Web 2.0 Uses for Web Sites

My two friends own the game store All Fun & Games (AFNG) which is devoted to "unplugged gaming." This refers to games that don't require a computer or video game console to play them. E.g. board games, card games, puzzles, etc.

I created and maintain their website, but I'm honestly not all that happy about it. Updating it requires quite a bit of time on my part because I have to resize and upload all the pics on the "Photo Gallery" portion of their site, and keep the "News" page constantly updated with new gaming events.

It's occurred to me that both of these problems can be alleviated using Web 2.0 applications. I can set up a Flickr account which will allow the owners of AFNG to create subject specific photo albums, upload the images, and create captions for them. All I would need to do, is put a link to the albums on the site.

I can also resolve the dilemma with the "News" portion of the site by creating a blog. The owners can update the blog with new events, and I can put a simple RSS feed to the blog on the web site, so that the news will always be current as long as the blog is maintained.

Finally, I thought that it would be cool to create a MySpace page for AFNG. A lot of the Game Store's regular customers are part of the MySpace Generation, so this would be a great way to reach out to them.

But, to bring this back to a library focus... The AFNG site does have one cool Web 2.0 feature in place now: a virtual tour of the store.

This virtual tour was made on FilmLoop which requires you to download free software. I have not yet tried it out, but I would imagine that this could be very useful for our library. We could make a virtual tour so that patrons can find our newly renovated space and can find specific collections of material.

How cool would that be?