Quick Overview of Web 2.0
Posted by Jeremy Boggs
I originally published this on my blog, ClioWeb, on January 11, 2006. It was the start of all my thinking about the implications of Web 2.0 for history publishing on the web, so I republish it here.
The panel on history blogging at the AHA brought up some good discussion about the utility of blogging for historians. One question in particular addressed the place blogging had in larger technological trends and chages. Much has actually been discussed about this in the web development world, especially with regard to the development of the much cited “Web 2.0″ movement. Here I outline a few of these developments and hint at what implications they have for historians pondering the changes taking place on the Web. This post is partly a response to issues raised in that panel, and to Stephanie’s recent post on “Re-envisioning History, New Media Style.”
I’ve advocated on several occassions that one way we as history bloggers can make our ventures more legitimate (for lack of better words) is to encourage people to look beyond the medium in which we publish (books, articles, blogs, what have you) and focus solely on the content. What’s really great about blogging (and about Web 2.0 in general) is that the focus is less on technology and more on state-of-mind and attitude. That includes the attitude that content is king, and that the content matters more than medium in which it is accessed. Web 2.0 is, as Tim O’Reilly states, more an approach and a mentality than any specific technology. It’s a mentality that widens networks, disrupts hierarchy and strict control of information, and embraces cooperation and collaboration.
Blogging, one Web 2.0 technology that replaces the static personal homepage, is one technology among several that promotes community-building, collaboration, and fast exchange of information. Historians are a particularly solitary creatures, preferring to work individually on project than work together. But blogging includes several technologies that make community-building and information exchange not only possible, but required. Permalinks, trackbacks, pingbacks, and RSS all create the means to create connections across cyberspace. Permalinks established the means to link directly to individual “posts”. Trackbacks and pingbacks made it possible, almost instantly, to see the people who have found your blog post and have written their own post in response to yours. Commenting on blog posts has allowed conversations to extend beyond blog posts into broader discussions. Finally, RSS feeds allow people to subscribe to a blog and access posts in a variety of ways decided by the users themselves.
Web 2.0 also seeks to change the way information is controlled. The Wiki and folksonomy in particular break down hierarchy and authority by providing relatively unlimited trust in users. Wikis allow anyone the ability to write and edit information, a virtual collaborative authoring environment. Folksonomy, or “tagging”, replaces taxonomic systems of ordering inforation (think of the early years of Yahoo!) by allowing users to “tag” inforation with keywords. “Instead of using a centralized form of classification, users are encouraged to assign freely chosen keywords (called tags) to pieces of information or data….” Folksonomy relies on users to decide what information gets tags, and what tags are associated with that information. For instance, TagCloud is a service that allows users to create or upload a blogroll, and then a tag cloud of common keywords from the contents in those blogs is generated instantly. While Wikis are collaborative authoring environments, folksonomy is a collaborative way to order information.
Another significant aspect of Web 2.0 is the idea that web applications and information are not products to be bought and sold but services to be shared and enhanced. Many Web 2.0 services, including GoogleMaps, Ning, Flickr, and del.icio.us are provided free of charge and rely heavily on users to improve upon and share developments in technology and information. Access to the GoogleMaps API, for example, has allowed CHNM to create a tool on the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank that generates a map tied to the site’s database. Put simply, “content is more important that its container.”
Blogging can also be seen as a service to be shared instead of product to market. History blogging has done much to bridge divides between academics and enthusiasts and blog authors have done so free of charge. Many feel an obligation to share their research and ideas with the public, while others benefit from the exchange of ideas that come with cross-linking and commenting by blog readership. In the opinion of open-access publishing advocates, scholarly work is in many instances a public services, often supported by public funds, and should share their research with the public. Blogging provides the perfect mechanism for accomplishing this. Ungated, unfettered, and easily accessible.
Is blogging just one step in a larger movement that historians can take in adopting the Web 2.0 attitude? Is it possible for historians to make use of other techologies and approaches? Is it possible for us to think of our publishing more as a “service”, free of charge and open to anyone who can connect to it? For blogging to truly have an impact on academia, it seems necessary that it encourage moves to embrace other technologies and mentalities inherent in the Web 2.0 world, technologies and approaches that break down barriers to access and redefine how information can be used. Blogging is just one tool in an entire world of technologies and services that make up Web 2.0. Historians can and should participate in these emerging technological trends.