develop it according to their personal needs. Participants can also actively comment and participate in discussions about the various subjects. The main moodle website can be found at http://moodle.com.

Basque Parliament Election Results

The results for the Elections to the Basque Parliament are already out since last Sunday. However, the exterior vote still remains to be counted (it will be counted today).

For the moment, EAJ-PNV has 38.56% of the vote, which accounts for 30 seats.

PSE-EE/PSOE is second, with 30.71% of the votes, and 24 seats.

Next is PP, with 14.09% of the votes, meaning it gets 13 seats.

ARALAR is next, with 6.05% of the total votes and 4 seats.

EA is fifth with 3.68% of the vote - 2 seats.

Last of all are EB-B (3.51% of the votes) and UPyD (2.14%), each of which will get 1 seat in Parliament.

Adding up the seats gives a total of 75. The number of seats required to reach absolute majority is 38, which means that, for the moment, no single party has reached it.

This leads to a number of possible coalitions between the political parties in order to reach the required majority. If PSOE joined PP and UPyD, they would get absolute majority. The same applies for PNV, ARALAR, EA, EB-B, and UPyD. PSOE and PNV together would also achieve this majority. The above mentioned coalitions, are however, quite unlikely.

The number of voters was 1,040,295, and the abstention rate, 34.12%, so the total number of abstentions was 354,948. This means the participation rate was 65.88%. Out of the total votes, 8.84% were null. The total census included 1,732,340 people.