social media and web 2.0

Chapter Copyright 2008 Digital Enterprise Research Institute. All rights reserved.

Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie

Social Media and Web 2.0

DM110 Emerging Web Media20th October 2008

Alexandre Passant <[email protected]>Digital Enterprise Research Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway

mailto:[email protected]



Introductions

Alexandre Passant Postdoctoral researcher DERI, NUI Galway Social Software cluster

Research Interests Web 2.0 and Social Media Semantic Web and Linked Data Combining both to provide advanced / intelligent services on

the Web for end-users

What about you ?


Previous lectures

Overview of the World Wide Web History and technical architecture, HTML programming

Publishing content on the Web Content Management Systems, Drupal case-study

Digital media Formats for multi-media content on the Web

XML and XHTML Validating HTML and going further with XHTML

Translating data from one format to another one RSS to aggregate data, XSLT to translate it


But ...

Is there a way to publish data on the Web without high-level technical skills ? Focus on the content rather than on the technical issues A large-scale writable-Web

How to use the Web as a medium to share data and get new relationships ? The Web as a platform On-line social networking

This is exactly what this lecture is about !


Agenda

General introduction to Social Media and Web 2.0

Blogs Wikis Media-sharing and Online Social Networking Overview of various Web 2.0 services Licensing issues Web 1.0 / Web 2.0 / Semantic Web

Assignments Hands-on sessions during the lecture

6

From the Web to a “Social Web”

The New Yorker, 1993

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

6

From the Web to a “Social Web”


“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”


“I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just

pointless, incessant barking.”


What is Social Media ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media “Social media uses the ‘wisdom of crowds’ to connect

information in a collaborative manner.” “Social media can take many different forms, including

message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video.”

Popular examples (details later) Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Upcoming,

SecondLife, Digg, del.cio.us, 43things ...

Related terms Web 2.0, Social Web, social software, Social networks, social bookmarking, user-generated content

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media


What is Web 2.0 ?

A term made popular by Tim O’Reilly http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/

2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html “A set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable

solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core.”

... but also a copyrighted term for conferences

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html





Web 2.0 principles (O’Reilly)

The Web as a platform Harnessing collective intelligence Data is the next “Intel Inside” End of the software release cycle Lightweight programming models Software above the level of a single device Rich user experiences

The long tail


Web 2.0 meme map


Web 2.0 tagcloud


Social Media in simple terms

Users Content Tags Interactivity

Users post content Users share content Users tag content Users comment content

Users browse content via tags Users connect directly


How many Web 2.0 services ?

A lot ! See http://techcrunch.com But some of them may not survive ...

http://techcrunch.com

http://techcrunch.com


Weblogs and weblogging


What is a blog ?

A blog, or weblog (web log) is an online journal “A web application which contains periodic time-stamped

posts on a common (usually open-access) webpage” Posts are often shown in reverse chronological order Usually, blog posts can be commented by the readers Generally features RSS feeds to syndicate latest news

A wide range of use-cases: Individual diaries, group blogs on technical topics Political campaigns, media programs and corporations

(e.g. the Google Blog)

Grassroots journalism Well-known bloggers may even blog as a daily-job


Anatomy of a weblog (frontend)


Anatomy of a weblog (backend)


State of the blogosphere


Why ? Who ? How ?

http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/




Tagging blog posts

A simple for user-generated classification Anyone can use his own term No need to learn a predefined vocabulary Evolves among time, thanks to users themselves

Tagging A tripartite relationship between a User, a Resource, a Tag

Folksonomy The result of tagging actions in a given platform Tagclouds allow visual representation of folksonomies

As we will see later, many media-sharing platform also extensively use tagging


Serendipity through tagging


How to discover blogs ?

Lots of people blog, but data is spread on the Web By nature, the Web is distributed, so is weblogging Anyone can create a weblog, but how to find it ?

Blogrolls and hyperlinks Will help to find related blogs from a particular one

Dedicated search engines Technorati - http://techorati.com Google Blogsearch - http://blogsearch.google.com

Using those search engines, you can then use your RSS aggregators to follow interesting news On-line aggregators, e.g. http://google.com/reader Desktop applications, e.g. http://netnewswire.com

http://techorati.com

http://techorati.com

http://blogsearch.google.com

http://blogsearch.google.com

http://google.com/reader

http://google.com/reader

http://netnewswire.com

http://netnewswire.com


Create your own blog !

Free online services blogger.com, wordpress.com ...

Open-source tools WordPress, B2Evolution ... You will need you own hosting space on the Web,

generally with ability to embeds PHP in webpages and MySQL for data storage

Some CMS also offer blogging capabilities Drupal, Joomla ... You may need to install a particular blogging module

Let’s create your own blog ! On wordpress.com


Wikis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable

anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.[1][2] Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.

WikiWikiWeb (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki) was the first site to be called a wiki. Ward Cunningham started developing WikiWikiWeb in 1994,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki


Wiki principles

A wiki is an informational resource, like a reference manual, encyclopedia, or handbook The most famous is Wikipedia, a highly used, online, free-

access encyclopedia It amasses to a group of web pages that allows

users to add content and also allows others to edit the content: It relies on cooperation, checks and balances of its

members, and a belief in sharing of ideas Contrary to weblogs, wikis focus on community agreement

rather than on personal views of a topic This creates a community effort in resource and

information management, disseminating the 'voice' amongst many instead of concentrating it upon few


What are wikis used for ?

Lots of various use-cases online encyclopaedias free dictionaries book repositories event management software development writing research papers project proposals

But be careful What is said in a wiki is not

necessary the truth ! Always check other information sources


Anatomy of Wikipedia


Wiki editing and auto-regulation

In a Wiki, anyone can edit exiting content, create new pages, and delete existing content WikiWords are used to create new pages and a simple

syntax allows to write pages without HTML A versioning mechanism allows to browse and retrieve

older versions to avoid vandalism

Auto-regulation People voluntary maintain the wiki to avoid vandalism Let’s try !

– Choose a Wikipedia page regarding a topic that you like– Edit the page and add a personal comment, without any

encyclopedic value (e.g. “This movie rocks, I’ve seen it ten times”)

– Let’s come back in 20 minutes ...


Media Sharing and OSN

Many Web 2.0 websites allow to upload and share data: Pictures, Videos, Slides, Events, Playlists, Bookmarks, ... Tag content so that it can be discovered

Most of them include an online social-networking (OSN) component Meet people because you share the same interests Object-centric social networking

While some websites are pure OSN Meet people through others Various purposes: dating, friendship, business contacts

We will see various examples now !


Last.fm use-case

Create an account http://last.fm/

Share your musical tastes Plug-ins for iTunes and iPod

Discover new content Based on what you’re listening to

Find people you may like Because you’re listening to the same bands And create your social network

Announce concerts, subscribe to events Chat with people online before you meet them in real life

http://last.fm

http://last.fm


Connecting things ... and people


Online Social Networking

While the previous websites feature social-networking components, this is not their main purpose You can use them only to publish / discover data

Some websites are pure Social Networking: Friendships and relationships Offline meetings Curiosity about others Business opportunities and hob hunting

They allow a user to create and maintain an online network of close friends or business associates for social and professional reasons


Other Web 2.0 services

Blogs, wikis, OSN and media sharing are the most popular form of Social Media websites

But many other services are available on the Web Microblogging Videoblogging Podcasting Social Aggregators ...

Mash-ups will allow to combine data from various Web 2.0 services to create your own Eg: Display upcoming concerts on a GoogleMap

– Topic of our next lectures


Microblogging ?

Short updates of your activity lifestream Publish from various devices and share it to anyone A new form of agile communication

Twitter.com The most famous microblogging website 140 characters max per update

Let’s try Go to http://twitter.com and create an account Start publishing some data that will be available on your

public timeline http://twitter.com/myusername Find people that you want to follow

http://twitter.com

http://twitter.com

http://twitter.com/myusername

http://twitter.com/myusername


Social Aggregators

How to let people browse my social data from a single entry point Social aggregators can help

– Eg: FriendFeed

We will see in our next lecture how the Semantic Web can provide alternatives, but thanks to open standards and process

Privacy issues What do you want to publish ? Who can access it ?

– Do you really want your lecturer to see your latest party pictures ?

Work still must be done in that direction !


Licensing issues

When you publish content online, you may allow people to reuse it, but you want to keep some kind of ownership So that your work can be recognized Licensing does not unallow to give your work ‘for free’

– E.g.: Free-source software licenses (GPL ...)

Creative Commons - http://creativecommons.org Share, Remix, Reuse — Legally Decide what people can do with your content

– Reuse it ? Edit it ? Sell it ?

6 different contracts Some bands put their songs using a CC-licence

– http://jamendo.com

http://creativecommons.org

http://creativecommons.org

http://jamendo.com

http://jamendo.com


Creative Commons


Find, identify and re-use CC content


Web 1.0 / Web 2.0

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

Platforms Netscape, Internet Explorer Google Services, AJAX, Flock

Web Pages Personal Websites Blogs

Portals Content Management Systems Wikis

Encyclopediæ Britannica Online Wikipedia

Talk Netmeeting Skype, Asterisk

Knowledge Directories, Taxonomies Tagging, Folksonomies

Referencing Stickiness Syndication

Content Akamai BitTorrent, P2P

Events Evite Upcoming.org

(updated from O’Reilly)


... 2.0 or 0.1 ?

“Web 2.0” is not far from the initial idea of the Web “The idea was that anybody who used the web would have

a space where they could write and so the first browser was an editor, it was a writer as well as a reader. Every person who used the web had the ability to write something. [...] When you write a blog, you don't write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I'm very, very happy to see that now it's gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium” - Tim Berners-Lee - Interview with the BBC (2005) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4132752.stm

We’ll see in our next lecture that the (Social) Semantic Web is even more near from the initial vision of the Web !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4132752.stm





Assignment

Choose a particular project / interest that you have Describe and implement your Social Media strategy

to promote it to a worldwide audience ! Define and argue which tools you will use (blogs, OSN ...) Then create some account(s) and publish content ... keep

it alive if you can, and you might be able to create a community around it !

Finally, provide a single entry point so that people can discover all your Social Media regarding to that topic content from a single entry point

– HTML document with links to different sources, aggregated RSS feeds, FriendFeed accout ...

mailto: [email protected] before 09 Nov.




Credits

Some slides based on: Last year lectures by John Breslin Social Semantic Web tutorials

– WWW2008– RWSS2008

CC-Pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HNL_Wiki_Wiki_Bus.jpg http://flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/462105429/ http://flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/

http://www.slideshare.net/Cloud/web-20-21209

http://www.slideshare.net/Cloud/web-20-21209

http://www.slideshare.net/Cloud/interlinking-online-communities-and-enriching-social-software-with-the-semantic-web

http://www.slideshare.net/Cloud/interlinking-online-communities-and-enriching-social-software-with-the-semantic-web

http://www.slideshare.net/terraces/applications-of-semantic-web-methodologies-and-techniques-to-social-networks-and-social-media-sites-presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/terraces/applications-of-semantic-web-methodologies-and-techniques-to-social-networks-and-social-media-sites-presentation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HNL_Wiki_Wiki_Bus.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HNL_Wiki_Wiki_Bus.jpg

http://flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/462105429/

http://flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/462105429/

social media and web 2.0

Technology