Collective knowledge on the internet

Wisdom of crowds or the loss of authority

SP04 LC week 4

Today

• Making sense of information on the web

• Knowledge develops on top of work of others (authority)

• ‘We stood on the shoulders of giants’

Internet: network of interrelated networks

• Internet is a distributed medium, where the world wide web (www) functions as a virtual network

• Appears to user as a homogeneous, giant information network

• Everyone with a computer can function as a node in this network, using it as a server

Open structure

• Internet is based on an Open Network Architecture

• this evolved in ‘the internet’: multiple independent networks of rather arbitrary design

• Web 2.0 panel

Web 2.0

• Weblogs• Collective knowledge:

– social bookmarking (del.icio.us)– Tagging (flickr), folksonomy/wisdom of crowds

• User Generated Content (Youtube, wikipedia)

• Peer2Peer Networks (pirate bay)• Online collaboration (Second Life)• User Innovation (LastFM)

Making sense out of all info on the web

• Online directories: Yahoo!, startpagina.nl• Altavista: search inverted database of the

content of the whole Web • Google: Pagerank algorithm• Weblogs: Slashdot• Folksonomy: social tagging, bookmarking• Metablogs: served to aggregate blogs:

Digg• Meta-aggregator sites: popurls.com

Directories

Google

• Spiders trace url’s and index web pages automatically

• It downloads pages and then gather information about these pages and store this information in enormous databases.

• Index offers references to sources of information (webpages)

• Google uses ‘pageranking’ to ‘classify’ bundle of links and determine authority of source

Weblogs

• Weblogs -> refer to interesting sites/sources, insert a content item easily

• most recent post; search on author, subject or date of publication

XML

• Defines the content type of an item

• <movie>: ‘this content item is a movie’ of type “Shockwave-flash”

• <RSS> ‘this newsfeed text <is of type> RSS Feed

• These data can be easily exported, free from formatting contraints

Slashdot

• weblog about technological developments• Includes abstracts of stories on other

websites • Editors/users insert links and discuss stories

Cooperative filtering:• Authority system• Tagging• Reputation mechanism

Categorization/Tagging

• Tagging: a catchword or label is attached to an item on the web

• Folksonomy: Folk + taxonomy

• Collective categorization of info sources on the internet, knowledge is organized by individual users themselves

• Enables you to find people who specialise in a certain field or who share the same areas of interest

They Rule - Josh On & Futurefarmers (2002-2004)

Del.icio.us

Does wiki model work

+ is open to everyone+ is more easily updated+ Can include expert from all over the world

on almost every topic

-Lacks context-Does not show discourse/peer review-less than 5% of users actually contribute

articles

Wikipedia

Study comparing the accuracy of the Wikipedia to Encyclopedia Britannica (2005): Science topics that the collective at large doesn't care much about, like "Kinetic isotope effect"

little controversy around these items

Social controversial items are limited in reactions

Meta-aggregator sites

• Algorithm dictate the latest buzz• No editor or human interference• Technology driven• Loss of wisdom

Content can be integrated in any platform

(web, mobile, etc.)

XML

• Defines the content type of an item

• <movie>: ‘this content item is a movie’ of type “Shockwave-flash”

• <RSS> ‘this newsfeed text <is of type> RSS Feed

• These data can be easily exported, free from formatting contraints

Digg

Digg

• Users collectively value content• Everyone can submit items• No editors involved• Once something is submitted, other

people see it and ‘Digg’ what they like best.

popurls

Internet connects people

Jason Larnier: DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism

‘The value is in the other people. If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots’

Semantic Web

• Tim Berners Lee: Semantic Web offers a way of structuring information on the web through meaningful, more abstract relations

The machine-readable descriptions;• The semantic web provides a common

standard (RDF) for websites to publish the relevant information in a more readily machine-processable and integratable form.

RDFResource Description Framework

• Meaningful relations between items

• RDF TripletsDocument <has author> Person-> person is a writer

• Logical deductionA horse is a mammal All mammals are being raised with mother’s milkHence, horses are being raised with mother’s

milk

Sources

Jason Larnier: DIGITAL MAOISM: • http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/

lanier06_index.html

Coursebook webculture, Open Universiteit Nederland, 2005, Rens Frommé e.a. Text on N@tschool

Tim Berners Lee e.a. Semantic Webhttp://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-

1C70-84A9809EC588EF21