This.
Is.
A.
Blog.
And life's little interesting moments...
...tend to come between blog posts.
And that, o best beloved, is the ethos behind microblogging. Microblogging is like blogging in that you tell the world what you are doing, but micro. That means that when you don't have time to make a whole new blog post, you go to your microblogging site (Twitter, Jaiku et al) and update your status. Your friends "follow" you and get informed whenever you update you status. Sounds familiar? That's because it is the younger brother of Facebook. At around the same time as the birth of Facebook, other techies were thinking about getting in touch in a whole new way. The idea was that you told your friends what you were doing without round robin emails or time-consuming blog posts. Little bite-sized bloglets were first thought of like this by a Fin named Jyri Engestrom in early 2006. He created Jaiku, so named because the microblogs his users created looked like Japanese hAIKUS. JAIKU. Twitter was started around the same time in Californian by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, and is probably more successful than Jaiku. Twitter is used by a multitude of this world's great and good. Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Robert Llewellyn all have Twitter, and people like to think that by following these people on Twitter they are that little bit closer to their heroes (it's also shameless self-promotion). Here is a collation of Jyri's philosophy on microblogging and social networking.
(I tried looking at this on preview and it didn't go straight to the slideshow. Try clicking on the hyperlink.)
Jaiku had arrived. Then later that year, in October 2006, Twitter was commercially launched. Twitter, like Jaiku, can be done from mobile devices, which means that you can update your status without even having access to a PC or laptop. Twitter lets its users update what they're doing in 140 characters or less (the post is called a tweet). That is proper microblogging, and to honour it, I shall write the next few paragraphs in chunks of 140 characters or less.
So that was it. We have microblogging. Unfortunately, along came Facebook and offered to do all that Twitter could do and more. (130)
Jaiku failed largely because it was invite only, meaning that you couldn't actually start an account without having been invited. (128)
But all is not lost. Objects can microblog too - the Mars Rover has a twitter feed, and so does the River Thames. Clever, huh? (125)
Microblogging hase some advantages over Facebook too. There are fewer security risks, it’s easier to follow people and it's generally freer. (140 exactly!)
The way I see it, we shouldn't compare this to Facebook at all. Facebook is not a blog - it is a social network, made to arrange dates and stuff. People who say that microblogging like Twitter is timewasting drivel have missed the point. Finding out what your friend thinks of the new series of Scrubs, sharing frustration over a new gadget or just saying that your teeth look freakishly white this morning, life is about the little info-cameos from interesting people that get us through the day. Some people do that by phone or face-to-face, some do it across the internet, which is just as valid a method in this day and age.
That is microblogging in a nutshell. I made up this little rhyme to help you remeber (maybe it should be called the Jaiku-haiku). Shout to the world with your tongue all unfurled! Twitter's a hit; go with Twitter, you twit! (titter)
Yes. I am perfectly aware it is shamelessly awful. Could you do better? Hmmm...
See here for other stuff to know about microblogging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaiku
Another brilliant (but unrelated) video...
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
EVEN MORE ON WIKIS
We've seen how wikis work. Now it's time to move on to more about the way of the wiki (sounds like a dodgy kung-fu ICT comic). They can be used as business tools, educational resources and research databases and much, much more. The most popular individual use is for people trying to write books because wikis are easier to manage than lots of little bits of paper. Here's some interesting stuff about wikis.
BUSINESS
A software solutions company called Atlassian has a blog and one of the posts relates to wikis and their potential within business. I found this a little dull but I reckon that it would probably be more interesting if I was a hotshot entrepreneur. Look for yourself here.
Another use of wikis within businesses is for customer support. The Lenovo ThinkPad, a laptop, has a wiki that lets customers share their problems (Unhappy ThinkPadders Anonymous, perhaps?) and learn more about new software for their ThinkPad. I thought that this was really clever because it lets ThinkPad users talk to each other and help each other learn as well as providing a forum for problem solving, which is one of the key principles behind wiki. The page has been accessed almost 2 million times, so it must be doing something right.
EDUCATION
The wiki is a great way of learning - we know that already. There are some good examples of this when it comes do education. Last year the SPS Physics A-level candidates started a wiki so that they could start pages and then edit each others' in the hope that they could help each other revise. Judging from the results, it worked.
The Auburn University School of Architecture started a wiki called Design Studio, giving students the chance to get ideas out there instead of trying to collaborate in the somewhat stilted atmosphere of the classroom. It is pretty impressive - you can see that it means something to the students and that they care about the stuff they are doing and want to help each other. For some reason architecture students find it easier to collaborate and make deep and meaningful philosophical and architectural observations when slobbing about in tracky bottoms instead of the classroom. Who'd have thought it?
RESEARCH
The potential for wikis as a research facility is plain to see. If you can talk to scientists over the web about a new species of platypus or something then it's going to be much more efficient than snail mail or email. The Science Museum started a wiki (see it here) that contains information about some 250 objects within the museum. Anyone can visit the site, which is really easy to use, and find out about these objects. This works very well as a wiki because it makes it very easy to edit it to include the knowledge that scientists continually gather.
There's also an interesting essay by Harvard Law professor David Weinberger on this concept, saying that "students shouldn't be reading textbooks, they should be writing them" - read it here. The idea behind this is that in a way sort of similar to blogs instead of being passive sponges soaking up knowledge, wikis make the harvesting of knowledge and interactive process - I give knowledge, he gives knowledge and together the whole is almost greater than the sum of its parts. Give students the information and put the onus on them to create a coherent wiki among themselves so that it helps them. That way if it's rubbish, they still learn because they do badly in their exams. The whole point of learning is interaction, and that is what wikis are all about.
STYLE
Now for the wiki small print: there are certain stylistic and etiquette elements fundamental to wikis. The basics can be found here. A few adapted commandments of wiki:
1) Thou shalt not be antagonistic
2) Thou shalt collaborate in a helpful fashion
3) Thou shalt not tweak the HTML unless strictly necessary
4) Thou shalt not edit thine wiki after it hast been published
5) Thou shalt learn to disagree respectfully
6) Thou shalt not write drivel
So now you know just about what's necessary for you to go and start a wiki. What's great is that you can do it on anything - sausages, Stephen King novels, green energy - and somebody somewhere is almost guaranteed to find it useful, and when they do, hopefully they'll put some stuff on your wiki, and it will blossom and be a garden of knowledge in simplified HTML. See below for some links and go start a wiki - the 21st Century blank canvas.
Sunday, 11 January 2009
IT'S A WIKI WIKI WORLD
Before the wiki, making a web document was a closed-off, private affair. Then *cue trumpet fanfare* Wikipedia (and all its little wiki children) arrived! Wikipedia, like blogs and Facebook, has transcended the gap between techies and luddites and entered the dictionary of common modern parlance. Wikipedia is different: it's a wiki (as the name suggests), or rather a large number of wikis, which means that it is a collection of web pages created, edited and augmented by the public. But the really clever part is that there is no "Big Book of Wikis" that explains the intricacies of HTML for potential wiki writers because there doesn't have to be. A wiki uses a simplified markup language so that us thickos can understand what we're doing, which is better for everyone really.
Wikis are what people like Vannevar Bush and Tim Berners-Lee dreamed of when they were pioneering the internet: a system whereby anyone at all could contribute to a webpage, each man furthering the knowledge of those around him. The first Wiki was created in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who went to Hawaii and got the "wiki wiki" bus between Honolulu airport terminals ("wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick"). He created WikiWikiWeb in March 1995, inspired in part by Apple's HyperCard, a program that allowed users to provide links in "card stacks". Wikis were soon seen to be a great collaborative medium and Cunningham wrote a book with Bo Leuf outlining the basic principles of wiki:
1) Anyone can compose or edit a wiki without needing a special browser or program
2) Wikis allow users to make links to other wiki pages which are relevant to the page
3) Wikis aren't really meant to just be looked at by casual visitors. Users are invited to contribute to wikis.
While a great number of people disregard the third statement, the first two statements are very important. Absolutely anyone can make a wiki and you don't have to be especially well-versed in HTML or know what IP address means. Wikis do the hard work so you don't have to. For example, mistakes ("Neil Young was born in 2023 and is a moose") can be corrected easily: just hit the "edit" button, correct the mistakes, and hit "save" ("Neil Young was born in 1945 and is a Canadian singer, songwriter and film director"). The moment when wikis entered the public conscience was a little like presenting a credit card to the spend-happy teenage girls of the world for the first time: everyone just went a bit crazy. The wiki was a big step forward.
This is how a wiki works.
Step 1: I provide some information.
Step 2: Someone elso adds some information and hits "save".
Step 3: someone provides some useless stuff
Step 4: The finished piece.
Before the wiki, making a web document was a closed-off, private affair. Then *cue trumpet fanfare* Wikipedia (and all its little wiki children) arrived! Wikipedia, like blogs and Facebook, has transcended the gap between techies and luddites and entered the dictionary of common modern parlance. Wikipedia is different: it's a wiki (as the name suggests), or rather a large number of wikis, which means that it is a collection of web pages created, edited and augmented by the public. But the really clever part is that there is no "Big Book of Wikis" that explains the intricacies of HTML for potential wiki writers because there doesn't have to be. A wiki uses a simplified markup language so that us thickos can understand what we're doing, which is better for everyone really.
Wikis are what people like Vannevar Bush and Tim Berners-Lee dreamed of when they were pioneering the internet: a system whereby anyone at all could contribute to a webpage, each man furthering the knowledge of those around him. The first Wiki was created in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who went to Hawaii and got the "wiki wiki" bus between Honolulu airport terminals ("wiki" is Hawaiian for "quick"). He created WikiWikiWeb in March 1995, inspired in part by Apple's HyperCard, a program that allowed users to provide links in "card stacks". Wikis were soon seen to be a great collaborative medium and Cunningham wrote a book with Bo Leuf outlining the basic principles of wiki:
1) Anyone can compose or edit a wiki without needing a special browser or program
2) Wikis allow users to make links to other wiki pages which are relevant to the page
3) Wikis aren't really meant to just be looked at by casual visitors. Users are invited to contribute to wikis.
While a great number of people disregard the third statement, the first two statements are very important. Absolutely anyone can make a wiki and you don't have to be especially well-versed in HTML or know what IP address means. Wikis do the hard work so you don't have to. For example, mistakes ("Neil Young was born in 2023 and is a moose") can be corrected easily: just hit the "edit" button, correct the mistakes, and hit "save" ("Neil Young was born in 1945 and is a Canadian singer, songwriter and film director"). The moment when wikis entered the public conscience was a little like presenting a credit card to the spend-happy teenage girls of the world for the first time: everyone just went a bit crazy. The wiki was a big step forward.
This is how a wiki works.
Step 1: I provide some information.
Step 2: Someone elso adds some information and hits "save".
Step 3: someone provides some useless stuff
Step 4: The finished piece.
So that is your actual wiki: very simple, but easily the best collaborative medium on the web. It doesn't even have to be about furthering the knowledge of mankind - you could start a wiki for such a simple purpose as making a kit list for a school trip. Obviously wikis are going to look better than felt pen scrawled on paper. But hey. It's the credit crunch.
Wikis are a people thing. We can't go out and tell six billion people about Neil Young, but putting it on a wiki lets lots of people see it and add stuff to it so that everyone learns. It truly is a brilliant solution to collaboration and information sharing. Wikitastic.
If you want to start your own wiki, here are some links to wiki creating sites:
For an explanation of wikis far greater than my own, watch this video.
AN EXPLANATION
This is a continuation of a blog from about 36 hours ago, but then my Google Account was mysteriously deleted. Best not to dwell on that, so this shall now serve as my ICT blog for evermore. Just thought you might like to know. So...when looking for ginglymus.blogspot.com, your efforts will be futile. Come here instead: plesianthropus.blogspot.com. Get it? Good.
This is a continuation of a blog from about 36 hours ago, but then my Google Account was mysteriously deleted. Best not to dwell on that, so this shall now serve as my ICT blog for evermore. Just thought you might like to know. So...when looking for ginglymus.blogspot.com, your efforts will be futile. Come here instead: plesianthropus.blogspot.com. Get it? Good.
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