Class 9:Internet continued…

AdministrationGetting very near the end!Unlock wikis for commentsNov 11 – objectivity/mediaNov 18 – course wrapup/summary – Internet

meme presentations in labsNov 25 – final test (no labs)

SLATES (McAfee)SearchLinkingAuthorshipTaggingExtensionsSignals

McAfee, A.P (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. Sloan Management Review, 47(3), 21-6. http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2006/spring/06/

Carr, A. (2007). Designing for Sustainable Conversations. InteractionCamp 2007.http://www.slideshare.net/acarr/designing-sustainable-conversations-with-social-media-59204

WikisCollaborative writing and editing of materialWikipedia as gold standard, but also effective

for more localized communities of practice (e.g., TorCamp conferences)

Other examples?

BlogsWebpage driven by content management

system for ease of use/updatingCheap platform for personal and group

expressionBlogs within blogs develop and contribute

new talent - e.g., DailyKos user journalsCommunities of interest build through

link exchanges, trackbacksExamples?

MicrobloggingShort, informal info bursts - similar to

textingTwitter - what are you doing right now

(140 characters or less) – invention of tiny URLs to allow for info sharing

Facebook status updates

Web-based ForumsA resuscitation of BBS and UsenetCommunities of interest built around

particular topics, areas of interestExample: Craigslist: “don’t be evil” approach,

similar to Google - community of trust, simple functional interface, paid ads in major markets (mostly for quality control, and at user’s request)

Social NetworkingBuilding communities of friends by school,

community, interests, etc.Builds FOAF networksShared profiles with some privacy

restrictions (e.g., keeping phone, IM to friend networks)

Examples?

Examples: Orkut and FacebookOrkut (Google experiment) - FOAF spam and a

strange Brazilian takeover - now kind of useless if you don’t speak Portuguese.

Facebook - Ivy league roots, now broader audience

Facebook news feed - all actions of friends relayed - privacy concerns?

Facebook API - acceleration of services (and junk)

Google OpenSocial - Orkut and others to share common API

Has Facebook peaked?

RSS FeedsInformation feeds to create push vs. pull

relationshiop to mediaFeed aggregators (browser, online or

application) collect new information feeds in one location

Increasingly mashed up with other services (e.g., Yahoo! Pipes)

FolksonomiesCollaborative tagging and categorization of

materialsTags and categories develop organically

through community inputOpposite direction from taxonomy – top-

down, enforced control (e.g., Library of Congress)

Use in TorCamp conferences

Collaborative Favourites/BookmarksShared items/pages of interestServices such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit,

Fark, (too) many others become ways of tracking commonly bookmarked items

Del.icio.us tagging and its benefits

Collaborative CalendaringE.g., Facebook’s event calendar – events both

you and your friends are interested inShared calendaring services (mostly based on

iCal standards…)

Photo sharingSharing of photo albums, often with

annotations, notesControl of publication - publication to friends

only or wide publicationFlickr, Picassa, (too?) many othersLocal example: BubbleShare

Video SharingUser-driven shared video services like

YouTube, Vimeo, others?(Increasingly) amateur content - some

with surprisingly sizeable audiencesExposure driven by user rankingsEasily leveraged by blogs/wikis as

embedded media, easily shared

File SharingPeer-to-peer networks to trade files (all legal

ones, I’m sure…)Distributed bandwidth allows for transfer

without vulnerable central nodes (e.g., torrents)

Community effect - learning about files shared by others

PodcastingDownloadable audio or video broadcasts,

related (but not necessarily tied) to popularlity of iPod

Itunes integration - a central repository for podcast feeds, but there are others

(Some) GamesWhich games?Multiplayer games - building of community

around game actions, especially games that require group interaction to succeed

Examples?

IM?Is instant messaging really 2.0?To some extent, it adheres to SLATES, but

the community is generally very insular – email isn’t really 2.0 for the same reason

Elitist Return? Net NeutralityIs some information more important? Should

it get priority access to “the tubes?”Tiered access - who controls it? To what good

purpose? How?

Tiered accessInternet 2, Can*net 4, private internal

networksSheridan’s iChat server and other

university bandwidth issues (e.g., YouTube filtering!)

Commercial censorship - Telus vs. union, Shaw vs. VoIP, AOL vs. anti-AOL consumer sites, US Military vs. progressive blogs, Google and Yahoo! in China, RIAA/file trading - others?

A Critical TakeWinner and mythinformation - technology

adherents take to near mythical descriptions of how technology will change the world

See also Noble - Religion of Technology - designers themselves speak in terms of highly spiritual terms (creation, transcendence, inevitable utopia)

Four MythsPeople are lacking informationInformation is knowledgeKnowledge is powerInformation access = equitable and

democratic social power

Do we really lack information?Many argue opposite - we’re drowning, and

we are losing the ability to make associations and connections as a result

Ex: 500-channel universe, academic journal explosion - little common ground, little opportunity for full analysis

Information = Knowledge?Sheer quantity of information may lead to

information overload and destruction of knowledge

Perceived knowledge vs. actionable and understood knowledge

9/11 example - information regarding terror cells existed but was scattered, uncoordinated - it didn’t make sense

Public Medium and VoiceInternet can increase public voice - e.g.,

consumer forums, political discussionDiscussion can become more base, ridiculous

- signal/noise issues (e.g., Tweets in news shows – relevance?)

But Internet as group/conversation medium has great potential – global, ubiquitous, fast and cheap Internet may be revolutionary (Shirky)

Knowledge = Power?Knowledge available at the right time and

context to people with the power and resources to act upon it might equal power

Knowledge itself might leave you powerless - and frustratingly so - e.g., blogosphere and politics (e.g., Deaniacs and Paultards)

Information = Democracy?Capacity for self-governance isn’t just

information-basedMost people are simply not interested in

all the relevant informationDirect democracy can be dangerous, even

asinine - e.g., Stockwell “Doris” Day example from 22 Minutes)