ISP 523: Fundamentals of Information Technology

1. ISP 523: Fundamentals of Information Technology Instructor: Stephen Lackey November 16, 2005

2. Today’s lecture • Social Computing Topics • Blogs • Wiki • Social Bookmarking • Podcasting • RSS Recap (see prior week slides) • anti-Social Computing

3. Social Computing • Common feature is that technology simple, yet highly adaptable for social interaction • Has meaning in context of like-minded community • Typically use web-based Content Management methodologies, simplified for specific application • Does “computing” replace the “social” in human interaction, or augment it? • Key enabling technology: RSS • Social Computing: “that which gets spammed”

4. Email / Instant Messaging • Email: electronic mail • dueling essays • asynchronous communication • Limited authentication – can receive messages from almost anyone with limited control – open access • Instant Messenger • Synchronous communication • Greater authentication, exclusivity • Greater sanctions for misbehavior – closed access

5. Web Logs (a.k.a. blogs, blogging. etc) • Online journals, reports • Many free hosting services. One example: • http://www.bloglines.com/ • Typically hosted in CMS-type system • Basic organizational paradigm: the calendar • Enable easy linking, trackback capabilities • Enriched by participation in community

6. What are blogs for? • Dear Diary… the 13 year-old blogger • Is it journalism? It can be • Political activism: Dean, Rather, warblogging, Iraq, Paris Riots? • Human filters of Internet content? • Public bulletin boards

7. Blogging buzzwords • Blogger – he who blogs • Blogosphere – the rarified air that bloggers live in? • Permalink – permanent URL of page • Blogroll – affiliated or sympathetic blogs • Trackback – pages that link to the current page

8. Photoblogging • Prevalence of digital cameras on cell phones cited as source of • Camera phones cited as “photojournalism” or “photoblogs” • London Underground bombings, other disasters • The “DSG” (here: “Dog Poop Girl) incident in South Korea • Impacts on Privacy

9. The Wiki • Developed in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, a software engineer enabling community help to discover “design patterns” • Assertion • Debate • Consensus • Refinement / reorganization into coherent document • Like most web tech, developed by programmers to share tech information • Works best for “self evident” theories or subjects too obscure to generate debate • Extended to every subject matter imaginable

10. WikiPedia • Most famous Wiki: the Wikipedia • Collaborative database of interconnected articles • Last count: over 400,000 • On web at: http://www.wikipedia.org • Authoritative or convenient? • What is it? • Body of knowledge ? • distillation of internet-era culture? • Social experiment? • Something else?

11. How does a Wiki link? • Typically the author can used mixed case type (otherwise called “CamelCase” due to its use of uppercase/lowercase combinations in place of spaces to combine words) • Some Wiki use special notation to indicate a link to another Wiki article or external link – wiki syntax similar to traditional email tagging • Links and backlinks critical elements of interconnection between documents • Each document a “home page” for external references.

12. Why use a Wiki? • Often called the “post-it notepad” of the web • it’s part discussion board, part blog, part content manager, part something else. • Rapid means to generate large volumes of interlinked pages – content grows organically • Useful in shared document collaboration • Construction of reference material, procedures, archival of memos, email, etc.

13. Social Bookmarking • Most famous example: del.icio.us • Enables users to create accounts to save bookmarks on web • Bookmark lists are shared • Users can: • create own keywords • see others with same bookmark • see bookmark collections of other users

14. Social Bookmarking • How much intersection between links of like-minded researchers and web-surfers? • Tag clouds: frequency that you or others use certain keywords with your links • Often integrated with blogs

15. Podcasting • As we know it: Co-invention of: • Adam Curry (of MTV fame) • Dave Winer (of RSS and OPML fame) • Named as twist on iPod, as in “iPod Broadcast” • Created as notion of decentralized media production – “control to the masses”

16. Podcasting • Freely-distributed (MP3) audio files: • Royalty-free music (copied with permissions) • Audio blogs • Soundscapes / Travel journals • Language instruction • Audio fiction (like 40’s radio?) • Others • Often homepaged on blog services with external links to Mp3 files • Syndicated via RSS (though blogging accounts) • Narrow audiences: "Everyone is famous for 15 people."

17. Podcast examples • Public radio: • http://radioproject.org/ • Royalty-free music: • http://garageband.com. (Its content is largely what one might expect from the name. ) • http://www.podcastalley.com/ • The newest 100 of the new: • http://audio.weblogs.com/ • Alternate media and the bleeding edge of “fair use” • http://viprhealthcare.typepad.com/mashup_of_the_week_podcas/

18. Anti-Social Computing • Does electronic communication dehumanize? • social cues and sanctions for social behavior • Spam outlets • Email • “Please help smuggle money out of country X” • “Your ebay account is about to expire” • Etc… • Wiki spam • Blogs – sites created as spam • Blog comment spam

19. Anti-Social Computing • Trolls • Attempts to disrupt community with inflammatory discourse Flame wars • inflammatory exchanges on bulletin boards, wiki, blogs, public comment areas • Tend to rely on an audience • Tend to pursue public shame