Web 2.0 Manifesto

The biggest challenge is in the integration of these quickly changing and dynamic sources into a large, very controlled, and structured environment. My own experience with large organizations has proven that they tend to like very clear cut terms that can follow a pattern.

Top-down control will not be possible

Typically in large organizations have a power structure that moves from the top down. Following these typical procedures will not be possible. There needs to be a mind-set change. More group oriented, not one person gets credit because it is going to take the groups effort.

The fluidity of these is what makes them so appealing, which makes regulating them more challenging

Management has a tendency to mandate marching orders, not to say there has to be no regulations, however a large part of the draw to these new innovations is how organic they feel. The minute someone is told they need to blog everyday and they are handed topics to be covered – is the minute it no longer is an effective communication.

People are drawn to Web 2.0 because it allows a participatory feel, which means they get to add to and manipulate the content

I imagine that lack of control over content is going to be the biggest challenge. However, there are ways around this! For example with Wikis perhaps a layering system can be developed where as all daily modifications to content need to be approved. This may be time consuming but would meet the standards of the organization and still allow people to feel involved.

WebLinks

Bank builds in SL - not for publicity, but rather for experience????
http://www.slnn.com/article/dnb-nor/

Bruce Willis interview - started 90 minutes late! but people stuck around for it - seem to be understanding of new media, but I wonder how long
http://www.slnn.com/article/bruce-willis-interview/

Articles of Interest

Tiffany, Laura. “Starting a Second Life Business: Finding Out What Entrepreneurial Opportunities the Virtual World of Second Life Has To Offer.” 09 January 2007. 15 July 2007. <http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/article172768.html>

People making the jump from RL to SL jobs. Can this be real? My first question – is how do you put that on your resume?

Cohen, Ephraim. “Hype Alert: Second Life’s Media Focus Outpaces its Business Success.” 15 November 2006. 15 July 2007. <http://www.b2bcorporate.com/blog/2006/11/15/hype-alert-second-lifes-media-focus-outpaces-its-business-success/>

This was interesting because it seems people have been saying that SL is a fad and overhyped for sometime now. There has got to be something more considering how long it has lasted. One really good point is that the process of signing in to SL and getting any kind of ‘interaction’ takes a heck of a lot longer than Facebook or MySpace.

http://wealthcoach.typepad.com/secondlife/

This is a blog about SL hosted by an aviator. Interesting use of the two technologies. I think mergers are where it is at. I don’t want to include this as a source for its content, but rather for its concept.

http://blogs.talksecondlife.com/tsl/2007/02/20/tracking-corporate-success-in-sl/
This blog talks about businesses in SL

Interesting Article

Sponder, Marshall. “Lonely Planet Wired Magazine Article on Second Life.” 21 July 2007. 22 July 2007 <http://www.webmetricsguru.com/2007/07/lonely_planet_wired_magazine_a.html>.

Offers a sneak peak at an August Wired Magazine article about SL. Interesiting description about why so many businesses are failing in SL. One additional entry points out that in RL there is also a business failure rate why should SL be different. Speaking of different, the ongoing idea is that businesses needs to adapt a more creative presence in SL, not just replicate their RL brand. This could be challenging for the DRT. There is a chain of command to consider. Just getting access granted for exploratory purposes was a challenge, it is my opinion that any kind of presense is going to need to get approved and I’m not sure who the higher ups will react to these types of suggestions. My opinion is there is a generation gap that needs to be considered. I think I even may be beyond fully developing something that would work. My most out of the park idea would be for DRT to host a weekly or maybe monthly game shown inviting aviators to be contestants. The question content could come straight from webguides? Or exhibits? Perhaps this would get the attention of a new audience interesting in using these sources provided by DRT.

Interesting Article

Jebb, Richard. “Business Success Through Second Life.” EzineArticles 21 May 2007. 15 July 2007 <http://ezinearticles.com/?Business-Success-Through-Second-Life&id=573716>.

Talks about ‘5 Senses Brand Experience’ a business gets out of having a SL presence. In other words, an organization interacts with users using sight, sounds, touch, colors, music, and messages. “It’s interactive, engaging and memorable.’ Also, touches on the benefits of being the first in your company (looks innovative) and gets you in SL while people are still talking about it as a hot topic. This leads to some excellent PR – people talk about SL and invariably will mention organizations already there.

I think DRT could really use the PR that SL could offer. Being a part of the Library of Congress has a lot of benefits; however it is hard to get individual notice as a department within. By having a presence – even if it is just for hosting events (event they already have in RL) – they could get some individual attention. For example, the DRT does web conferencing, this could easily be migrated to SL. The problem of course is the challenge of getting your audience used to a new platform. However, the team has found success using microphones and even video conferencing both which require some kind of know how from those on the other end. The big challenge will be for the DRT to learn how to assist people with technical problems their audience may encounter while using SL.

Webcrawlers.

Would investigating webcrawler construction be a waste of my time?

The web guides are taking a lot longer than I expected. Seems that doing a beta search of the Library of Congress does not give me all possible results, in fact the results are pretty inconsistent. At this point I am individually searching American Memory, The learning Page, Exhibitions, Images and then I still need to do external searches for websites and build selected bibliography for adult and one for younger readers. At times I have found that also have to do multiple names searches… for example William Jefferson Clinton AND Bill Clinton. I can’t help but think there has to be any easier way for this to be done. A lot of this is very repetitive. I feel like a webcrawler or spider might be just what the doctor ordered… but I need to decide how long can spend investigating my opinion. I wonder how long it would take me to build my own web crawler? And if I could set one free on LC’s website?

Observations

I-CAUGHT

http://ugv.abcnews.go.com/
Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of attempts to integrate new technology into the everyday. Here is an example of ABC trying to gain from the success of YouTube. The name application is I-Caught, and the idea is that people will submit their own videos of newsworthy actions. I’m interested in seeing if this works or not. They article claims this is an attempt to gain the attention of the YouTube generation. I don’t think that is actually who is going to be interested in this application. I believe the audience they are going to get are older curious users. I could see my father using this. He has an I-pod, but won’t change the song EVER for fear of messing something up. He has a huge flat screen TV, but still prefers the VCR to a DVD?!? He is attracted to new technology, but I believe it is more for the hype of it than really for its advantage.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117965899.html?categoryid=1300&cs=1

My day in a SL Class

OBSERVATION of SL

I went to a beginners workshop for SL offered to library staff. It was pretty interesting to just listen to what people thought and or the difficulties they had to overcome. The individuals in the workshop were pretty diverse; five females, and three males all thirty plus. All of them worked in the library and most had set up accounts previous to the workshop. I am far from an expert in SL, but found it surprising how difficult just the idea of SL being of interest to people in general was to these individuals. They couldn’t believe real money was going into this virtual world.

 

-frustrated with timeouts and updates in SL

-when participants logged-off and tried to sign back in had to wait – this really upset the crowd

-distraught by avatar’s slow updates (lack of clothing, what the view was, wasn’t changing positions)

-seemed to REALLY enjoy getting creative with the look of their avatars, I was surprised they were not a bit more conservative seeing as this was work related.

-to my surprise the teachers suggested getting a part-time job in RL to pay for Linden dollars in SL! Just shows there are very different levels of commitment to participation in this community.

After the session had ended I introduced myself to the instructor and spoke with her about her own experience teaching SL to new users. She explained that her and her husband enjoy playing video games and feel this interest translates well into their use of SL. Overall, she felt that most of her time working a reference shift in SL was spent explaining to users how to do things in SL and next to nothing doing actual reference work.

Change in Direction

Seems I am somehow doing exactly what I did not want to do. Today Dr. Parr mentioned again, that she would greatly appreciate me getting whatever I could do done in regards to the US Presidents web guides. Hmm – seems to me that they are more interested in me putting together the web guides than investigating Web 2.0.. This is a tough situation. I want my site to be happy with the work I am doing, but this is also my practicum and I am more interested in the Web 2.0. At this point I am going to have to figure out another way to integrate the Web 2.0, that will work off of my web guides… I am really surprised because I viewed this as the perfect opportunity for the DRT to get around the limitations set by LC. To really see what they could get from it. Another letdown was Judy’s email yesterday. She mentioned a dwindling interest in SecondLife. As this on my list I need to figure out what she really means. She mentioned LibraryThing in place, but that really isn’t applicable to what I wanted to do.

SL Thoughts

This is really exciting, but I have already been warned that SL isn’t really a possibility for the DRT. I think promotionally it could be amazing, but at this point there just isn’t enough interest, personnel, and or security precautions are too high. However, there is definitely a curiosity. The question is of course will the curiosity be enough. In a lot of articles I have read about SL there is mention of the ‘hype’ about it. This is absolutely true, but my question is whether the hype is going anywhere anytime soon and how that will affect SL’s use.