What blogs, wikis, and Soylent Green have in common...
(Hint: it ain't technology∞)
http://BlogsWikisVPL.notlong.com∞
∞ -- Photo by Alan Levine∞"what force on earth could be weaker than the feeble strength of one?"
The Weakerthans, Pamphleteers∞ (thanks Scott∞)
The Weakerthans, Pamphleteers∞ (thanks Scott∞)
Weblogs
∞Miriam-Webster's Words of the Year∞
A blog is similar to a write my essay∞ activity... make money online∞
internet tips∞
work from home∞
"...not all technical innovations bring heretofore unimagined functionality from artic. Some, and in my opinion the most valuable, take what 10% of the population had previously been able to do and make that capability available to 90% of the population. That’s what blogs and wikis have done. And this creates network effects" -- David Wiley∞
"...The biggest thing about these self-publishing tools is that they’re self-publishing, natch. You don’t need to be a geek to be able to publish to the ‘net anymore - and this stuff has the potential to “fix” the web, which was supposed to be a dynamic network of linked content published by custom essay writing∞ individuals,Assignment Service∞ but got co-opted into a variation of the TV broadcast model,Bamboo Sheets∞ with users sitting in front of glowing screens receiving the content that The Man wants to feed them (picture a scene from Max Headroom or something). Instead,Custom Dissertation∞ we can effectively publish our own content, with whatever authority we can muster." -- D'Arcy Norman∞
The MW definition is problematic on a couple fronts.
Alan Levine More than cat diaries∞
Suw Charman, Exploding the diary myth∞ - "A blog is no more a diary than an empty notebook is a diary."
Northern Voice Schedule∞ and Moose Camp∞ give a good sense of the diversity of uses and approaches to blogging today.
And notice that the MW definition for Blog is as a noun?
"...it's the equivalent of viewing a hammer as only a means to hit nails. Obviously that is the task at its most basic watch TV shows online∞. But what does it mean? In the case of the hammer, it means we can build a doghouse, swimming pool covers∞ a bookshelf, or a house. Until we look past the task and functionality of a tool - to what the tool enables - we largely miss the beauty of why it's so useful." - George Siemens∞ - via WikiVPL
"I think many people believe blogs are a genre the way (bad) pulp fiction is a genre: they’re all the same, their goals are the same, they’re trash, they’re just personal bleatings. Blogs are a medium, and while to a certain extent the medium is the message, it’s also true that blogs need not be personal or controversial, etc. If they inhabit a genre, it’s narrative, broadly considered." -- Gardner Campbell∞
"The Read-Write web, the Social web, Web 2.0 - this is a very different web space. It's also a new kind of literacy. While it's very easy to set up a blog and engage in blogging, many people don't know that. While there are inexpensive and free wiki applications that make creating web sites easy, many people are still in the typewriter / print mindset." -- Joan Vinall-Cox∞.
"I think there is less understanding of the distributed and loosely to non-structured nature of the "conversations:. People still want it to be nicely contained, all in one place, like threaded discussion boards. They think it is "wrong" or "bad" that it is so poorly structured, and I think that is the beauty,Custom Essay∞ that it is more of a real mirror of society. There are no nicely ordered threads of a discussion at a party, at a debate, at a coffee house. And people still misunderstand the importance of commenting, of stepping in (where allowed) and participating in other people's sites. That is one of the social aspects." - Alan Levine∞ via comment∞
"Blogs and wikis often operate within a set of unexpressed, taken-for-granted rules." - Chris Sessums∞
"The network effect being created by massively interconnecting content and people is so much more than just a few more links on your page or nodes in your social network. There is a qualitative change in behavior. It’s like running the Slime model in Netlogo with fewer than 70 agents, and then running it again with more than 90. You wouldn’t think that just a few more people doing exactly the same thing everyone else was already doing could make any difference.Custom Thesis∞ But we do see a distinct change in the behavior of the group." -- David Wiley∞
"I must say, that in the 14 months I have been blogging, I have witnessed a radical increase in the local (Australian/New Zealand) use of the technologies. As a result, I am finding myself reading less and less of what has been a very North American perspective, and reading more and more of my local network has to say." - Leigh Blackall∞
"A Pew study (pdf)∞ is released which casts doubt on the idea that online communication weakens local and family ties. Instead, the internet has assumed a role in supplementing those ties (the report even notes that people with more local ties also use the internet more frequently) while at the same time providing people with access to multiple communities worldwide from which they can draw help and support." - Stephen Downes∞
"A Pew study (pdf)∞ is released which casts doubt on the idea that online communication weakens local and family ties. Instead, the internet has assumed a role in supplementing those ties (the report even notes that people with more local ties also use the internet more frequently) while at the same time providing people with access to multiple communities worldwide from which they can draw help and support." - Stephen Downes∞
∞Meet my personal network of experts, filters and analysts, each with their own special expertise (an incomplete sampling): Bryan∞, Alan∞, D'Arcy∞, Gardner∞, Scott∞, David∞, Michelle∞, the other Michelle∞, Josie∞, James∞, Steve∞, Martha∞, Andy∞, Jerry∞, Stephen∞, and more) -- I tend to think of these people as friends, and in most cases "real" friendships have evolved and been supported over time...
"[The biggest misconception about blogs is that] they make you interesting. ;-) They don’t. It’s just a tool to help publish content. Just because you have a blog, doesn’t mean anyone cares. On the flipside, however, if you are even remotely interesting (or at least not completely boring), I can guarantee that no matter how narrow your area of interest, there are others online searching out blogs about it…" -- D'Arcy Norman∞
"Rather than learning only through courses, we learn by creating and forming connections to information and people. The sources we select are dynamic. When they change, our whole network gets smarter." -- Siemens again∞
My cry for help for this talk (via blog∞ and wiki∞): blogs and wikis - why, how and who?∞ -- received much of the material here this way. (Thanks Peter∞, Christopher∞, Vicki∞, Kyle∞, Leigh∞, Alan∞, Scott∞, Margot∞, Joan∞, Stephen∞, Gardner∞, David∞ and D'Arcy∞. (Hope I'm not forgetting anyone.)
Wikis
∞The fastest way to get text online. An online sketch pad.
Plan a camping trip∞
Plan a conference∞ (or document one)
Take collaborative notes∞
Iterative and interactive course page∞
Mock up a website∞
An ongoing database of sharable lesson plans∞
WikiWrite - simplistic riffs on "author" and "authority"
"Distributed, persistent, worldwide authorship focused on particular topics or projects, evolving very rapidly and thereby demonstrating the process of civilization and the flowering of discourse communities the way a time-lapse movie shows the blooming of a rose." -- (Gardner Campbell∞) Perhaps no artifact demonstrates this so powerfully as Jon Udell's epic screencast Heavy metal umlaut -- the movie∞
WikiAuthority - "Wikis are us. I think that fact is very poorly understood, though the latest Wikipedia scandal∞ may have helped educate some folks in this regard." -- (Gardner Campbell∞)
"The blogosphere is a community that might produce a work. Whereas a wikis a work that might produce a community." Ward Cunningham via Ross Mayfield∞
∞Grasping for significance
"No brief answer possible. No broad answer valuable. I will note that the implications are remarkably like the implications of the emerging print culture of the Renaissance. (Cf. terrific “In Our Time” (BBC Radio 4) podcast this week on 17th Century Print Culture∞.)" -- Gardner Campbell∞
"what makes social software like blogs and wikis significant is their "bottom-up" nature: they support the desire of individuals to affiliate with others; the notion of individual choice; people affiliate with others out of personal choice." Christopher Sessums∞
"The most significant things about the emergence of blogs and wikis (and the other best of breed social software) is the very fact that they have emerged, and are emerging, flourishing not because of some drive by a big company or well known figure, it is by far, a grass roots effort. That is so important and so understated that we have so many living examples of Smart Mobs." - Alan Levine∞
"The most significant things about the emergence of blogs and wikis (and the other best of breed social software) is the very fact that they have emerged, and are emerging, flourishing not because of some drive by a big company or well known figure, it is by far, a grass roots effort. That is so important and so understated that we have so many living examples of Smart Mobs." - Alan Levine∞
"...with the convergence and accessibility of technologies like mobile phones, images, audio and video - not to mention ready made widgets to add to ones blog - individual blogs are becoming a lot more media rich with vast depth in content and interconnectedness. Of course this will sprout yet another round of innovation and creative interpretations on established norms." -- Leigh Blackall∞
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