personal participation in public knowledge-building on the web

Tsui Yuen Wa ( Phoebe) z3383804

BLOGOSPHERE

OUTLINE

• Introduction to weblogs

• Blog format

• Brief history

• How people interact with each other through blogging

• Video

Blogs (web logs, weblogs)

- individual to individual

Bloggers

- day to day observation

Eg. www.kottke.org

Mix with personal events in author’s life

BLOG FORMAT

Typical layout of a blog:

Permalinks

permanent links, point to individual blog posts

Comments

enable readers to feedback about an individual post

Trackback

citation notification system

Permalinks, comments and trackback provide a mechanism for this. Blog posts can be read, linked to and commented on by other bloggers with similar interests. The public display of the information allows others to view it and comment on it. Facts are checked, arguments are analyzed and sometimes countered by the readers, some of whom may be experts.

Blog is an efficient way to store and organize information. Blogs are sometimes described as ‘notepads’ as well as online diaries. For some bloggers, their blog is a way of keeping notes and useful URLs (web addresses) in an organized way.

Blogs are created using the same language as web pages and therefore they inherit the properties of a

web page.

Blogs can display not only text, but also images, audio and video.

It is also possible for a blog to have more than one author, sometimes (collaborative blogs).

A single blog can incorporate the writings of many people (popular among families and organizations).

Until 1999, that a number of companies emerged to produce software that allowed blogs to be created and updated very easily. This allowed people with previously little or no knowledge about HTML and the internet to begin producing their own blogs.

Sudden rise in the number of blogs as well as interest in them occurred shortly after September 11th 2001 when the World Trade Centre in New York became a victim of terrorism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

VIDEO SHOWS HOW PEOPLE INTERACT WITH BLOGS

The connectivity of the blogosphere nurtures incentives to keep blogging, such as popularity. The blogosphere can be seen as a playground, populated by millions of blogs. Many bloggers strive to travel further toward the top of the lists of the most-read blogs, towards the top of the ‘power curve’

(Barabasi 2002, Shirky 2003)

Conclusion

Blogs

• a door into the knowledge society

• only tools but not a golden ticket into the knowledge

society

Knowledge

• synthesized by communication between people sharing objectives

Enable:

• easier to find

• providing immediate and direct communication channels once contacts have been established

BIBLIOGRAPHY• Barabási, A. (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks, Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing.

• Blood, R. (2003) A Weblog Handbook, Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing.

• Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. (2002) The Social Life of Information, Boston: Harvard Business School

• Press.

• Coates, T. (2003a) ‘(Weblogs and) the mass amateurisation of (nearly) everything’, Personal blog:

• Plasticbag.org, 3 September 2003, available at

• http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/09/weblogs_and_the_mass_amateurisation_of_nearly_ev

• erything.shtml

• Coates, T. (2003b) ‘On permalinks and paradigms’, Personal blog: Plasticbag.org, 11 June 2003,

• available at http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/06/on_permalinks_and_paradigms.shtml

• Economist, The (2005) ‘Corpus colossal: how well does the world wide web represent human

• languages?’, 22 January: 89.

• Haughey, M. (2002) ‘Note to domain owners: Critical’, Personal blog: A whole lotta nothing, 8 February

• 2002, available at http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2002/02/note_to_domain.html

• Lester, J. (2003) ‘Integrating and evolving a mob: The growth of a smart mob into a wireless community

• of practice’, paper presented at International HCI 2003 Conference, 22-27 June, Crete, Greece.

• Youtube video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

• Marlow, C. (2004) ‘Audience, structure and authority in the weblog community’, presented at the

• International Communication Association Conference, May, New Orleans, LA, available at

• http://web.media.mit.edu/~cameron/cv/pubs/04-01.pdf

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• http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_blogging_data.pdf

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• European Conference on Weblogs’, July 5-6, Vienna, Austria.

• Shirky, C. (2003) ‘Power laws, weblogs and inequality 2003’, available at

• http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html

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• http://slate.msn.com/?id=2063699

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• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35006-2004Oct15.html

• Wired Magazine (2002) ‘Blogging goes corporate’, Wired News, available at

• http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52380,00.html

• www.kottke.org

• www.twitter.com