ICTlogy

Amit Dasgupta
Leveraging Web 2.0 to Develop Better Applications for Rural Communities

Despite the progress in technology in India, the benefits have not reached the agricultural community — 60% of India’s population. Mostly because of lack of access to information and knowledge.

But:

• Without a large user base, difficult to justify cost
• Large user base only if regional variations and localization needs are addressed

Web 2.0 can help:

• Improve quality of information by linking information from multiple data sources
• Reducte cost of content creating and deployment
• Better access through multiple devices
• Richer content using collective intelligence
• Effective information exchange and knowledge management across geography through collaborative platforms

Besides the well known blogs and wikis, RSS feeds and tagging are really useful web 2.0 tools for knowledge sharing among stakeholders. Integration of data from multiple sources will be required to provide meaningful information and content.

Computers is just not enough: connectivity, content, services, B2C, B2B, G2B, etc.

Eric Gundersen
Portal 2.0: Using Social Software to Connect Geographically Dispersed Teams [+]

From tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. From information overload to dynamic filtering.

Being able to track the changes e.g. on a wiki brings huge transparency to the whole system, not only at the technological level, but also at the social one.

What if you had a system that allows your entire community to track, manage, analyze and act on news? Tracking, is not about the tool, is about how the tool helps your community/team.

Ability to take all your Web 2.0 data onto a USB stick so you can use it off-line. Gudersen himself commented that they were working on Google Gears to do so. I also think on the experience of Moulin, the offline Wikipedia. I personally use XAMPP, but must admit the syncing is not straightforward…

Chris Addison, Pier Andrea Pirani
Euforic2 – Putting Web 2.0 Applications to Work in a Development Community

From Euforic to Euforic2, to enable the use and contribution to the portal: for the trainees to practice, for the experts to share…: content, web to share, knowledge to share, virtual office

Blogs to leverage user generated content, reaching specific target audiences, tools to exchange stories inside organizations.

Wikis to integrate content in just one single place.

Videos, presentations, feed aggregators…

Some lessons learned:

1. What Web 2.0 really means: web applications, not on your PC; data separate from display; online collaboration; low entry cost; promotion of content in different ways; support communities; user ‘chews’
2. Blog not just a diary: content management system, even e-mail; easy to produce newsletters; multiple authors
3. The four life stages of a wiki: wikis are very organic. Raise awareness and the quickstart, organizing simple menus to get content together; enthusiasm; sorting out the mess; keeping it going
4. How to make a del.icio.us dish: the appealing of tag clouds
5. Everywhere but our website: users find our content everywhere, in many places
6. Brewing content: mash, aggregate, filter content; abstract your own (e.g. the blog); indexing others (del.icio.us); monitoring others (iGoogle)
7. New costs to working
8. Need for training and awareness
9. Expanding the audience: alerts; registration in search engines
10. Face2web

Panel discussion: Michael Powell, Mike Pereira, Jennifer Heney, Dorothy Mukhebi
The Core Aims of Knowledge Exchange and the Challenges of Using New Technologies to Meet Them

Organizational challenges: how do we reshape ourselves, build information share spaces, networking is implicit.

The organization becomes “2.0” just like the web: enable collaborations from anywhere/everywhere. But how to control relevance? Will this kill the discussion?

How’s the audience? The practitioner? The researcher? How do you open this? Is it a public good?

Most people use the sites not going to the sites but through alert systems [which, I guess, includes RSS feed subscriptions]

Decentralized approach to content development. Really difficult, as an institution, to feel comfortable with it, really difficult to find the balance, maintain certain degree of quality control.

The issue of the digital divide and the difficulties of access.

Find the appropriate communications (system) for the appropriate content. And the contrary: if e.g. mobile phone is the platform, think of the appropriate content (and not only the format, but the content itself) to be delivered through it.

The importance of mobile content.

To contribute: policy at the local level, resources and founding, technical expertise, infrastructure, access to relevant data / data sources, etc. So, the organizations that have capacity, should commit themselves to make relevant changes in the private sector so this empowerment, engagement takes place, for instance by affecting the regulatory framework.

Relevancy, quality control, suitability are difficult or just impossible to design ex ante, so give the practitioner, the user the ability to comment on resources, so you can help in the evaluation of this resource.

The Web2forDev – Participatory Web for Development Conference is taking place at FAO Headquarters in Rome, organized by FAO, CTA, IICD, GTZ, UBC, IFAD, CGIAR, euforic, UCAD, APC, ACP and the European Commission. Here come my notes.

Presentation: Anton Mangstl

It’s the first time that the revolution is not about the development of systems, but empowerment.

Presentation: Hansjörg Neun

Holidays for me is getting no internet and no GSM. It is important not to get drowned by technologies, but to master them.

Jacques Diouf, Director-General Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Keynote Speech: Anriette Esterhuysen

The importance of ICTs in leapfrogging.

Skilled development, that can be enhanced/fostered by ICTs, and has traditionally been forgotten from the (cooperation for) development agendas.

The focus of ICT4D can be focused into mainstream.

Proliferation of online content, along with language/translation tools, bringing in new users that do not come from the developed world.

Web 2.0 removes the barriers on the consumers, creators of content.

Partnerships are crucial, collaboration is critical for cooperation for development, but most especially engagement, which is widely enhanced by Web 2.0, a perfect platform for this multilayer commitment, response.

Sharing is a main challenge.

We need to rethink (cooperation for) development deeply. We have to provide access to the tools, and to let/help people use them effectively.

Participation, decision making, human rights… are new dimensions on development that the Web 2.0 can include on the development debate.

Online participation should be ways to promote a more inclusive society.

More info

• Web2forDev – Participatory Web for Development at internet.artizans
• Website of the conference
• Blog of the conference
• Wiki of the conference
• Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us, by Michael Wesh
• Pages tagged with "web2fordev" on del.icio.us
• Flickr Photos tagged with web2fordev

Keynote Speech: George Ritzer
Theorizing Web 2.0

While there are quite new things in the Web 2.0, they are not taking place in the larger society.

There’s quite a consensus that Web 2.0 is about consumption, buying… And a central issue is the collapse among consumption and production, the concept of the prosumer. Also the blurring distinction between the professional, the expert, the amateur.

Is prosuming that new? Marx already stated that production implied consumption. And in the McDonald’s model you also have the consumer as producer. And this is good for the owner: less costs, higher fitting of needs. From a marxian point of view, the consumer that produces produces nothing but surplus value, among other things because he does it for no pay.

In the Web 2.0 it looks like branding, marketing, advertising is so important. Is it Facebook a platform with a name/brand or a brand with a platform? Second Life?

Coolhunting: consumers creating new styles.

All these aspects are about putting the consumer to work, exploiting the audience.

There’s a big problem on how to get profits on Web 2.0 sites/initiatives. Through visibility + adds coming for this visibility? Profits from branding? Being the usual explanations that costs are few: the prosumers work for free and technology’s not that expensive and has huge economy scales.

Frivolization of society through Web 2.0 discourse, being the Web 2.0 a perfect output of Postmodernism.

My reflections

• When I think of the prosumer, the consumer/producer at McDonald’s (e.g. drive through McDonald’s) or the self-service check in at airports are not what I have in mind. In my point of view, those are not prosumers, but consumers that are getting less for the same money, just as self-service oil pumps: Is this prosuming? No, I don’t think so.
• IMHO, prosuming is coding apps for a cracked iPhone; and sooner or later being able to buy an official-but-open iPhone with those apps as firmware.
• The first difference is option: in the later case, you have the option whether to crack and hack the iPhone; in the former examples, you just have not that option.
• The second difference is leadership: it’s me that wants that hack on that phone. Who asked me for changes in customer relationship with McDonald’s, airports or oil stations?
• The third difference is that the prosumer, besides doing it as an option, he gets something in exchange that they would not have instead: Flickr gives him server space to store photos, features such as searching and tagging, etc. What do you get in exchange in a self-service oil pump? oil stains and stinking hands. Not the same thing. I agree that Web 2.0 developers/entrepreneurs do get profit from the consumer/prosumer work, but isn’t it a win-win strategy? Sometimes it might be difficult to see what the prosumer gets in exchange (notoriety? a very remote possibility to get a job?), but I guess it’s still there. I agree that some producers exploit the audience, the consumer, but it’s never at gunpoint.
• A good comment from somebody at the audience: aren’t prosumers having more power (than traditional consumers) against owners?

Keynote Speech: Ian Forrester
Beyond the broadcast (trends and patterns moving forward)

Web 2.0 is not user generated content, but also the social, interactivity, the collective intelligence.

The BBC worked with projects and trials just as BBC Blogs, Feed Factory, Creative/Open Archive, Podcasts, Data Feeds, Data Apis, etc. The BBC Backstage wanted to stimulate creativity. Backstage is community: lively discussion lists, suggestions, social events, etc.

Backstage is also transparency: how in touch is the BBC with its audience.

Backstage is the Wild West: an opportunity to move prototypes onwards, to try out new technologies, to work with internal BBC staff directly, to shape the future of the BBC… and it’s changing the BBC: co-working, open coffee/lunch, grassroots support, startup teams, connecting the internal with the external…

Backstage is on the Digital Media Initiative (DMI)

The next web: ubiquity, rich Internet applications and widgets, connected objects, open information and sharing licenses, permalinked media, pipelines, attention and identity 2.0, digital restriction / right management.

Is TV dead? It is when it shows YouTube clips for half an hour!!!! BBC iPlayer allows to dowload/play 7 days of BBC programmes… and with a BBC iPlayer Facebook App… created by somebody else.

Legal and illegal content coexisting in the same site thanks to mashing up, social software, personalization, open APIs, etc. And seeing how your content is being shared illegally also gives you clues on how good it is, what your audience is thinking about you and your content.

Akiko Hemmi, Sian Bayne, Ray Land
Research methods for Web 2.0 practices: investigating e-learning using Web 2.0 in higher education

The importance of social context when writing/contributing to a wiki, e.g. others’ consent to be written about. Same, even more, when concerning changing others’ writings.

Second Life seems more suitable for informal chat than for exchange/creation of information and knowledge. Indeed, it is not a really reliable tool at this stage.

Identity issues in Second Life and Facebook and how you present your self (Goffman) in virtual realities.

Paolo Lattanzio, Mauro Sandrini
e-learning and web 2.0 – learning spaces for people or machines

The Web 2.0 is not, as it changes and evolves along time by using it.

Possibilities of strong personalization of learning.

Not intended to destroy the old methods, but enhance, complement them.

Possibility of dialog, not a monologue: blogs, podcasts, web radio, etc.

Activate the teachers’ peer community, sharing experiences, resources, etc. Available content should ease the updating of own content.

Not just reuse content, but also the tools.

By using Web 2.0 apps, students also learn not only to collaborate but how to use some tools.

Michael Thelwall
How do general social networking sites embed in the Web?

A hyperlink comparison of 20 social networking sites: hyperlinking is an endorsement to a site.

LexiURL Searcher

It looks that the sites with heavy blog component are more linked than you’d expect by their size/traffic. Blog seems to be a key component in the linking nature of Web 2.0.

Flavour: for each site, the flavour is the top-level domain that most frequently links to it, compared to the other sites. e.g. Facebook is linked by more .edu sites than any other kind of top level domain, while MySpace has the .com as the main referrer and Bebo with .uk.

57% of the links come from personal websites, most of them here’s my website and here’s my personal profile in Facebook/MySpace/whatever, 33% from commercial (especially music and film industry), 3% from educational.

LiveJournal and MySpace have, between them, much more shared links than any other platform with any other one.

Two very differentiate kinds of members in MySpace according to days since last entered the site: frequent users vs. created account and never entered back.

Female users more likely to be “here for” friendship and male users more likely to be “here for” dating (but only a minority). Males and females both preferred to have more female friends and Top 8 friends. Fremales preferred a greater proportion of female Top 8 friends. So, especially in the case of guys, does MySpace really reflects (as it’s been said) offline relationships?

Quite a usual use of swearing in youngsters (16 to 19 y.o.) sites on MySpace, more on guys.

Graham Lewis & Darren Reed
Science Blogs: Experimenting with practice and performance

What are science blogs?
Do they perform any science?
Or is it just science communication?
Or just merely personal diaries?

What are methodological and theoretical challenges for social science analysis

Partial immortalization blog, RealClimate.org

Mertonian norms or ideals (Merton (1954) The Normative Structure of Science

• communism (communalism)
• universalism
• disinterestednesses
• organised scepticism

Science in the real world

• messy and complex
• competitive
• publish, prestige, tenured positions
• funding
• intellectual property

Scale of science blogging: 4% of the total (tagged “science” and found in Technorati)
ScienceBlogs.com

Nature Network, SciVee, LabAction, Second Life / Nature Island / Drexel University

Bora Zivkovic (2006) The Open Laboratory

Most of scientific bloggers define themselves or their blog as scientists writing (whatever they write), and just a few of them state that they’ll be publishing content, findings, data, etc.

Useful Chemistry / Useful Chemistry Wiki, being the wiki the place where scientists put up practices and describe procedures (e.g. to repeat an experiment).

Evidence suggests little science practice.
Blogging slowly moving from ‘fringe activity’ for scientists?
Web 2.0 as policy-making tool.
Are ‘science blogs’ really anything new?

More scientific communication than science blogs.

My comments

• I guess we should clarify some concepts and state the differences between science, scholar, academic and research blogs, for instance. While research is part of academic or faculty activity, teaching and diffusion are too, so we shouldn’t forget the these two activites also are or should be or could be part of the concept / activity of scholarly blogs. Darren Reed agrees, stating that it is a new (thrilling) area to explore, but that the “research” part is the most interesting as there’s the need to separate data, evidence from opinion, speculation… and some so-called research blogs are not that honest… and this has all but added to the common believe that blogs (in general, not just scientific) are frivolous literature.

Nicholas Hookway
Entering the Blogosphere; Some strategies for Using Blogs in Social research

What blogs can offer social scientists? Adding it into the researcher toolkit.

So far, the predominant blog genre is the personal diary-style blog (or life-log).

Differences of academic blogging from diary-style

• Impression management
• The presentation of self in everyday life (Goffman)
• A paradox between visibility and invisibility

What about trustiness? Can they be identity playing?

Blogs are instantaneous, publicly available and low-cost tools for gathering data. Good for collecting sensitive information and ‘ever-changing’ present. A way of figuring ‘the everyday’ without the intrusion of a researcher.

Enric Senabre Hidalgo
Stigmergy, meritocracy and vandalism in peer-production: how can wikis grow

Wikis: open, observable, easy, organic, overt, secure, tolerant, discussed.

Similarities to open source software

• human language = code = software
• wiki pages = program modules
• more transparency implies more security
• every change is saved and revisable
• each content has its own discussion, often bigger than the content itself
• improvement loops, parallel tools

In wikis, users are gathering around content, while in blogging is content that gathers around a blog (content in the center of contributers vs. the blogger in the center of content)

Collaboration by stigmergy: communication through signs left in the environment.

Wikis as a way of appropriating content; more content, more traffic, more edits, more content, more traffic, more edits… And quality increasing due to more edits.

Task distribution/specialization of work

• content: writing, translating, editing typos
• technical: tools, bots
• social: welcoming, mediating, helping, guiding

Organic generation of rules. The constance presence of vandalism, due to extreme opennes. But there’s a continuous redefinition of vandalism, needs for new rules, etc.

Adaptive online identity and content driven reputation = you are what you do (edit, comment, help, repair) within the system, which implies trust and proven experience enabling you to participate in different levels.

My comments

• More edits mean more quality, but this is because errors are detected or because of increments of content?

Both open source development and Wikipedia require free time, cheap equipments and communications, and breaking large and complex tasks into small and independent modules.

Camille Roth
Viable Wikis

State of the wikisphere and processes of viability.

In general, there’s technological and functional regularity across platforms and established/running wikis, though there’s organizational variety:

• scope: “defining” the wiki, the language (and its implications on the geographical distribution of this language and the natural selection of contributors)
• policies: “neutral point of view”, historical, evolution of wiki rules through policy pages
• technical policies (eventually): who can contribute, how is interaction and social identity defined, new technological features

Wikis are a group of users, possibly becoming an active community — population dynamics: recruitment, retention, exclusion/leave
Wikis are a group of pages, possibly becoming esteemed content — content dynamics: growth, stabilization, quality articles

Population dynamics

• Bootstraping period: centralized set of initial norms, first incentive landscape
• User incentives: altruistic, “socially concerned”, selfish
• Enrollment, leadership: explicit role distribution, implicit role distribution (quantitative differences, informal authority)

Two development regimes of growth: after bootstrapping, there is a phase of recruitment of many other users that is essentially different, qualitatively and quantitatively.