The Social Web:Wikis, RSS, Blogs, Flickr, and MORE!

Iowa CityPublic Library

8 Dec 2006

Michael SauersInternet Trainer, BCR

What is the Social Web?

• Also known as social software and social networking.

• Allows you to share with your colleagues, friends, family and strangers.

• Allows you to share your writings, thoughts, videos, music, pictures and more.

Web 2.0“While the old Web was about Web sites, clicks, and

“eyeballs,” the new Web is about communities, participation and peering. As users and computer power multiply, and easy-to-use tools proliferate, the Internet is evolving into a global, living, networked computer that anyone can program. Even the simple act of participating in an online community makes a contribution to the new digital commons – whether one’s building a business on Amazon or producing a video clip for YouTube, creating a community around his or her flickr photo collection or editing the astronomy entry on Wikipedia.” – Wikinomics, Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams

Features of the social web• Simple publishing• Tagging• Friends• Comments• Recommendations• Feed publishing• Share, share, share!

(Not all social services have all features)

Simple Publishing

• Little to no markup language skills necessary.

• Usually it’s create, click, and publish.

Tagging

• The act of adding descriptive keywords to an item.

• Simple metadata• “folksonomy”

Friends

• By making another account holder your “friend” you are automatically kept up to date with what that person is doing in the system.

Comments

• Submit your feelings on the creations of others.

• Others submit their feelings on your creations.

Recommendations

• Two styles– Automated based on previous experiences– User generated recommendations

Feed Publishing

• RSS / ATOM• Allows people to subscribe to your

information• Users receive information quickly and

with little effort on their part• Users have the control over the

information they receive

Examples of Social Software

• Wikis• Blogs• YouTube• Flickr• del.icio.us• last.fm

• LibraryThing• MySpace• SlideShare• Squidoo• Amazon.com• Second Life

Wikis

• A Web site “anyone” can edit with little knowledge of markup

• Allows for collaboration and sharing of information

Wikipedia

Blogs

• Online journals• Can be used in lieu of an RSS feed• Pew Internet & American Life Project

report on bloggers published 7/2006– 54% of bloggers are under the age of 30!– 37% of bloggers write about their “life and

experiences”

PaperCuts

YouTube

• Submit and share videos of up to 10 minutes in length

• Recently purchased by Google for $1.65 billion

• Subscribe to the videos of users• Comment on videos

My YouTube home page

Flickr

• Photographs– Share– Tag– Organize into sets– Contribute to group pools– Leave comments and notes– Send to your blog

My flickr home page

del.icio.us

• Social bookmarking service• Use in conjunction with or as a

replacement to your browser’s bookmarks

My del.icio.us home page

last.fm

• Share, tag, and recommend the music you listen to on your computer

• Integrates with iTunes, Windows Media Player, and WinAmp

• Client software, not a Web site

last.fm: Now Playing

LibraryThing

• Catalog, tag, and share your book collection.

• Yes, it does MARC records.

MySpace

• Friends, messaging, and blogging all wrapped up into most of the worst-designed Web pages ever

Waverly Public Library

SlideSahre

• Share and tag your PowerPoint presentations

• View and comment on others’ presentations

My SlideShare page

Squidoo

• Create and share online bibliographies• Bring in resources from traditional Web

sites, flickr, del.icio.us, and podcasts• A Squidoo page is known as a “lens”

Library 2.0 Reading List

Amazon.com

• Calling Amazon.com “social software” is a surprise to some but it does have most of the features:– tagging– recommendations– friends

Amazon.com’s social features

Second Life

• “A 3D online digital world imagined, created, & owned by its residents.”

• Social in the sense that users interact with other users

Second Life Library 2.0

A final thought…“It’s the simplest lesson of the Internet: it’s the

people stupid. We don’t have computers because we want to interact with machines; we have them because they allow us to communicate more effectively with other people.”─ Douglas Rushkoff, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out

Questions?

Michael Sauers

http://www.travelinlibrarian.info/

http://del.icio.us/travelinlibrarian/icpl2006

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.