Tim O’Reilly: Web 2.0 Is About Controlling Data

At last, Mr 2.0 is getting to the point about web 2.0.

It’s about data: who offers it up (for free), and who builds the best business model around using it.

“… web 2.0 … [is] really about data and who owns and controls, or gives the best access to, a class of data. I think it’s about the data that’s created by those mechanisms, and the businesses that that data will make possible.”

If 2.0 sounds like rampant information capitalism based on the hyperexploitation of immaterial labour – it’s because it is. Luckily there is someone you can call: The Attention Trust.

“AttentionTrust is a not-for-profit organization that puts the user in control of their Attention data. Until now, only companies on the other side of our clicking captured the value – Our Attention data has real value and needs to be protected.”

Burn your browsers.

Object-centered Sociality

You need an object to harness social networks?

“Social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object… when it becomes easy to create digital instances of the object, the online services for networking on, through, and around that object will emerge too.” (Engestrom)

Why some social network services work and others don’t — Or: the case for object-centered sociality

Why I Tag?

I think it’s time to explain my own tagging practice.

Why I tag?

1. Because I’m looking for something to hang my passion on. I read, gist, and tag because I’m always on the look out for something to really care about; something that’s so compelling that it could stop me tagging!

2. I like spotting connections. Looking at things in different ways is fun. It feels vaguely creative to analyse information and fit it into themes, both contemporary and old. Building your own linked library seems to me a valuable skill. I think having that skill will become increasingly important to knowledge workers. I want to stay ahead.

3. I want you to know exactly what interests me. I can only read and tag so much. My own personal filter for the world’s information is, I believe, an honest reflection of what information I value and I’d like to share my developing understanding of the world in a quiet, passive manner.

4. I not completely engaged in my day job. Nor do I expect to be. I tag stuff to remind myself of what I’ve done, what I (vaguely) hoped for, and as a way of nagging myself to stay focused on finding a passion. I tag articles featuring good advice, for example. I think every tagger and blogger would rather be working on their own projects. I think most people are wasted sitting at desks in both large and small companies. Tagging gives me some me time – and besides, in my line of work, I need to know ‘what’s going on’ – right?

5. I’m a procrastinator who needs to feel in control of ’something’ – anything! I find it difficult to motivate myself to do certain types of work. Tagging helps me to DO something, even if it’s not the task at hand. There’s so much information pumped out daily and I feel panic at the thought of missing out on new interesting stuff. Tagging: typing tags and writing gists/short summaries, gives me a feeling control over both external and internal chaos.

6. I’m competitive and I enjoy lists and counts. I enjoy looking at my bookmark count and tag clouds. (Very vain.) I also enjoy looking at other taggers I admire and trying to find new bookmarks that they don’t yet have, or tagging existing one’s more comprehensively. Of course, I like sharing, but there’s an element of showing off in that, too. I also like having an up-to-the-minute insiders view. Again, very vain and a little bit delusional. I’m only human after all.

7. I want to surround myself with people who are smarter than me and who share similar interests. Nuff said, really.

Probably a few more; that’s enough for now.

Information wants to be free! And paid.

Interesting story on Business Week about the difficulty of encouraging the use of collaborative web tools in the corporate workplace.

“The reason why blogs and wikis, in particular, aren’t well used is that companies are still afraid,” he posits. “How do you basically regulate how to contribute?” He also thinks the wisdom of crowds isn’t always sharp and that companies are worried about getting bad information on a collaborative document, such as a wiki.

Another barrier to embracing blogs and wikis: Bughin points out that in a knowledge economy where companies remain hierarchical in structure, knowledge is power. If workers put their most precious information in a wiki, their status within their organization could be threatened. “The problem is that people with heavy knowledge tend to keep that for themselves, because that’s the way they define their job,” says Bughin. “Put it in a wiki and everyone has it.” If he’s right, companies serious about embracing these collaborative technologies will need to find a new incentive system for employees.

Companies, in their current configuration, are doomed!

Why? Information wants to be free. It flows out of companies in the form of blog posts, comments, metadata, tags. And with it flows people, ideas and new opportunities; opportunities that big companies are too cumbersome to seize.

Snippets From Tagging Presentations (Part 6)

From Domenico Gendarmi, Folksonomies: A bottom-up social categorization system

Again, stating the differences between taxonomy and folksonomy approaches, plus some areas that need more understanding.

Snippets From Tagging Presentations (Part 5)

Rashmi Sinha with a presentation entitled: Designing for Web 2. (Version 2).

The idea of ‘object-centred‘ social networks seems particularly important to understand.

Snippets From Tagging Presentations (Part 4)

Some insights on designing participatory ‘information environments’ from an information design perspective

Social Information Architecture, Gene Smith (?)

Snippets From Tagging Presentations (Part 3)

Just one slide from Tags, Networks, Narrative: Explorations in Folksonomy, Sue Thomas and Bruc Mason.

I really like the phrase, “aboutness”.

Snippets From Tagging Presentations (Part 2)

This presentation introduces ‘facets’ as a means of managing large collections of tags and revealing semantic relationships. (I understand facets as ‘bundles‘ within del.icio.us. Also, some neat interface design showing how facets can be used to drill down into a search query through tags.

Integrating Bottom-up and Top-down Classification in a Social Tagging System by Emanuele, Andrea Resmini, Luca Rosati

The Evolution of Collaborative Tagging

Web-based collaborative systems [are] for:

• building a shared database of items
• a flat metadata vocabulary
• metadata driven queries
• monitoring change in areas of interest
• discovering emergences or trends

Properties of Folksonomies

Advantages:

• Trade-off between simplicity and precision
• Match the user’s real needs and language
• Inclusive (nothing is left out)
• Help discovery of information and serendipity
• May be a forced move (the environment makes the difference)
• Better than nothing (when traditional classification is not viable)

Disadvantages

• Language issues
• User Experience issues

– Taxonomy as Facets

– Interface Design

Snippets From Tagging Presentations (Part 1)

There are loads of PowerPoint presentations about tagging and the semantic web on slideshare.

I’ll just copy and paste the best bits of each…

Tagging That Works by Thomas Vander Wal

Tagging: Definition

• Simple data/metadata externally applied to an object
• Used for sorting
• A hook for aggregting
• Provides identifier and/or description
• Personal Markers

Folksonomy:Value

The value in this external tagging is derived from people using their own vocabulary and adding explict meaning, which may come from inferred understanding of the information/object.

People are not so much categorizing, as providing a means to connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in their own understanding.

Every person is an expert in their own vocabulary (tags)

Scaling and Functionality

Phases of Interaction

• Saving and tagging
• Refinding
• Clicking, pivoting, exploring
• Searching:
• One’s own tags
• Other’s tags — Group, Everybody
• Group Social Interaction

Personal to Social

Reasons People Tag

• Their OWN use/value first
• Add Perspective/Context
• Missing metadata
• Emergent Vocabulary
• Personal descriptors
• Refindability
• Aggregation of information
• Task-based aggregation
• State Interest
• Sociality