Setting the stage for Web 2.0 Phil Bradley Internet Consultant [email protected].

Setting the stage for Web 2.0

Phil Bradley

Internet Consultant

[email protected]

What is this ‘2.0’ stuff?

• Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes. – Wikipedia entry

Yes… and?

• It’s a platform • It harnesses collective intelligence• Data can be used and re-used in many ways• Users are directly involved with development• It’s not limited to a single device• A rich user experience

– Tim O’Reilly ‘What is Web 2.0?’

Yes… but?

• “It’s vacuous marketing hype”• “Web 2.0 is totally silly”• “Meaningless”• “is made entirely of pretentious self

serving morons.”• “a lot of thin but very hot air blown at you

by those who are convinced that having nothing to say is by no means a good reason to shut up.”

So what do I think?

•I don’t care!

Seriously…

• I want things that work

• That allow me to do a job better

• More quickly

• More effectively

• Easier

• So… let’s look at what we can do, starting with better ways of doing what we do now

Let’s go through a normal day

• Updates and news on your subject areas of interest

• Checking to see if any pages have changed since you last looked at them

• Re-running searches for new information

RSS is your friend

News reports from the BBC

Watching pages

Searching with MSN

Incorporate that into your work

Bookmarking

• Limited to a specific machine

• Not informative

• Difficult to find what you wan

• Inflexible

• Cannot easily share bookmarks

What are the alternatives?

• Del.icio.us

• Diigo

• Raw Sugar …

You can:

• Share your bookmarks– Between computers– Between colleagues– Between users

• Create bookmark sets– To supplement projects– To assist users

• Annotate (or tag) bookmarks

More options

• FURL

• SPURL

• SQUIDOO– All ‘bookmarks on speed’– Indepth collections of your own material– Not just limited to the URL or tags– More flexibility

Talking to users

• Face to face– Excellent, but limited

• Telephone– Good, but limited

• Email– Good, but limited

• Written– I have no idea!

Consider Instant Messaging

• Always on

• Always available

• Can demonstrate an online search with Messenger

• Easy to point to/link to resources

• Incorporate video for face to face element

Creating communities 1

• Start or Community pages– GROU.PS

• Share bookmarks, files, photographs, weblogs, locations, to do lists – almost anything!

– Plum• As above

Creating communities 2

• Share photographs with Flickr et al– A record of an event– A tour around the library– An introduction to/for staff– Popularising the library– Create fun things

• Posters• Trading cards

Creating communities 3

• Create your own search engines– Rollyo– Eurekster Swicki

• For general use

• For specific topics

• For specific groups

Creating communities 4

• Create your own wiki– Peanut Butter wiki– Jotspot

• Allow users to add content, edit, amend etc

• Your users become your colleagues

• Your colleagues become your publishing partners

Creating communities 5

• Weblogs– Update colleagues and users– A central repository of information– A resource to be repackaged and recombined

elsewhere (eg on a home page)– A place to add your Swicki– Links to other useful resources– Outreach

Collaborate

• On documents - Writely

• On spreadsheets - NumSum

• With calendars - Planzo

• With training - Jybe

• With projects – MyWebDesktop

• With To Do lists – TaDaList

• With webpages – Conversate

Discover things!

• New books – Chainreading

• New music – Pandora

• Movies - Liveplasma

Podcasting and Video

• Create aural presentations

• Fun, new, easy to create

• Update users on the latest library news

• Library tours

• Create video presentations, share them on YouTube

In summary

• Outreach, outreach, outreach

• Users become partners

• Librarians become facilitators

• The library becomes a publisher

• Information becomes dynamic

• Change should be embraced

• Take control!

Thank you for listening!

• Phil Bradley

• http://www.philb.com

• [email protected]

• http://www.philbradley.typepad.com/

• http://philbradley.typepad.com/i_want_to/