Anna

A report on interactive web sites (web 2.0)
By Anna

Lists of sites I examined
http://www.upcoming.yahoo.com/
http://www.wists.com/
http://www.question.com/
http://www.wordpress.com/
http://www.writeboard.com/
http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.upcoming.yahoo.com/
An events and things-to-do site, sponsored by yahoo, offers a wide range of events all around the world, divided by ereas and categories (such as festivals, comedy, family..)
The site gives an option to keep a calendar with the events you are interested in and info about them, the interactive part is that you have the option to add an event, your event will be published and visible to all the viewers so you will get a nice commercial.
The site is clear and usable. Only disadvantage is you have to be a yahoo member or open an account in order to use this site’s services.

http://www.wists.com/
wists is a short for web-lists, this site offers you the chance to keep one wish last to all the internet (and not only each to each site, like separate wish list to amazon and E-bay for example), it is called social shopping. The site gives you the option to browse the users as well, so you can see their links and web lists.
Also here you have to be signed in as a member. I don’t find this site very useful although their concept is clear and interactive.

http://www.question.com/
A site who claims to have all the information in the web including articles and encyclopedias to every question you will have, it is divided to categories such as-famous quotes, today in history and dictionaries.
As an information site it is valuable but the interactive part is not clear here, there is no visible option for users to add information or make a comment.

http://www.wordpress.com/
A classical well designed blog site, give an option to open a blog or react on others.
One nice option they have is a search application through different categories. So, if you are looking for a specific topic in blogs, like cooking, you can find those easily.
Each blogger has an archive on the right side of the screen from which you can easily surf to older bloggs divided by specific dates.
writeboard.com
this site give you the option to write text with others, keeping history, old versions and changes that were made in the text, it is explained simply and seems to help people who are working on a text together by distance. There are nice options allow you to compare your original text with a newly version your friends made. Another thing, is that your text is not visible to everyone but only to the people you choose to send a link to.

http://www.wikipedia.org/
A well known site, international internet-encyclopedia operating as an open source, offer a wide range of values in many languages and the option to edit the text, basically if you have information on a topic that the writer didn’t have you can add it, you can create new topics as well. Very useful and simple site, although I am not sure how interactive is the average user, I know for myself I use this site only in research and information sourcing but never edit its text.