Task 1: Previous experience with webpublishing

Everybody remembers the 90's - computer screens were small, cellphones were big and anybody who was anybody, had to have a personal webpage. At least that's how it was for the digital natives while growing up. In that sense I was no different. I started experimenting with MS Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. I learned how to manipulate HTML and became very interested in ICT.

After a short while, content management systems (CMS) were the new cool thing. CMS's made the web more accessible for anyone who had something to say, but did not have the technical competence to publish said information on the web. A few of these content management systems became more famous than others. Wordpress, for example, was first released in 2003. Blogger.com was first launched in 1999. Another popular CMS (at least back in the day) was b2evolution (http://b2evolution.net/). It's still available, but has become less popular due to vast competition.

Regarding personal experience, I can only guess the number of CMS's I've tried. But it's safe to say that I've tried at least 50 different webpublishing platforms (CMS, blogging, forum software). It may seem a lot of hassle, but in reality, it's not hard to try and test several webpublishing platforms during a single day.

But webpublishing does not end with CMS's. We have Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut, MySpace and many more. The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, suggested that the future of the web is social. In other words, webpublishing in all it's variety is bound to become even more popular than it is today. People will continue to express themselves online, be it pictures, videos on texts.

IMKE students use wiki's and blogs (as do I). They (IMKE students) have a Facebook fanpage to share information regarding course's and one can't access the information without having a Facebook account. Facebook is a must have platform due to networking purposes. People do publish pictures, texts and videos and seek information about their friends and family, but the platform may be perceived as a marketing and networking tool as well.

It's very hard to quantify experience, but it's safe to say that I use most of the popular webpublishing tools out there today.