23.12 Putting it Together: MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, etc

MySpace is the 3rd most popular Internet site in the US, and it’s pure Web 2.0. It combines features of blogging, wikis, audio and video sharing, and other technologies, and it’s whole reason for being is to bring together social networks (which leads to collaboration). Of course, since most of the social networks that live on MySpace are fairly small, it can be bewildering and tribal … it’s a web 2.0 site that only bands and teens can get, sometimes. Musician’s MySpace pages give a pretty good feel as what is possible on MySpace. If you’re exploring, keep in mind that vulgar speech is the norm.

Another thing that makes me hungry: del.icio.us

Perhaps I am not eating right -- just the mention of del.icio.us makes me hungry. Who knows, that may be part of my problem with the site in general; the word delicious for me has a lot of power, and promises something that the site (for me) doesn't deliver.

I think it's key that del.icio.us is seen as a social bookmarking tool. Making your bookmarks/favorites portable is an old need (and really, most hompages in 1994 were in nature not unlike a user's del.icio.us page). But it's a need that can be filled with numerous tools. I suppose the greatest value of del.icio.us is that it shares out those bookmarks and the tags that go with them. When scaled up to the size of the Internet, that becomes powerful. I am not convinced that it regularly outperforms Google in general research. An example we're in here lately is looking for primary source material from pre-1900 eras. Looking in del.icio.us for tags {primary source} and {primary sources} gives useful results (although, it should be clear, different results due to the little "s" -- which makes anyone who's used library catalogs with LCSH shudder a bit). But really, Google gives the same results. To sum up the practice search (actually, a real user question from 3/27):

in del.icio.us
search (in tags) for Primary Source Augustus: no results relevant to the Roman emperor
search (in tags) for Primary Sources Augustus: a good source http://virgil.org/augustus/primary-sources.htm on the Roman Emperor comes to the top, and that's it

in google
search for Primary Source Augustus, or Primary Sources Augustus and the good source at http://virgil.org/augustus/primary-sources.htm comes to the top. Plus lots more.

So I suppose del.icio.us is most useful for depth on topics of interest, and, of course, for those web 2.0 stalwarts, discovering RSS feeds and linking up with users of like interest. With users I'd still probably be more inclined to use Google... the nature of the Google search engine is that it's going to pick up on things that are tagged frequently in del.icio.us unfailingly.

A note about tags: at least they give many users a language with which we can explain how MARC fields allow field searching. But the lack of rules for applying tags make them only so useful, especially when not scaled to net-wide implementation. I think I'd be excited it Horizon could implement user tagging for bib records that would then be used to facilitate new, user-centered search options for the HIP -- but unless we were sharing the tag database with the entire customer base of Horizon (and perhaps ibistro as well), the small scale of taggers would make that data completely idiosyncratic. Probably pretty interesting, but probably not that useful for information retrieval.

Tagging is to cataloging as humming a half-remembered jingle is to symphonies
but
Tags are to cataloging as (not-by-numbers) painting is to photography

{i will write metaphors for food. if it's del.icio.us}

So you’re blogging – keeping a web diary. Your thoughts and feelings about business, technology and life are on the web. If you’re a teen, your blog has likely replaced the diaries and journals kept by previous generations. Remember diaries? Those personal documents bore an aura of secrecy strong enough to spur countless brother-sister spats, “you just don’t trust me” screaming matches with parents, and Young Adult Novels. Those have been replaced by blogs, repositories as private as today’s Washington Post.

And you’re flickring – posting photos from your world to the world’s most famous photosharing site. Time was, your snapshots were carefully wrapped in opaque envelopes at the Rite Aid. The clerk would hand them to you and you would inspect them with a certain sense of circumspection. If someone was standing behind you, would you hold the pictures close, because your photos, your life, was private?

One thing seems clear, the definitions or personal and private are changing. It isn’t the tools themselves that change our understanding of privacy, it is the human behaviors and choices that the tools enable. Some bloggers hold personal information, and personal insight close, others become publizens or open humans. Some flickr users protect their photos to ensure only friends and family will view them, others, including those who are working as artistic or professional photographers, post photos that let the Internet look quite closely at their lives and interests. More and more, people are choosing transparency over privacy. The tools make this choice easy, but I don’t think they actually motivate it. If you’re moving towards Radical Transparency, it is offering you some value – intellectual, emotional, professional, business.

So for 23 Things there’s the value of the prize, the value of the learning, and the social networking value of others reading your posts. For flickr-ites, there’s social networking, potential selling of photos/services, and the coaching you’ll see in the comments of high-end pictures. For blogs? Well, perhaps we all dream of being the next Wonkette, or Daily Kos, but for most bloggers I think it’s more that people want to be heard. They say 51% of the Millenial Generation plans on being famous-- and perhaps they will be.

The tools make it easy, the zeitgiest makes it acceptable, the variety of blogs diminishes shyness (as bloggers must think, “oh, I’ve seen goofier blogs than mine”), and the downsides are not immediately evident - especially not to Millenials. So if there’s value to you, be transparent.