o brave new world: Web2.0

Visualizing Whirled Peas

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:21:16 GMT

Thought that title might catch your attention.

I remember seeing on more than one bumper a few years back the amusing "Visualize Whirled Peas" bumper sticker, such as you see below. Now, I was always somewhat disappointed that there wasn't an actual visual on the bumper sticker to show me what whirled peas might look like, but I guess that sort of literalism might destroy the intended point of humor.

But perhaps rather than visualizing something absurd like whirled peas, there might be more to be gained from visualizing new navigational paradigms for traditonal Web sites like MSDN or TechNet, in the light of the very interesting explorations that are taking shape in the brave new world of "Web 2.0." Here I'm thinking of the way that tag clouds are beginning to catch on--see how Tagspace uses a tag cloud as its navigational metaphor, or CodePlex for that matter. But I'm not yet convinced this is really a very compelling user experience. My guess is that a lot of folks out there would agree with me on that point.

Some time ago, Korby introduced me to what he called the "hyperbolic tree grid," which could be used interactively as a means to navigate an array of networked resources. (Incidentally, I just found a very old blog post of his that used this inscrutable term when he was hot on the wiki wagon, and interestingly--I swear I'm not making this up--it's titled "Visualizing Whirled Wiki.") I found the idea pretty stimulating, in particular because it represented a fascinating departure from the dreary, old linear list of taxonomical categories you typically get on a Web site, and seemed to hold more promise than a conventional tag cloud.

While we're probably quite a ways away from blowing up the traditional left-nav of a Web site and going "hyperbolic," at least the introduction of tag clouds opens the door to some new ideas for representing information. I'm heartened to think that MSDN and TechNet, as well as other sites around Microsoft.com, will soon be adopting user- and system-generated tag clouds to supplement (if not replace) existing nav structures. I would certainly love to see the tag cloud taken a step or two beyond what you typically see today to representations that more closely approximate the kinds of intriguing visualizations you can see on Visual Complexity (but these, alas, are mostly just academic experiments).

And why stop there? If we go to the trouble to imagine--nay, visualize--content-metadata-user relationships in 3-D, why not indeed go into 4-D, and introduce the notion of time (pace, Michael: your thoughts on this served as my inspiration for this post)? That is to say, wouldn't it be something altogether exciting if we could navigate temporally through data sets on the Web, such that we could see how, for example, topics and tags evolved over time in relation to users and site content? Maybe there are sites out there that provide such an experience, but I sincerely doubt that any come anywhere near the size, scale, complexity, and potential for impact of either MSDN or TechNet, to say nothing of Microsoft.com.

Say you want to do some research and see how discussion of theory or praxis on whatever topic evolved over the past year or two. You come to MSDN, for example, and you notice a tag cloud on the face of things, as well as some options for alternative visualizations... One of those visualizations could be a networked view of tags, people, and resources, navigable in three virtual dimensions... but then you see that in addition to the basic filter options, you can scope the visualization to provide either a snapshot in any given point in time over the past number of months, or you can set it to render information as aggregated in a particular block of time... You can then zero in on the clusters of ideas and related resources as perceived by the community of users over time, pick and choose the topics, items, and people who look interesting to you, and build a relatively holistic picture for yourself of the evolution of the discussion. Why not visualize whirled peas such as these?

Ah, so many possibilities, so many questions.

- dave

TechRepublic Goes Web 2.0

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:13:47 GMT

Ok, before I do my little rant on iPods, WMP, etc., let me call attention to what TechRepublic has been up to in the community space.

In case you haven't seen, TechRepublic has an interesting level of integration across its various community features, including blogs, tags, forums, contacts, etc. The UX is a bit cluttered/hard to figure out, but it does show some of the things we have in mind for community on MSCOM and associated sites, and it does speak to a critical audience for our endeavors: IT pros.

This from TechCrunch's Michael Arrington:

CNET sure has been busy fixing up its community sites lately. In addition to recent updates to Consumating, Webshots, and Chow, the launch of AllYouCanUpload and the acquisition of UrbanBaby, CNET relaunched popular Tech news and community site TechRepublic today.
A key addition to TechRepublic is the use of tags to categorize all content on the site, including user generated content found in the discussion forums. Users are also able to create a personal space on the site, bookmark friends, etc. It’s a sort of MySpace for tech geeks.
Most of these sites fall under Martin Green, GM of CNET’s Community Group, who’s been leading a hard charge to bring CNET’s various community sites up to new standards set by Flickr, del.icio.us and other successful “web 2.0″ sites. TechRepublic is led by CNET VP Stephen Howard-Sarin.

Would really like to know how IT pros cotton to the Web 2.0-ish features of TR--what's good/just ok/bad, how useful is it perceived to be, etc. Perspectives, thoughts welcome.

On Tagging, Social Bookmarking, and Folksonomies

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:23:08 GMT

I thought it would be worthwhile to post a few thoughts on tagging, social bookmarking, and taxonomies to give myself and others a baseline for further thought and discussion of these topics.

This from an article on CNET back in November:

"Tagging" is a term used to describe human indexing of material on the Web, which in theory makes content more intuitively found and shared. Tagging systems are also known sometimes as "folksonomies"--a combination of "folk" and "taxonomy"--as well as "shared bookmarking."

Here's my take based on what I've assimilated so far...

Tagging is:

The process of applying labels to Web entities--can be a Web URL, a file, a feed, a person's profile--anything on the Web
Activity conducted by users of Web content
Different than system-based metatags, or pre-pended keywords usually within a closed domain of terms
An enabling technology for social bookmarking: e.g., sites such as del.icio.us and flickr

Which leads to the question, what is "social bookmarking"? Here's a simple way to conceive of it:

Social bookmarking is the activity of capturing links to Web resources for both personal and group reference, and applying one's own metadata, including title, description, and tags
It is different than IE Favorites or Firefox Bookmarks in that the links are gathered on public sites for sharing, and so are thus available from any Web client, anywhere.
And it is in turn enabled by "social software," which, per Wikipedia, "enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities."

The term "folksonomies" was used in the initial quotation from CNET. This bears further explanation.

"Folksonomy" is a term that is used in contradistinction to--and is a neologism in part formed from--"taxonomy," meaning that it is an open domain of terms used to refer to things that is not hierarchically structured, but is instead essentially "flat." Folksonomies, according to Elyssa Kroski, have several advantages over traditional taxonomies, in that they:

Are inclusive
Are current
Offer discovery
Are non-binary
Are democratic and self-moderating
Follow "desire lines"
Offer insight into user behavior
Engender community
Offer a low-cost alternative to the creation of controlled vocabularies
Offer usability
Are inevitable

On the other hand, they also:

Lack synonym control (but there are technologies emerging to deal with this problem)
Lack precision
Lack hierarchy
Lack recall (because of lack of synonym control)
Are susceptible to gaming

(On this last issue, susceptibility to gaming, Heather Champ, the community manager at Flickr, has some interesting anecdotes in her recent Web 2.0 Show interview.)

The question now before us on the MSCOM Community Technologies Team is how are we going to take these interconnected concepts and technologies and make something new for our customers on Microsoft Web properties. Teams are attempting to address the tagging zeitgeist all over Microsoft...how do we leverage all the thinking going on in this space for the betterment of developers and IT pros in particular who visit sites such as MSDN, CodePlex, TechNet, etc. (to say nothing of the rest of MSCOM)?

What Is Web 2.0?

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 02:05:37 GMT

A common question out on the Web among bloggers and people who care about social networking... the definition from Wikipedia is as good as any, in particular because it demonstrates, depending on your point of view, either how well defined or ill defined it is:

"As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:

The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end users
A social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation"
A more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture
A shift in economic value of the web, possibly surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s
A marketing term to differentiate new web businesses from those of the dot com boom, which due to the bust now seem discredited
The resurgence of excitement around the possibilities of innovative web applications and services that gained a lot of momentum around mid 2005."

Rather like the Lernaean Hydra, Web 2.0 has many heads, and this is a principal critique of its detractors, who say that:

It can mean different things to different people: no consensus of definition
It's often used simply as a marketing buzzword
Many of its ideas have long been around in the "Web 1.0" world: e.g. Amazon
It lacks defined business models, other than selling advertising

My feeling after a brief survey of resources on the Web is that Web 2.0 is above all defined by its social component--that is that if you boil it down, a "Web 2.0" experience is fundamentally communal, and turns the Web into a place for connecting with people through the medium of the content that interests them and that they themselves produce.