web2.0

Researchers in Web2.0

In the recent issue of Research Information: October/November 2009 David Stuart writes an article entitled Web 2.0 fails to excite today’s researchers. The basic premise of the article is that researchers within academia are not interesting in adopting web2.0 technologies.

It is hard to imagine a group more suited to the opportunities of Web 2.0 technologies than academics, especially when it comes to conducting and publishing research…

…Scholarly publishing 2.0 offers much more to the research process than the simple content management system of blogs and wikis. It does not just give the opportunity to help find collaborators for a project, and possibility of easing the communication process within a research group. It also offers the opportunity to publish new forms of data and can blur the barriers of the research group.

While reading the article I found myself disagreeing more and more with Stuart. The level of academics participating actively by sharing their time and knowledge freely is very high.

There are two reasons why this high level of activity is surprising. One is based on the fact that only a small part of science is about communication and second the academic’s employers do not appreciate the value of web2.0 activities.

Science is more than communication: Most of science work is outwardly boring. Observing, reading, thinking, writing and deep discussions in seminars are not particularly for suitable for short messages and headline based communication. A wonderful example can be found in the words of Donald Knuth in a text entitled Knuth versus Email:

I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an email address. I’d used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15 years of email is plenty for one lifetime.

Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don’t have time for such study.

The same ideas can be applied to web2.0.

Few academic employers appreciate the value of web2.0 activities: In the final paragraph Stuart writes “Much of the blame for the slow adoption of the Web 2.0 technologies seemingly lies with an over-emphasis on the traditional research paper.” Well this is understandable since despite the whole focus and popularity of web-based communication the academic system does not put any real priority on these activities. True, they are not looked down upon as much as they once were but web2.0 communication is definitely not an activity which counts as a merit.

What Stuart seems to be missing is that web2.0 activity use is high in academia, but, for the reasons discussed above, it is not particularly visible to the general observer. Academic blogs, wikis, twitterers etc. abound but they are used as intended – for communication, sharing and discussion. The problem is that the discussions of academics are rarely interesting enough to be noticeable to the outside world.

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Disclaimer: My web2.0 activity is very high (2 blogs (this one and techrisk), facebook, twitter, flickr, librarything etc And I follow tons of people via web2.0) and is very rewarding for me personally and professionally. But I also know that six years of blogging is worth less than one paper. This is mainly because it is easier for a university to count papers and citations.

Posted on by mklang

Us Now documentary

Us Now is a documentary film that explores the ways in which web2.0 technologies are changing the way in which we interact and thus changing the fundamental roots of society. It’s “A film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet”.

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?
New technologies and a closely related culture of collaboration present radical new models of social organisation.

From what I have seen so far this is an insightful and interesting film which presents the viewer with many questions about our society. It is filled with interesting people and examples revealing interesting new social organizational forms and asking questions about the way which will could and should be governed in the future. There is an underlying demand for true participation in the ways we are governed.

The film is also released under the Creative Commons BY-SA license.

Here is a blurb from Vodo.net

Can we all govern? Us Now looks at how ‘user’ participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organising structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever. Us Now follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager; and Couch Surfing, a vast online network whose members share their homes with strangers.

Check out the trailer:

Posted on by mklang

Free Culture Forum Barcelona

I always think its a good idea to be in Barcelona. But unfortunately I will not be there this weekend. But for those of you who are in the area this coming weekend, you should seriously consider attending the Free Culture Forum:

FC Forum

Across the planet, people are recognizing the need for an international space to build and coordinate a global framework and common agenda for issues surrounding free culture and access to knowledge. The Free Culture Forum of Barcelona aims to create such a space. Bringing together under the same roof the key organizations and active voices in the free culture and knowledge space, the Forum will be a meeting point to sit and put together the answers to the pressing questions behind the present paradigm shift.

Representatives from Creative Commons Spain, Students for Free Culture and Wikimedia will be in attendance (among many others), so it’ll be a great opportunity to meet plenty of people in our community. Registration is free and open to the public, but there are more details on how to get involved here.

(via Creative Commons)

Posted on by mklang

Social Networks & Law

Ryan Calo over at the Standford Center for Internet and Society (is this the new Berkman?) is asking some very interesting questions about the legal issues of web2.0

An Australian court rules that a mortgage company can issue notice of a lien over Facebook. A court in the UK permits an injunction to be served via Twitter. A woman is arrested in Tennessee for “poking” someone over Facebook in violation of a protective order. Meanwhile, a 1978 provision of the Bankruptcy Code still provides that notice shall “be published at least once a week for three successive weeks in at least one newspaper of general circulation.” New forms (and norms) of communication are both expanding and contracting the avenues for legally meaningful notice. Just how do we know, in this uncharted new landscape, when notice is enough?

  1. Is the communication sufficiently engaging to reflect the gravity and context of the relevant legal process?
  2. Where’s the Miranda warning page?

In our joy of technology we must ensure that we do not forget to transfer the civil liberties developed over the course of our legal cultural history. To his list of examples I just want to add two more headlines New York man accused of using Twitter to direct protesters during G20 summit and Fraud Fugitive in Facebook Trap.

Also I want to mention the early work of Caroline Wilson who presented “Twit or Tweet? Legal Issues Associated with Twitter and other Micro-Blogging Sites” at GikII Amsterdam. (Jordan Hatcher’s liveblog of the event) for some additional questions.

Posted on by mklang

The WMG story – A tribute to YouTubers

In 2006 Warner Media Group became the first major media company to form a strategic relationship with YouTube. They launched a business model based on user-generated content. It looked really good.

But…

The arrangement with YouTube required that royalties be paid based on the number of views that videos featuring music from WMG artists received. By December 2008, negotiations between WMG and YouTube broke down. YouTube clips containing WMG music were blocked completely and replaced with a message indicating copyright infringement. Fair use wasn’t even on the agenda.

This pissed off the YouTubers (and still does). Proving that when creating a business based on open content it is kind of important not to piss off your fans, your customers and your producers all at once.

So here is a nice YouTube historical tribute to the WMG Story!

Warner Music Group might be getting back with Youtube, but they need to get back with the users as well. See what YouTube users had to say to WMG. In the aftermath of the WMG story several important questions remain open:

What can we learn from the WMG saga?
Who owns what?
What is original?
Who gets paid?
Who gets to make the rules?
Who does the copyright law serve?

Be heard! Respond, rate and comment.

This invitation is also a tribute to users, who have spoken their minds (and continue to do so). The playlist of WMG related videos (those featured and several others) is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…

Music: www.JonathanCoulton.com
Animation: Creative Commons Australia – www.creativecommons.org.au/animations

Posted on by mklang

Twitter, when narcissism is good

To tweet is narcissistic! Found this via ComputerWorld

A Rutgers University study shows that 80% of Twitterers are largely tweeting about themselves – what they’re doing, their feelings, their opinions and other personal information. Only 20% of the 350 Twitter users surveyed are sharing non-personal information and they tend to have larger social networks and interact more with their followers.

Kind of obvious but interesting to have it based in a rigourous study. The insight that twitter is a narcissistic tool is hardly new. Back in February Times Online had an article A Load of Twitter which discussed the phenomenon. Those negative to the technology want to see it based in insecurity and lack of self esteem:

“We are the most narcissistic age ever,” agrees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of Sussex. “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”

But then there are those who understand the tech better and see that it is not (only) about that. Its a dialogue, a conversation and like most conversations it is banal and shallow

Is that why tweets are often so breathtakingly mundane? Recently, the rock star John Mayer posted a tweet that read: “Looking for my Mosely Tribes sunglasses.” Who wants to tell the world that? “The primary fantasy for most people is that we can be as connected as we were in the womb, a situation of total closeness,” says de Botton. “When people who are very close are talking, they ‘twitter away’: ‘It’s a bit dusty here’ or ‘There’s a squirrel in the garden.’ They don’t say, ‘What do you think of Descartes’s second treatise?’ It doesn’t matter what people say on their tweets — it’s not the point.”

And these views are fine if this is what you want to focus on. But twitter is much more. What is missed is the great use of twitter as a tool of social coordination and information spreading. It only seems like narcissism since people don’t “get” what twitter is about.

Social coordination: When someone tweets that they are attending a conference, sitting on a train or in an airport it could be seen as narcissism since the focus is on the twitterer. But this is one dimensional and forgets that the act of tweeting where you are fills an important second function. It lets others find you. Talking from my own experience I (narcissistic, moi?) regularly coordinate physical meetings via twitter on trains or at conferences. Emailing an acquaintance places a social burden on the recipient – a tweet announcing where I am is an open invitation.

Information spreading: A large amount of tweets contain links to and information about web pages, pictures, articles and books. Of course a tweet stating that the user is reading this or that book is narcissistic but the very fact that a user I follow mentions the information is a recommendation. It is valuable information that often is too short to be spread in other ways (via blogs for example) or too banal to merit direct contact via email or telephone. In addition to which the tweet can be ignored without breaking any social norms.

Twitter is a tool that supports social contacts and much of what we do in social interaction is focused on the self, but it is seen as an acceptable narcissism and therefore not defined as such. The only difference is that twitter is “new” and therefore can be seen as a bad form of self reflection… narcissism. In time the social norms may change in this area and twitter may become an acceptable form of self referencing. Maybe it won’t.

But if it is narcissistic to be sociable then I am a happy narcissist. Follow me (klang67) on Twitter!

Update: More on the pointlessness of Twitter

From Pearanalytics research shows that 40% of twitter is pointless babble, read their whitepaper here.

Seth Finkelstein in The Guardian Twitter is a sucker’s game that only serves the needs of a tiny elite.

Sysomos Inside Twitter study with in-depth data found, amongst other things, that 24% of Tweets are created by bots.

And in defense of twitter from BLDG BLOG comes How the Other Half Writes: In Defense of Twitter

Posted on by mklang

Equality loses on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is planning to add a feature called “flagged revisions” which will fundamentally alter the basic philosophy of WIkipedia. The plan will effect the articles of now living people and will require trusted voluntary Wikipedia editors to accept changes made to any article. Prior to acceptance the changes will not be visible. The New York Times writes:

The change is part of a growing realization on the part of Wikipedia’s leaders that as the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace-the-chaos culture into something more mature and dependable.

The original free for all attitude where anyone can change articles – which is still the main boast of Wikipedia – has not been true since the Seigenthaler “scandal” in 2005. After John Seigenthaler was accused in a Wikipedia article of being directly involved in both the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy Wikipedia removed anonymous edits.

But the basic change occurring now is that the simple user cannot change articles (of now living people) which means that the balance of power in the creation of online information on Wikipedia shifts and gives the voluntary editor more power – even in relation to the knowledgeable writer.

Considering the past problems and the ways in which Wikipedia articles are often used for marketing and boastfulness these changes are probably necessary. But at the same time it is sad to see that the power over the online knowledge infrastructure is fundamentally shifting from the users into the hands of the gatekeepers.

Posted on by mklang