Objekt: Web 2.0

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick	–>	Google AdSense
Ofoto	–>	Flickr
Akamai	–>	BitTorrent
mp3.com	–>	Napster
Britannica Online	–>	Wikipedia
personal websites	–>	blogging
evite	–>	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	–>	search engine optimization
page views	–>	cost per click
screen scraping	–>	web services
publishing	–>	participation
content management systems	–>	wikis
directories (taxonomy)	–>	tagging (“folksonomy”)
stickiness	–>	syndication

(Quoted wholesale from O’Reilly article, read on)

In my last post I referred to O’Reilly Media, which is a highly influential publisher of programming texts that feature the same spare cover design; bold, clear text with a white background and some sort of realistically drawn animal. Although I remember one with a bank safe as well, but either way they’re recognizable from twenty paces, easy.

The company is headed by Tim O’Reilly, who I hope won’t mind if I liberally borrow from and simultaneously plug in this post. He has posted an article that I think should be required reading for all people who traffic in information, in any form, using electronic technologies. The article is called What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. You can read it in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. (The design differences are fascinating, though I think the French lucked out. Why is English the stodgiest?)

Inspired by the achingly audible pop of the dot.com bubble, his group and MediaLive International held a conference on Web 2.0, to figure out what happened and why. Contrary to many popular reports, they felt that “far from having ‘crashed’, the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity.”

I cannot recommend the article highly enough. The tools for library service optimization are there, and I hope that by next year I will be working with fellow librarians in translucent, individually reactive modular info-techopolies which compile lightweight multiple-platform open sourced global databases while trawling the stacks on our nuclear-propelled web-bots.

Or, maybe just providing good service to a diverse array of contented, info savvy patrons.

“Let’s close, therefore, by summarizing what we believe to be the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models”

The next Web 2.0 conference will be held from October 17-19, by the way, in San Francisco. I’ve been to about 38 or 39 states, but never California yet…

hmm…

The Dread Pirate Wiki

This morning I decided to follow up on my visit to protest.net, (mentioned in my last post) and the lack of activity I saw on it. I couldn’t believe that my old programmer friend would let it lie low unless he had something else more significant going on.

Little did I know… It turns out that he is even more involved than ever before, and more broadly advocating for his beliefs. You can check out his blog, Anarchogeek, to see a bit of what occupies him these days. I was wrong about protest.net’s inactivity, I just wasn’t looking in the right places. Even more amazing to me is that he’s involved with programming for Indymedia, a group I first heard of through Asheville Global Report. Both are essential sources of under reported news from around the globe.

(I miss Asheville, NC very much, and one of the reasons is the Global Report. You can’t find a more dedicated volunteer staff trying to make sure that buried news reports get some press outside of politically aligned outfits such as NPR and the Nation. I was especially excited to find that, even with operating expenses in the red, the Report is distributed up here in Chicago as well. I found copies at both Alliance Bakery on Division, east of Damen, as well as at Earwax cafe on North, also east of Damen. Congratulations to Eamon et al.)

All of this got me thinking again about wikis and social networks, and the general distrust of library professionals about their reliability or security. Annalee Newitz, with Alternet, has a wonderful little article about Wikipedia activism, pointing out why it is important to be active in supporting & contributing to wikipedia. If it’s worth having an opinion about in the first place, then isn’t it worth the trouble?

And wikis themselves are proving to be very popular business tools, especially when preparing for industry get-togethers. Perhaps we could use them to collaborate with the ALA in drafting meaningful policies for local administrative use? Or in drafting legislation for national advocacy? (If this is already happening please don’t feel shy about letting me know about my ignorance…)

Many library professionals seem to feel forced into the debate because of the growing numbers of users. And libraries cannot be faulted wholesale for tensions about the quality of new information sources, as we are acknowledged leaders in tech heavy environments, with much technological acumen. We are picking up on valid problems. (Sorry for a lack of links there, I’m not able to reference some good articles without compromising copyright issues, but check out Library Journal as well as several emerald-library articles)

One limitation I see in our involvement with Ning, Second Life, MySpace, Facebook and their ilk is that we are leaving the design and programming to others. Apart from Casey Bisson’s Scriblio (formerly WPopac) project, using open source blogging code to enable a user-friendly library catalog interface, there isn’t much going on with librarians generating unique coding outside of individual webpages.

Which brings me back to my friend, who is working on a Ruby on Rails book for O’Reilly Media. Some of the work he is doing can point the way toward open source networking frames possible in library environments, so we don’t have to rely solely on Google to scan our books, or Yahoo to author our widgets and apps. My point is, there are dedicated professional programmers, outside the library profession, who might be willing to help us out if we ask nicely enough, and are willing to learn some of it as well. Just check out Change.org to see some of the networking possibilities available if we meet the net head on. We need to harness the Wisdom of Crowds, not condemn it outright as Michael Gorman is often doing these days. We’re all in this together, right?

Quiz Night: The Net Nostalgia Quiz

So this post marks the beginning of Phase 2 for Robotic Librarian. No, this has nothing to do with Starbucks’ plan to assume world domination. Instead, I plan on completely embracing my blog by imposing some order in my universe.

My goal is to continue using this as a forum both professional and personal, hopefully finding a balance between the two. Since starting Robotic Librarian I have begun to really look at the Internet with a critical eye. Prior to my first e-mail account in 1992 I was already using BBS and FTP protocols, so I’m not exactly a stranger to electronic environments. What I am coming to learn, then, is the real value of communicating through the net, and the enticing networking possibilities.

Back when I lived in Massachusetts, after undergrad, I had sworn off the net for a while. A house mate of mine, a die hard programmer with a serious Mountain Dew addiction, would program well into the night, every night, until he’d balance his mattress against the wall and fling himself into it. Repeatedly. He could program in HTML, CSS, Perl, Javascript, Lisp, C++ and numerous other platforms, and whatever jealously I felt was tempered by his, shall we say, gently sociopathic habits. I liked him, but he intimidated me at times. The man rented a powerful computer on the west coast, at a rate much higher than four of us paid toward the house we rented, that lived behind a glass case and was guarded by a 24-hour armed security service. I mean, a serious programmer.

He had a strong social conscience, though, and even though he worked quite profitably for numerous shadowy venture capitalists from around the country, he taught me a valuable lesson about the Internet’s capabilities. His first web project for himself, which you can still visit today, was protest.net, a website dedicated to user-generated information from around the globe for protesters to network with other social activists. It contains calendars of upcoming events, graphics, commentary and up to the minute usable information. Quite a feat, significant enough that within days of his uploading it he started to get phone calls from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Matt Drudge, Wired and several other smaller news venues. Powerful. (But not updated anymore, I just discovered…)

So, here I am with a blog, trying to understand the value of social networking, as well as responsive, responsible librarianship, and I think we are onto something. In that spirit, please check back to see what changes and programming I will be experimenting with on my way toward bringing something substantial to the table, for your consideration.

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But the web is also criminally fun, and my first bit of organized programming will be to post either a quiz or a survey every Thursday from here on out. Just check for posts that begin with “Quiz Night.” Today’s quiz will be a nostalgic look back at the world wide web, circa 1992 or so. The Net Nostalgia Quiz randomly loads five questions for you from a user supplied pool of questions each time you take it. Get four right, and you get to supply your own question. It’s not as easy as it might seem…I hope you enjoy. And please, if anyone has suggestions for future surveys or quizzes let me know. They don’t have to be serious, net-related or even library related. The net is our oyster, after all.

Cheers!