Pt 1: What do we mean by ‘network’?

How online communities have evolved – and where they are going

In the beginning....

... there was Usenet• Established 1980• Pre-WWW browser – used a ‘newsreader’• Very un-regulated• Lots of conventions• Largely supplanted by web-forums• Still in use today (via Google Groups) – and very

busy too!

E-mail: The first ‘killer app’• The first common standard with mass take-up• CC / BCC used for informal group mailings• Formal mailing list software established –

Majordomo – with web-archives!• Lots of abuse – spammers, phishing etc• Commercial services (Vertical Response,

Mailchimp, Campaign Creator etc)• Open tools (Yahoo / Google Groups• Diminished value because of high noise / signal

ratio. How do we solve this?

Collaborative filtering: Firefly

• Sally likes....• U2 – 8/10• REM - 7/10• Tom Jones – 9/10• The Eurythmics – 4/10• The Stone Roses – 6/10• The Beatles – 7/10• Got a recommendation?

• Harry likes....• U2 – 8/10• REM - 7/10• Tom Jones – 9/10• The Eurythmics – 4/10• The Stone Roses – 6/10• The Beatles – 7/10• Radiohead – 9/10

Signal v Noise

• Over 1 trillion unique URLs• 115 million global TLD sites (not including gTLDs)• 112 million blogs by 2007• Spammers and Search Engine specialists distort

results

Collaborative filtering - examples

• Amazon – recommendations / people who bought this also bought ......

• Reputation management – eBay• Social bookmarks – Del.icio.us, Digg,

StumbleUpon• Peer-to-peer collaborative filtering –

Facebook ‘sharing’, Twitter linking, Google Reader

Personal networksBlogging / microblogging / sharing

Configurations

•Friends, followers (Twitter / fb)•Professional networks (LinkedIn)•Anonymous affinity (Flickr)•Social bookmarks•Personal showcases (YouTube) •Personal blogs•Micro-blogs (Tumblr, Posterous)•Group blogs•Commercial blogs / consultancy blogs•Project blogs – open networks•‘bolt-on blogs’ – attached to existing sites•Facebook groups / fan pages

A LinkedIn profile

A way of getting into a workplace

They work if they are....

• very easy / fun to use – compulsive• not dependent on a manual or training• are widely used and are growing• a sharing tool – making it easy and rewarding• interoperable – don’t block commercial rivals• valuable -collaborative filtering – help you to find the

better stuff from your contacts• promoters of trust – eBay / house rules • safe in other ways - offer some protection and privacy• not seen as meatmarkets – permissive marketing

Pt2: How it all fits together

Things you can’t ignore

Laws that actually do apply to the internet

• Unsolicited communications (Spam)• Privacy • Confidentiality• Copyright– http://tinyurl.com/sluggerpics– http://tinyurl.com/sluggerpics2

• Libel / defamation• ..... And then there’s ‘netiquette’

Netiquette: no...

• flamewars• sockpuppetting or impersonation• ‘astroturfing’• SHOUTING WITH CAPS• intolerance for newbies• jumping to the conclusion that your opponent

is a Nazi (Godwins Law)• outright plagiarism

Risks• Commercial / client confidentiality• Reputation management• The ‘direct democracy’ problem (see our ‘policy’ workshop)• Misrepresentation of services – trades description• Libel / defamation• Asymmetry of representation (exclusion of non-

networkers)• Personnel problems (t-shirt v suit friends, disciplinaries)• Response? Don’t vacate the field: Find a strategy / policy

Tech need-to-knows 1: Search engines

• The main source of traffic for most sites• Build their indexes by crawling websites,

grabbing text / images and applying algorithms• They *love* blogs and Twitter – human beings

indexing the internet for them – signal / noise• They *really* love tags – folksonomy & taxonomy• Search Engine Optimisation is an important

commercial service

Tech need-to-knows 2: RSS & XML

• Well-made websites usually hold text separate from styling

• That text can be exported• An RSS reader can ‘fetch’ stories from a selection of

websites• A website can ‘scrape’ other websites and re-use their

content• Your blog can update Twitter / your facebook page / • Complex information flows can be built fairly easily:• Watch this vid: http://edublogs.tv/play.php?vid=216

Other sessions in this series

• Involving more people in your policymaking processes – Monday 8th March 2010

• Promoting conversational communities – Tuesday 23rd March 2010

• Politics online – campaigning and representation – Tuesday 30th March 2010

• Promo code: 2march2010

Questions?

@paul0evans1admin@sluggerotoole.com