I found the Web 2.0 chapter to be very interesting, but reading it was very strange. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but I think what he was trying to explain and then prove through examples was a argument that anyone who has ever used the internet understands on some level, even if they are do not use the same terminology for it. If you run a blog, or have a Facebook, or twitter, or tumblr, or anything else, then you understand that you are using these sites to tell a story, even if it just your own story. From my Facebook, a stranger can see every city I traveled to this summer, that I have an internship with NASA, and that I am the proud (sometimes obsessive) owner of two very cute guinea pigs. That’s not much of a story, but my Facebook and other sites are telling stories, just like every other website in existence.

The Scenes from The Wire tumblr page, I believe, is a good example of telling a story through a website. The website is set up to automatically take scenes from The Wire and make gifs with subtitles. This is obviously not a complete story with just one gif, but an entire site of them really does manage to tell the stories of the characters, scenes, and show, one scene at a time.

The Facebook page for The Wire is also very interesting as storytelling device, but in a different way. While the tumblr page is continually telling the story of the tv show, the  facebook page is telling the story of the aftermath of the tv show. Although the show ended in 2008, there is still an official Facebook page for it to advertise the show and the merchandise associated with it. As a consumer of and on the web you can see how there is probably still interest in the show by fans and interest on the part of HBO of selling the show. Those are both stories.

I think all websites have the potential to constitute digital storytelling, because the information that you can both learn directly from the site and the things you can assume from the site tell you something about it.