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.

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

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.