Well I have come to the end of my journey for Net 11, and what a ride it has been.
For me, this study period and Net11, has been an enjoyable, yet challenging, introduction to Internet Studies. Like many others in the group, I thought this unit would be a relative stroll through park, or Internet if you like, boy was I wrong. A lot of the material I have covered previously, whether through work or day to day mucking around on the Internet over the years. Yet when working through the material, I constantly found new things, new ways of looking at old things and was generally forced to really think about the way we, I, communicate on the Internet and what that truly means.
New becomes old and old becomes new
As a result of this I have explored many new technologies and found many new ways to share, and communicate what I have discovered: Twitter, Delicious and Blogs all spring instantly to mind. I have been exposed to fantastic concepts such as the Networked Student and The Machine is Us/ing Us. Seriously, check these out!
I have explored social networks and what impact they have on modern relationships and how they allow people to communicate on an intimate level with friends and family. In fact I think over the course of my studies this will probably be something which pops up again and again. I have explored old technologies such as IRC and Usenet which helped shape the early days on the Internet, and I have come to understand that without these legacy protocols, then many of the tools I have previously mentioned may not exist today.
Now as I rummage around the corners of the net, I feel my eyes and mind are more open and I am further aware of the power the Internet holds. I feel that I can see more of the potential the Internet holds for change to social interactions and the way we do business. This is an exciting time and I relish the fact that I am here, now, discovering all these things.
The human side of learning
Finally for me, and probably most importantly, this unit has been about the interaction with my fellow students. Whether this has been via Twitter or WebCT (oh how I loathe you) or each of our blogs. The communication and interaction has been amazing. The ideas we have shared, the help which has been forthcoming, it all has been amazing. In fact fellow Net11 student Tim Kennington made the comment in his blog "I can’t recall being part of an online unit before where I’ve actually felt like I’ve been studying right next to other students". I think that remark alone says volumes on how far this group has come with communicating on the Internet.
That's it for me, Net11 is done. See you in Net12.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Module 5 - Peer To Peer
Peer to Peer is such a complex and large issue. In fact it's so large that estimates are that Peer to Peer (predominantly BitTorrent) makes up nearly 55% of all Internet traffic (that is depending where you are located). This is enormous amounts of data that is being shared daily across the globe.Yet to me it's not the sharing of files, or the enormity of the amount of data shared. For me it's what is happening at this very moment with the attack against civil liberties online, all under the premise of protection of IP.
At this time there are three major occurrences in the online world which should have all netizens worried.
Things to watch
- Spectrial - The Pirate Bay vs IFPI. Check this out.
- AFACT vs iiNet - This case could decide whether a private company (your ISP) is required to act as the police and monitor your usage of the Internet based on the claims of another private enterprise without any criminal charges.
- Section 92A - The New Zealand Government introduces harsh new legislation which essentially says "Guilt upon Accusation" when it comes to file sharing.
The outcomes of these cases and changes to law will impact not on the pirates and the Peer to Peer networks, they will just find another way to share files, but on the everyday user of the Internet.
So I'm not going to get into the legality of sharing files and the supposed death of the music and film industries. I'm not going to get into how Peer to Peer can actually increase CD sales and increase an artists concert takings. What I am going to ask you is: Go out and actually explore both sides of the arguments, look beyond the rhetoric and see for yourself how this can affect, will affect your ability to use the internet, to communicate in new ways and discover new things.
This is your Internet we are talking about here, and while you may think these have things have no bearing on you cause, "I don't share files", think again friend.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Module 5 - Information Ecologies
I must admit reading about the idea of an Information Ecology was both difficult and frustrating, yet engaging and informative at the same time. In many ways though I see how this module is the peak of the unit truly drawing together all that has come before it. I just wish that I had done this before my concepts assignment.
Multifunctional, cross purpose tool?
So this idea of an information ecology has made me see the Internet in more than just one way. I could say at the start of this Study Period I simply thought of the Internet as a tool, albeit a magical wonderful tool with more functions than a Swiss Army knife, yet to me it was still essentially a tool. In fact early one, I made this blog post stating how I saw the Internet. Now I have come to realise how much more the Internet is (I did have an inkling prior to this), and can see how it evolves, what it does do to help us as we communicate.
I found Felix Stadler's paper Information Ecology particulary enlightening regarding the development of the information ecology and how it relates to Internet communication today. Where Stalder's paper focused on the nodes as being large corporations and government bodies, information has evolved and the nodes have now become the users themselves, interacting with the information, processing it, changing it, sharing it back (Stadler, 1997).
So it is as we add new web apps, new ways of looking at information, or communicating and interacting with one another, we change the Internet ourselves. Possibly the best example of this now is the advent of social media and the opportunity people now have to participate and share information, becoming that LIVE node in the network.
Communicate, communicate, participate
Key to this information ecology is the Internets intrinsic power of communication and subsequent participation. It is these aspects which allows us to advance, helping the information ecology to flourish. I have personally found this power over the course of Net11. As new tools have opened up to me allowing me to participate in communicating ideas and concepts, share experiences and knowledge that I have seen how much more the Internet is, than just a tool.
So now I have a new idea to think over further, and with Net12 around the corner, I'm sure I will get that opportunity. Before then though, I recommend reading fellow Net11 student Duane's blog post on Information Ecologies. He really has hit the nail on the head.
Stadler, Felix (1997). Information Ecology. Retrieved February 22, 2009 from http://felix.openflows.com/html/infoeco.html
Multifunctional, cross purpose tool?
So this idea of an information ecology has made me see the Internet in more than just one way. I could say at the start of this Study Period I simply thought of the Internet as a tool, albeit a magical wonderful tool with more functions than a Swiss Army knife, yet to me it was still essentially a tool. In fact early one, I made this blog post stating how I saw the Internet. Now I have come to realise how much more the Internet is (I did have an inkling prior to this), and can see how it evolves, what it does do to help us as we communicate.
I found Felix Stadler's paper Information Ecology particulary enlightening regarding the development of the information ecology and how it relates to Internet communication today. Where Stalder's paper focused on the nodes as being large corporations and government bodies, information has evolved and the nodes have now become the users themselves, interacting with the information, processing it, changing it, sharing it back (Stadler, 1997).
So it is as we add new web apps, new ways of looking at information, or communicating and interacting with one another, we change the Internet ourselves. Possibly the best example of this now is the advent of social media and the opportunity people now have to participate and share information, becoming that LIVE node in the network.
Communicate, communicate, participate
Key to this information ecology is the Internets intrinsic power of communication and subsequent participation. It is these aspects which allows us to advance, helping the information ecology to flourish. I have personally found this power over the course of Net11. As new tools have opened up to me allowing me to participate in communicating ideas and concepts, share experiences and knowledge that I have seen how much more the Internet is, than just a tool.
So now I have a new idea to think over further, and with Net12 around the corner, I'm sure I will get that opportunity. Before then though, I recommend reading fellow Net11 student Duane's blog post on Information Ecologies. He really has hit the nail on the head.
Stadler, Felix (1997). Information Ecology. Retrieved February 22, 2009 from http://felix.openflows.com/html/infoeco.html
So Frustrating I could Cry
So my concepts assignment is in and locked away (well and truly), yet now as I trawl the net as part of the research for modules 4 and 5 I have come across a number of sites which have further supported my concepts. Doh!
Oh why oh why is this so? Is it that my understanding of the concepts has grown and now I'm more aware of that which is around me? Or did I rush to get the concepts finished prior to a wedding and three weeks away from school?
Really, I suppose it could be a bit of both.
What did I find then...
The four concepts that I focused on were The Invisibility of Difference, Privacy and Security, Hypertext: Links or Structure and Information and Attention. Below are some examples of what I have come across.
In Privacy and Security I mentioned Jim Dempsey's comments about people presenting different aspects of themselves AFK in different social settings, different persona's so to speak, so why not online? Now I have found Chi.mp, a social networking site which allows you to bring all your online contacts and the like into one space and, create multiple persona's for various social groups; work, family, friends and the like. Cool!
In Information and Attention I talked about annotated search and the Google's SearchWiki project. This allows users to annotate search results for future reference and move more relevant search results to the top of the search. I mentioned that this type of social search would be the way of the future and also pointed to sites such as Delicious. Now I have found two such sites which all ready exist where users can rank the relevance of search results for future users and their searches. Xoost.com and Umibozu both provide this feature, and while not yet challenging Google, they are both challenging the concepts of search and relevancy.
Really what a dumbarse!
That's all I really wanted to share, I do feel a bit of a dumbarse for missing these nuggets, yet I know that 12 weeks ago these concepts would have been foreign to me and I would not have given any of these sites a second thought in the terms of implications of the development of the web and communication online.
Really I've come along way. Viva Le Net11!
Oh why oh why is this so? Is it that my understanding of the concepts has grown and now I'm more aware of that which is around me? Or did I rush to get the concepts finished prior to a wedding and three weeks away from school?
Really, I suppose it could be a bit of both.
What did I find then...
The four concepts that I focused on were The Invisibility of Difference, Privacy and Security, Hypertext: Links or Structure and Information and Attention. Below are some examples of what I have come across.
In Privacy and Security I mentioned Jim Dempsey's comments about people presenting different aspects of themselves AFK in different social settings, different persona's so to speak, so why not online? Now I have found Chi.mp, a social networking site which allows you to bring all your online contacts and the like into one space and, create multiple persona's for various social groups; work, family, friends and the like. Cool!
In Information and Attention I talked about annotated search and the Google's SearchWiki project. This allows users to annotate search results for future reference and move more relevant search results to the top of the search. I mentioned that this type of social search would be the way of the future and also pointed to sites such as Delicious. Now I have found two such sites which all ready exist where users can rank the relevance of search results for future users and their searches. Xoost.com and Umibozu both provide this feature, and while not yet challenging Google, they are both challenging the concepts of search and relevancy.
Really what a dumbarse!
That's all I really wanted to share, I do feel a bit of a dumbarse for missing these nuggets, yet I know that 12 weeks ago these concepts would have been foreign to me and I would not have given any of these sites a second thought in the terms of implications of the development of the web and communication online.
Really I've come along way. Viva Le Net11!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Module 4 - Evaluating The Web
As a part of the Concepts assignment I was introduced, in no uncertain terms, to the concept of evaluating and annotating my reference sites. At the time I really thought nothing of it and felt it was more a waste of time rather than to my benefit; really why couldn't those 200 words be better used writing ABOUT the concept.
Now with the assignment behind me and finally completing Module 4, I have come to truly appreciate and understand the need for this type of evaluation and annotation. As a direct result, I have become more and more reliant on tagging my bookmarks and writing a brief annotation about the page, if needed. In this manner I have began to really manage the information presented to me and cross reference it for future use.
What really intrigues me though, more and more online resources are allowing Internet users to do this quickly and easily. From social bookmarking with Delicious, Diigo's text highlighting or Google's SearchWiki feature. Browsers are even getting more in on the deal with Firefox now auto suggesting popular tags for sites and allowing notes (annotations) in bookmarks. It seems that information management is really starting to come to the fore.
So as we move forward on the Internet, these type of features are definitly becoming essential to manage the vast amount of information presented to us, and how we use these tools becomes even more important.
Now with the assignment behind me and finally completing Module 4, I have come to truly appreciate and understand the need for this type of evaluation and annotation. As a direct result, I have become more and more reliant on tagging my bookmarks and writing a brief annotation about the page, if needed. In this manner I have began to really manage the information presented to me and cross reference it for future use.
What really intrigues me though, more and more online resources are allowing Internet users to do this quickly and easily. From social bookmarking with Delicious, Diigo's text highlighting or Google's SearchWiki feature. Browsers are even getting more in on the deal with Firefox now auto suggesting popular tags for sites and allowing notes (annotations) in bookmarks. It seems that information management is really starting to come to the fore.
So as we move forward on the Internet, these type of features are definitly becoming essential to manage the vast amount of information presented to us, and how we use these tools becomes even more important.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
More Power To You
While completing the last task in Module 4 Searching the Web, I came across this an amazing web app Diigo.
Essentially it's a cross between social bookmarking and a research/reference tool where as you can not only bookmark a site, but highlight words or leave a sticky note with annotations ON THE PAGE for future reference. Diigo bills itself as a research tool and knowledge sharing community. While I haven't had a full play with it yet it's free to set up an account so hopefully tomorrow I shall be able to poke around and see how it works.
The ingenuity of people on the web never ceases to amaze me!
Essentially it's a cross between social bookmarking and a research/reference tool where as you can not only bookmark a site, but highlight words or leave a sticky note with annotations ON THE PAGE for future reference. Diigo bills itself as a research tool and knowledge sharing community. While I haven't had a full play with it yet it's free to set up an account so hopefully tomorrow I shall be able to poke around and see how it works.
The ingenuity of people on the web never ceases to amaze me!
Module 4 - Organising Search Information Task
After you using the Internet for awhile, you soon realise that you need a good strategy for managing all that information you come across just by browsing, searching or other nefarious means.
My primary method of managing this information is bookmarking. As I always have a browser open, I generally bookmark and save into one of several folders that I have arranged. As I sometimes use 2 or 3 different browsers on 2 or 3 devices (laptop, desktop, iPhone, work machine, etc), keeping bookmarks in sync has been a bit of a problem. To manage this issue I use the Foxmarks plugin to sync all bookmarks across all machines and browsers.
Another bookmarking method I have recently started to embrace is Delicious. An online social bookmarking site, I love how Delicious allows me to find other peoples treasure and for me to share mine. Because of Delicious (and Net11) I have also really started to tag my bookmarks (both in Delicious and my browser) and add short annotations (notes) to help me manage that information in the future.
In relation to the task I bookmarked my top three results via Delicious. These were bookmarks relating to my study hence this method. I tagged each result "ouanet11, module4, search, result" and made a short annotation as to the information on the site (and reason for bookmarking the page).
I really like the idea of social bookmarking, sharing tags and notes on pages, finding other peoples nuggets of useful (or not so useful information). Now through Net11 I have been able to have more of a play with Delicious and now I'm now starting to think about moving all my bookmarks there, really it's just another step towards the cloud.
My primary method of managing this information is bookmarking. As I always have a browser open, I generally bookmark and save into one of several folders that I have arranged. As I sometimes use 2 or 3 different browsers on 2 or 3 devices (laptop, desktop, iPhone, work machine, etc), keeping bookmarks in sync has been a bit of a problem. To manage this issue I use the Foxmarks plugin to sync all bookmarks across all machines and browsers.
Another bookmarking method I have recently started to embrace is Delicious. An online social bookmarking site, I love how Delicious allows me to find other peoples treasure and for me to share mine. Because of Delicious (and Net11) I have also really started to tag my bookmarks (both in Delicious and my browser) and add short annotations (notes) to help me manage that information in the future.In relation to the task I bookmarked my top three results via Delicious. These were bookmarks relating to my study hence this method. I tagged each result "ouanet11, module4, search, result" and made a short annotation as to the information on the site (and reason for bookmarking the page).
I really like the idea of social bookmarking, sharing tags and notes on pages, finding other peoples nuggets of useful (or not so useful information). Now through Net11 I have been able to have more of a play with Delicious and now I'm now starting to think about moving all my bookmarks there, really it's just another step towards the cloud.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Net11 Reflections Week Eleven
Another week down and some interesting things have come and gone through the course of it. I am now finally catching up on course work while reading blogs and forum posts has been a bit slower.
The last couple of tasks in module four have given me a couple of interesting things to think about, particularly the types of tools I use to manage my time and productivity online. The more I have thought about it the more I am looking at stripping back the applications I use, and where possible move more into the cloud.
I have achieved this in a couple of places such as email and RSS feeds. I am starting to use Delicious more and more for bookmarks and have just set up a Pro Flickr account to get our photos online (and backed up). I have also come to appreciate my browser more, including how it can interface with so much more than just a simple web page: I now have plugins for Twitter and Delicious amongst other things.
So now we are drawing quickly to a close for Net11 (just two weeks to go). There still seems so much more to learn and discuss and I still have a couple of tasks and the like to complete. To date this has been a fantastic journey and reading through some fellow students blogs I can see they too have been impacted by what they are learning. I think both Cynthia and Peter can be proud of what this group is taking away.
Don't you think so?
The last couple of tasks in module four have given me a couple of interesting things to think about, particularly the types of tools I use to manage my time and productivity online. The more I have thought about it the more I am looking at stripping back the applications I use, and where possible move more into the cloud.
I have achieved this in a couple of places such as email and RSS feeds. I am starting to use Delicious more and more for bookmarks and have just set up a Pro Flickr account to get our photos online (and backed up). I have also come to appreciate my browser more, including how it can interface with so much more than just a simple web page: I now have plugins for Twitter and Delicious amongst other things.
So now we are drawing quickly to a close for Net11 (just two weeks to go). There still seems so much more to learn and discuss and I still have a couple of tasks and the like to complete. To date this has been a fantastic journey and reading through some fellow students blogs I can see they too have been impacted by what they are learning. I think both Cynthia and Peter can be proud of what this group is taking away.
Don't you think so?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Module 4 - Boolean Searching Task
As Google automatically assumes the Boolean operator AND my initial search results were actually pretty limited so you could say there was some room to wriggle.
To achieve absolute maximum results I used the Boolean operator OR between each keyword "desktop OR meta OR search OR osx" and closed up "os x" to "osx". This resulted in an increase from 206,000 results to a more respectable figure of 7,090,000,000. Heh!
Obviously this is not a manageable search as Google is looking for pages which contain anyone of the keywords. To narrow down my results I began by removing the OR operator and changed my keywords "meta search" to "metasearch"; I now had 111,000 results to go through. The really funny part about doing this; results 3 and 4 are my own blog entry regarding the Search Task! Have a look if you don't believe me.
At this stage I felt that my initial keywords were affecting the quality of my results. To try and improve results I switched keywords and included the operators + and - with various keywords. As a result my search of "metasearch software +mac -windows" now yielded only 13,400 results. Much more manageable and of better quality overall (it didn't include my blog entry).
Now, other than using a specialist search engine, I'm not fully aware of a foolproof way to only get results back from university sites. It was mentioned on WebCT to use "+.edu" to achieve this, personally I found that this did not filter results enough. In the end I added "-.com" to my search string and again changed my keywords including adding another Boolean operator. As such my search string was now "(metasearch AND software) +.edu -.com" which gave me 519 mostly results from government or educational sites.
Of course I could have just used the keywords "metasearch software mac" on Google Scholar to get something similar results wise.
To achieve absolute maximum results I used the Boolean operator OR between each keyword "desktop OR meta OR search OR osx" and closed up "os x" to "osx". This resulted in an increase from 206,000 results to a more respectable figure of 7,090,000,000. Heh!
Obviously this is not a manageable search as Google is looking for pages which contain anyone of the keywords. To narrow down my results I began by removing the OR operator and changed my keywords "meta search" to "metasearch"; I now had 111,000 results to go through. The really funny part about doing this; results 3 and 4 are my own blog entry regarding the Search Task! Have a look if you don't believe me.
At this stage I felt that my initial keywords were affecting the quality of my results. To try and improve results I switched keywords and included the operators + and - with various keywords. As a result my search of "metasearch software +mac -windows" now yielded only 13,400 results. Much more manageable and of better quality overall (it didn't include my blog entry).
Now, other than using a specialist search engine, I'm not fully aware of a foolproof way to only get results back from university sites. It was mentioned on WebCT to use "+.edu" to achieve this, personally I found that this did not filter results enough. In the end I added "-.com" to my search string and again changed my keywords including adding another Boolean operator. As such my search string was now "(metasearch AND software) +.edu -.com" which gave me 519 mostly results from government or educational sites.
Of course I could have just used the keywords "metasearch software mac" on Google Scholar to get something similar results wise.
Module 4 - Search Engine Task
For the non-mac users in the unit, OS X's Sherlock has been replaced by the much niftier Spotlight. Unfortunately I have not been able to work out how to make Spotlight search multiple online search engines, nor have I been able to find a desktop metasearch engine tool for a Mac. As such I have used the online metasearch engine Search.com to complete step two of this task. Now on with the show.
Search 1
Site: Google.com
Keywords: desktop meta search os x
Results: 206, 000
Check out the search results from Google
Search 2
Site: Search.com
Keywords: desktop meta search os x
Results: 166, 020
Check out the results from Search.com
Google not only yields more results, but the relevancy of the results is also far better with Google than Search. Google's first result is indeed for a desktop metasearch app (albeit something similar to spotlight rather than for the web) unlike Search.com's self referencing list of web search sites.
I am a big fan of Google. 9 times out of 10 it finds what I am looking for and when it doesn't, I use Google to find me a specialist database or directory to try and find more particular information on what I am searching for. Then I go back to Google and refine my search.
Search 1
Site: Google.com
Keywords: desktop meta search os x
Results: 206, 000
Check out the search results from Google
Search 2
Site: Search.com
Keywords: desktop meta search os x
Results: 166, 020
Check out the results from Search.com
Google not only yields more results, but the relevancy of the results is also far better with Google than Search. Google's first result is indeed for a desktop metasearch app (albeit something similar to spotlight rather than for the web) unlike Search.com's self referencing list of web search sites.
I am a big fan of Google. 9 times out of 10 it finds what I am looking for and when it doesn't, I use Google to find me a specialist database or directory to try and find more particular information on what I am searching for. Then I go back to Google and refine my search.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Module 4 - Tools For Using The Web
I have used most of the tools listed in this task at one time or another. Because of this I have gone off in search of some various "other" tools for the internet. As a result of my exploration what I found was an avalanche of tools allowing you to better utilise your time and be more productive on the internet. Without writing a thesis on the various applications I explored I thought highlighting the following three apps would give enough insight into my experiences.
Managing Bookmarks
First off is Webbla; a Mac application for managing bookmarks from all your browsers. Webbla allows you tag and add notes to each bookmark. The usual search and grouping options are present alongside some more advanced features such as site tracking (tracks updates to pages), popularity (your last visit and how many times) plus a very fancy page preview (view your page visually without visiting). All up Webbla was easy to install with lots of preferences and features to manage your bookmarks including hooking into OS X's Quick Look and Finder. In my mind though it was a little too complex and feature rich (bloated) for this simple task.
Managing Passwords
With the explosion of Web 2.0 sites, social media and web apps it seems we are drowning under logins and passwords. 1Password is a little application which helps manage all these logins and passwords plus a slew of other things relating to your online life. To make sure all your details are stored securely the app hooks into OS X's Keychain application to provide maximum security goodness. After using the app for a day I found it extremely useful and something I will probably use in the future. Downside was it doesn't auto fill logins such as Firefox's built password manager.
Managing Online Updates
Alert Thingy is an Adobe Air based application which allows you to manage and view all your updates from various social media sites. It's an interesting app as you can see status updates from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc in the one application without having to go to the actual site. Installation was simple although extended due to having to install Adobe Air before the app itself. Alert Thingy doesn't have a lot of preferences but it is very useful for keeping abreast of the growing status and update feeds associated with social media.
So what did I learn from all this? I think Internet users can sometimes forget (or take for granted) the most essential tool for our online lives: The humble browser. Pretty much all the above tasks can be completed by your browser, be it native or with an additional plugin.
My browser of choice, Firefox, allows management of bookmarks with tags (Keywords), annotations (notes) and much more. It has built in features for managing passwords with strong built in security for such. Various addons can also be installed to manage social media updates and the like, and that's just the begging of what it can really do.
It is this that makes the browser the most powerful tool for accessing and using the internet. Of course not all browsers are created equal and many people will have different preferences as to what they want from a browser. But it's worth remembering that your browser can offer so much more than just a window to your online world.
Managing Bookmarks
First off is Webbla; a Mac application for managing bookmarks from all your browsers. Webbla allows you tag and add notes to each bookmark. The usual search and grouping options are present alongside some more advanced features such as site tracking (tracks updates to pages), popularity (your last visit and how many times) plus a very fancy page preview (view your page visually without visiting). All up Webbla was easy to install with lots of preferences and features to manage your bookmarks including hooking into OS X's Quick Look and Finder. In my mind though it was a little too complex and feature rich (bloated) for this simple task.
Managing Passwords
With the explosion of Web 2.0 sites, social media and web apps it seems we are drowning under logins and passwords. 1Password is a little application which helps manage all these logins and passwords plus a slew of other things relating to your online life. To make sure all your details are stored securely the app hooks into OS X's Keychain application to provide maximum security goodness. After using the app for a day I found it extremely useful and something I will probably use in the future. Downside was it doesn't auto fill logins such as Firefox's built password manager.
Managing Online Updates
Alert Thingy is an Adobe Air based application which allows you to manage and view all your updates from various social media sites. It's an interesting app as you can see status updates from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc in the one application without having to go to the actual site. Installation was simple although extended due to having to install Adobe Air before the app itself. Alert Thingy doesn't have a lot of preferences but it is very useful for keeping abreast of the growing status and update feeds associated with social media.
So what did I learn from all this? I think Internet users can sometimes forget (or take for granted) the most essential tool for our online lives: The humble browser. Pretty much all the above tasks can be completed by your browser, be it native or with an additional plugin.
My browser of choice, Firefox, allows management of bookmarks with tags (Keywords), annotations (notes) and much more. It has built in features for managing passwords with strong built in security for such. Various addons can also be installed to manage social media updates and the like, and that's just the begging of what it can really do.
It is this that makes the browser the most powerful tool for accessing and using the internet. Of course not all browsers are created equal and many people will have different preferences as to what they want from a browser. But it's worth remembering that your browser can offer so much more than just a window to your online world.
Net11 Reflections Week Ten
After completing the concepts assignment and getting through three weeks of wedding, honeymoon and holidays, I now feel somewhat distracted from study.
With 855 plus posts on WebCT and over 170 blog posts to read plus modules 4 and 5 to complete the task seems, sometimes, insurmountable. I suppose now is the time to knuckle down and get crackin'.
With 855 plus posts on WebCT and over 170 blog posts to read plus modules 4 and 5 to complete the task seems, sometimes, insurmountable. I suppose now is the time to knuckle down and get crackin'.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Conceptual Research & Reflection Project
Index
Concept 1
Concept 2
Concept 3
Concept 4
Bibliography
8. The Invisibility of Difference
Today there is less inconsistency between machine capability, software specifications, Internet connection and user experience than 10 years ago. Now though, the Internet offers users unprecedented opportunities for communication with those both near and far, yet the very process of communicating electronically can still be a very isolated experience. Many users tend to be cocooned within their personal and private domain, primarily familiar with only the equipment that surrounds them.
Because of this many users often don't think about technical aspects or capability of the user at the other end of the pipe. They may have outdated equipment or software, use a completely different operating system or not have adequate skills and understanding to complete the task. It is this ignorance or failure to acknowledge that Allen calls the invisibility of difference (Allen, n.d.)
To experienced users who deal with electronic communication on a day to day basis, these aspects of the divide that can exists between users is all to apparent and they will take such things into account when communicating with others. On the other hand novice users are so bewildered by the technology and new experience that they are in the questioning phase of their journey and as such will be directed by those around them. Still though there is also a large proportion of what I shall call intermediate users who get into a space where they are comfortable with what they do online. As such they forget of possible constraints on other users and fall into the mindset described by Allen.
It is these intermediate users who can amplify the poor experience accounted to the failure to understand the difference between users. An example of this type of intermediate user and their impacts can be found on the popular social networking site MySpace. A large section of MySpace users will have graphic heavy, music laden personal pages where those with a slow Internet connection or less powerful machine will have trouble loading the page. This of course is not limited to MySpace alone with many other social networking sites and amateur websites that suffer similar problems.
While the Web has always been developed as resolution independent, much research and discussion has gone into this invisibility of difference (Allen, n.d.) that has led to many changes on the Internet. The more recent of these changes can be seen with advent of what can be described as Web 2.0 design. Particularly the narrow centred column initially optimised to a width of 800px now to 1024px to take into account the average users screen resolution. Changes have not only been to screen resolutions, many website developers are aware of the differences in access speed and have moved to reduce the graphics heavy layouts of sites. By minimising graphics, developers are allowing sites to load faster and have a lesser effect on those with slower connections.
It is all these changes, along with the continuing standardisation of browser technology, which is helping the web move towards a smoother and more consistent user experience in the future.
Site 1: Web Design From Scratch http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
Written in an easy to follow casual manner, Web Design from Scratch is an excellent resource for web designers of all levels of experience. Ben Hunt utilises his years of experience with web design and takes the user through a range of techniques and concepts in order to help designers build sites that are both eye catching and economical at the same time. His approach to web site construction is one that directly takes the "invisibility of difference" (Allen, n.d.) into account and ensures that designers build their sites to accommodate the varying range of user experience.
Site 2: MySpace http://www.myspace.com/
MySpace is the popular social networking site for youths and adults alike. One of the popular features of MySpace is the ability for the user to customise their personal page as they see it. This feature has allowed even the most basic of Internet users to become web designers ultimately ending up with a large proportion of pages being bloated by video, audio or graphics. This highlights how one user may not take into consideration how their machine capability or connection speed differs to that of another users ultimately ending in a poor experience for others.
Return to Index
26. Privacy and Security
With the advent of social media on the Internet the concept of privacy and security has been completely turned on its head. People now seem to be more and more willing to give up snippets of personal information to online social networking and media sites than ever before.
From network building, to blogging, to tweeting, to sharing video and photos, users can now upload their lives to the Internet in minute detail. Social media now encourages users to share all of who we are; opinions and thoughts, school and work history, relationship status, likes and dislikes.
Sharing all this information online offers us an unprecedented convenience of communication. In this new age users are able to look at friends and families photos instantly and keep track of what they are up to on a near hourly basis no matter where we, or they, are in the world. Yet it this very convenience and openness that also presents many potential issues and threats to the online community.
This plethora of information can allow a person to profile another, building up a detailed dossier of information to the point that they can impersonate another online. A recent example of this is the experiment conducted by Shawn Moyer and Nathan Hamiel where the pair posed as security expert Marcus Ranum on the popular networking site Linkdin.
Through out the experiment Moyer and Hamiel were able to fool a number of known associates of Ranum's into believing the profile was genuine and as such build a more elaborate profile as the experiment progressed. As a result, this experiment highlighted that many users of social media and networking are prepared to take online profiles with very little proof (Moyer & Hamiel, 2008).
Another side to Moyer and Hamiel's experiment also highlighted an interesting concept through a feature of social networking sites allowing offsite content. This ranged from allowing HTML to be inserted into comments and the customisation of profiles with cut-n-paste code from potentially un-trusted sources. For the uninitiated or security unconscious, this type of action can result in malicious code being inserted into their profiles (Moyer & Hamiel, 2008).
These findings back up current thoughts that security and privacy control online, and in particular with social media need an overhaul. Many discussions have already begun with a focus on the further enhancement of profile data manipulation.
Sites such as Facebook all ready allow for limited profiles, this is where a user can control what a friend can see on their profile page or news feed. Many believe that this can go even further though allowing for the creation of multiple personas online to control that material which is presented to different types of networks. As reported by Sonia Arrison: Jim Dempsey at the recent discussion Privacy 2009: The year ahead, made the point people present themselves in different manners in different situations such as work and home, so why should this be any different online? (Arisson, 2009)
While no one organizations seems to have the answer yet to this most complex of problems, the end user can take at least this away now. As Internet users in a growing online world of social media and the sharing of personal information, there is a greater need for awareness of online security and self-management of personal information and privacy.
Site 1: The Office of the Privacy Commissioner http://www.privacy.gov.au/internet/
While there are a plethora of online privacy guides on the World Wide Web, for Australians with little web experience then the Australian governments privacy website is an excellent starting point for those wishing to develop a basic understanding of privacy issues. The site lists a number of known privacy and security concerns for the Internet novice as well as tools users have at their disposal for protection of their online privacy and security. The site is straightforward and gives good clear definitions of problems while offering practical advice for the user to protect themself online.
Site 2: Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the preeminent online organisations relating to amongst other things online privacy and security, and although localised for the United Sates, the site still holds a lot of relevant information for netizens from all parts of the world. In particular the EEF's privacy section is an excellent resource for those wishing to delve deeper into the very complex world of privacy and security online. It offers up to date news and information on current issues including rulings from various court cases and changes to privacy laws while providing opinion pieces and whitepapers on research conducted within the field.
Return to Index
31. Hypertext: links or structure?
Hypertext as defined by the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary as a database format where related information to that being displayed can be accessed by the user through clicking on the highlighted text (Merriam-Webster, 2002). Although Ted Nelson coined the term in 1965, the actual concept of Hypertext extends back to 1945 and Vannevar Bush with his Memex concept where with a device comprising of photographic, electrical and mechanical elements would allow the user to make links between documents stored on microfiche (Bush, 1945).
From that initial concept, through to the invention of Hypertext Markup Language by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and the subsequent World Wide Web, the Hypertext concept has developed to become the Hypertext reality. Now it can be argued that much of the structure of a web page comes from its Hyperlinks and how they are organised.
In fact over time users have come to rely on a very set structure of Hyperlinks to help them navigate around websites and individual pages. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has highlighted this through his ongoing studies that have shown how users have grown accustomed to this basic structure of a website, and as a result have expectations of where they will find particular elements including navigation flowing across the top of the page to contact us and about us links in the footer of a page.
As it is this navigational use and aspect of Hypertext that users are most familiar and comfortable with, it would seem then that the inherent nature of a Hypertext link or Hyperlink is to provide linear navigation around a web page or website. It could be said though; this conceptual linear structuring utilising Hypertext fails to take advantage of what Hypertext can truly offer.
The real ingenuity of Hypertext comes from the act of linking pages and referencing material on offsite pages, Hypertext allows the author to create an experience that lacks the comfortable linear structure and allows the readers discovery of knowledge and ideas to be more organic. It is this organic referencing aspect that gives Hypertext its real power. In recent years this particular linking practice has flourished, particularly through blogs linking to sites further highlight concepts or sites of interest in context with their own material.
This concept of linking still has its limitations, as pointed out by Ted Nelson in his Google TechTalk presentation, Transclusion; Fixing electronic literature. Nelson puts forward that currently Hypertext is only a one-way path. Links only go outward and as such when browsing a page it is impossible to see pages that link to it (Nelson, 2007).
To some extent this limitation of Hypertext is overcome with a Ping or Trackback where an acknowledgement is made from the linking site to the originating site. This is still mostly limited to blog sites and still does not offer the user any linking reference if browsing the outwards site. It can be argued though that this practise is a further step towards the greater underlying Hypertext structure of the Internet.
Site 1: Use It http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050103.html
This particular article was written by Jakob Nielsen in 2005 and is part of his excellent site Useit.com. The article presents a number of interesting further concepts on the direction of Hypertext that still stand today. Of particular note is the concept of "Explicit Structure" (Nielsen, 2005) and the incorporation of buttons which allow a user to go straight to sections such as about us, contact us or the like. It is also concepts like this and "Fat Links" (Nielsen, 2005) and "Physical Hypertext" (Nielsen, 2005) which have the potential to drive the future of Hypertext and the World Wide Web.
Site 2: Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/jhup/decenter.html
While not directly writing about the World Wide Web, I find this section from chapter one of Landow's 1992 publication on Hypertext rings true with today's World Wide Web. Landow's description of Hypertext as an infinitely de-centerable and re-centerable system allowing the user to make their interests the de facto organising system (Landow, 1992), highlights the true non-linear nature and power of Hypertext. This concept fits with idea of the World Wide web and constant linking to external websites for annotated information of explanation of deep thought. In particular where a user can choose the path that they follow from site to site.
Return to Index
33. Information and Attention
The Internet is filled with a near infinite amount of information yet we have a finite amount of time or attention to which we can give it. As a result we must learn how to find the information on the Internet that we seek, both quickly and efficiently. As a result as we learn how to use the Internet we tend to learn how to sift through the metadata of websites that is presented to us simply through our browsing or the various tools available to us such as search engines.
Metadata is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as; "data that provides information about other data" (Merriam-Webster, 2002). This metadata can be obtained in various ways and come in many forms. Probably most obvious on the Internet is the metadata that is presented via a search engine.
Through the use of a search engine a user can find such things as site titles, descriptions and URL's. Even before a user has looked at a page they are deciding if this site holds what it is they are searching for. Users are summing up this metadata, seemingly arbitrarily to determine the worthiness before clicking through to the page.
Of course the process is not arbitrary, an experienced user will have an idea of what they are searching for. This gleaning of data provided by the search engine can allow users to gain a mental picture of the site in question and determine if future investigation is prudent.
On making the decision to further explore the data on the offered web page, the user is then again presented with further metadata to determine continued reading. This time it may not be presented as obviously as the search engine page yet it's still there. The layout and design of the page, the introduction to the page or article, pictures, any text that stands out as the user scans the page.
Even with the tools available to us today, management of this metadata is becoming more and more difficult. With an ever increasing amount of data available to us, Recently Google engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj stated on the official Google blog that Google had indexed one trillion pages (Alpert & Hajaj, 2008) and counting, and the probability that not every site owner or developer puts meaningful data into things such as titles or descriptions.
Web developers need to look to new methods of managing this vast amount of information and making the available information more relevant. Recently Google introduced an annotation and ranking system for registered users of their popular search engine called SearchWiki. Users can make private comments and notes for sites coming up in search results wile rating and ranking the results. All this has no actual effect on the users search results but can provide useful reference material in the future.
I feel Google needs to take this a step further and include a tagging feature to allow users to also tag search results for later use. End users could then choose to search with user tags on or off. This would then allow for a further refinement of searching through the available metadata on the Internet.
Site 1: The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
This blog post written by Google product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Corin Anderson further describes the features of Google's new annotated search function SearchWiki. The article also contains an embedded video that provides a great tutorial showing the user how this new tool is utilised within their searches. Personally I find this new social feature for searching metadata an amazing step forward, allowing the user to comment on, rank and also hide search results. As the amount of metadata increases in the online world then users will need more powerful and innovative ways of sifting through this data.
Site 2: Delicious http://delicious.com/
Delicious.com is a site that specialises in folksonomy or social tagging of bookmarks. Many people utilise Delicious for online book marking and the sharing of interesting links with their online networks. I feel though, Delicious can offer a whole lot more than just a repository for the fruits of ones Internet browsing. Based on the very fact that thousands of users daily track sites and pages which they then tag or annotate with further information can make Delicious a very powerful tool for searching vast amounts of data which has been further narrowed down for the user.
Return to Index
Bibliography
Alpert, Jesse & Hajaj, Nissan. (2008). Official Google blog: We knew the web was big. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html
Arisson, Sonia. (2009). Will 2009 be the year of multiple digital identities? Tech news world. Encino: ECT News Network. Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Will-2009-Be-the-Year-of-Multiple-Digital-Identities-65768.html
Australia. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner. (n.d) Information Technology and Internet Issues. Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://www.privacy.gov.au/internet/
Bush, Vannevar. (1945.) As we may think. The Atlantic. Retrieved January 15, 2009, from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush
Delicious (n.d) Retrieved January 14, 2009, from http://delicious.com/
Dupont, Cedric., & Anderson, Corin. (2008). The official Google blog: SeachWiki: Make search your own. Mountain View: Google. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Privacy. (n.d) Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy
Hunt, Ben. (2003). Web Design from Scratch. Retrieved January 22, 2009, from http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
Hypertext. (2002). In Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=hypertext&x=0&y=0
Landow, George P. (1992). Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology (11-13). Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved January 17, 2009, from http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/jhup/decenter.html
Metadata. (2002). In Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. Retrieved January 14, 2009 from http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
Moyer, Shawn (Speaker)., Hamiel, Nathan (Speaker)., & Peters, Sara (Presenter). (2008). TechWebTV: Black Hat 2008; Satan is on my friends list [Vodcast]. Las Vegas: Black Hat. Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2lGKzHYBXtQ
MySpace (2003) Retrieved January 22, 2009, from http://www.myspace.com/
Nelson, Ted (Speaker). (2007). Google TechTalk: Transclusion; Fixing electronic literature [Vodcast]. Mountain View: Google. Retrieved January 15, 2009, from http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kAW8qeays&feature=channel_page
Nielsen, Jakob. (2005). Reviving Advanced Hypertext. Retrieved January 16, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050103.html
Return to Index
Concept 1
Concept 2
Concept 3
Concept 4
Bibliography
8. The Invisibility of Difference
"The daily practice of electronic communication is shaped by over-familiarity with one's own computer system, and a tendency to assume that – as with much more established forms of communication – everyone is operating within compatible and similar systems. When in doubt, seek to communicate in ways that are readable and effective for all users, regardless of their particular systems." (Allen, n.d)
Today there is less inconsistency between machine capability, software specifications, Internet connection and user experience than 10 years ago. Now though, the Internet offers users unprecedented opportunities for communication with those both near and far, yet the very process of communicating electronically can still be a very isolated experience. Many users tend to be cocooned within their personal and private domain, primarily familiar with only the equipment that surrounds them.
Because of this many users often don't think about technical aspects or capability of the user at the other end of the pipe. They may have outdated equipment or software, use a completely different operating system or not have adequate skills and understanding to complete the task. It is this ignorance or failure to acknowledge that Allen calls the invisibility of difference (Allen, n.d.)
To experienced users who deal with electronic communication on a day to day basis, these aspects of the divide that can exists between users is all to apparent and they will take such things into account when communicating with others. On the other hand novice users are so bewildered by the technology and new experience that they are in the questioning phase of their journey and as such will be directed by those around them. Still though there is also a large proportion of what I shall call intermediate users who get into a space where they are comfortable with what they do online. As such they forget of possible constraints on other users and fall into the mindset described by Allen.
It is these intermediate users who can amplify the poor experience accounted to the failure to understand the difference between users. An example of this type of intermediate user and their impacts can be found on the popular social networking site MySpace. A large section of MySpace users will have graphic heavy, music laden personal pages where those with a slow Internet connection or less powerful machine will have trouble loading the page. This of course is not limited to MySpace alone with many other social networking sites and amateur websites that suffer similar problems.
While the Web has always been developed as resolution independent, much research and discussion has gone into this invisibility of difference (Allen, n.d.) that has led to many changes on the Internet. The more recent of these changes can be seen with advent of what can be described as Web 2.0 design. Particularly the narrow centred column initially optimised to a width of 800px now to 1024px to take into account the average users screen resolution. Changes have not only been to screen resolutions, many website developers are aware of the differences in access speed and have moved to reduce the graphics heavy layouts of sites. By minimising graphics, developers are allowing sites to load faster and have a lesser effect on those with slower connections.
It is all these changes, along with the continuing standardisation of browser technology, which is helping the web move towards a smoother and more consistent user experience in the future.
Site 1: Web Design From Scratch http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
Written in an easy to follow casual manner, Web Design from Scratch is an excellent resource for web designers of all levels of experience. Ben Hunt utilises his years of experience with web design and takes the user through a range of techniques and concepts in order to help designers build sites that are both eye catching and economical at the same time. His approach to web site construction is one that directly takes the "invisibility of difference" (Allen, n.d.) into account and ensures that designers build their sites to accommodate the varying range of user experience.
Site 2: MySpace http://www.myspace.com/
MySpace is the popular social networking site for youths and adults alike. One of the popular features of MySpace is the ability for the user to customise their personal page as they see it. This feature has allowed even the most basic of Internet users to become web designers ultimately ending up with a large proportion of pages being bloated by video, audio or graphics. This highlights how one user may not take into consideration how their machine capability or connection speed differs to that of another users ultimately ending in a poor experience for others.
Return to Index
26. Privacy and Security
"The Internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced Internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about themselves in any form. Conceptually, the Internet challenges us to take greater responsibility for the protection of privacy and security than perhaps we are used to when dealing with the media." (Allen, n.d)
With the advent of social media on the Internet the concept of privacy and security has been completely turned on its head. People now seem to be more and more willing to give up snippets of personal information to online social networking and media sites than ever before.
From network building, to blogging, to tweeting, to sharing video and photos, users can now upload their lives to the Internet in minute detail. Social media now encourages users to share all of who we are; opinions and thoughts, school and work history, relationship status, likes and dislikes.
Sharing all this information online offers us an unprecedented convenience of communication. In this new age users are able to look at friends and families photos instantly and keep track of what they are up to on a near hourly basis no matter where we, or they, are in the world. Yet it this very convenience and openness that also presents many potential issues and threats to the online community.
This plethora of information can allow a person to profile another, building up a detailed dossier of information to the point that they can impersonate another online. A recent example of this is the experiment conducted by Shawn Moyer and Nathan Hamiel where the pair posed as security expert Marcus Ranum on the popular networking site Linkdin.
Through out the experiment Moyer and Hamiel were able to fool a number of known associates of Ranum's into believing the profile was genuine and as such build a more elaborate profile as the experiment progressed. As a result, this experiment highlighted that many users of social media and networking are prepared to take online profiles with very little proof (Moyer & Hamiel, 2008).
Another side to Moyer and Hamiel's experiment also highlighted an interesting concept through a feature of social networking sites allowing offsite content. This ranged from allowing HTML to be inserted into comments and the customisation of profiles with cut-n-paste code from potentially un-trusted sources. For the uninitiated or security unconscious, this type of action can result in malicious code being inserted into their profiles (Moyer & Hamiel, 2008).
These findings back up current thoughts that security and privacy control online, and in particular with social media need an overhaul. Many discussions have already begun with a focus on the further enhancement of profile data manipulation.
Sites such as Facebook all ready allow for limited profiles, this is where a user can control what a friend can see on their profile page or news feed. Many believe that this can go even further though allowing for the creation of multiple personas online to control that material which is presented to different types of networks. As reported by Sonia Arrison: Jim Dempsey at the recent discussion Privacy 2009: The year ahead, made the point people present themselves in different manners in different situations such as work and home, so why should this be any different online? (Arisson, 2009)
While no one organizations seems to have the answer yet to this most complex of problems, the end user can take at least this away now. As Internet users in a growing online world of social media and the sharing of personal information, there is a greater need for awareness of online security and self-management of personal information and privacy.
Site 1: The Office of the Privacy Commissioner http://www.privacy.gov.au/internet/
While there are a plethora of online privacy guides on the World Wide Web, for Australians with little web experience then the Australian governments privacy website is an excellent starting point for those wishing to develop a basic understanding of privacy issues. The site lists a number of known privacy and security concerns for the Internet novice as well as tools users have at their disposal for protection of their online privacy and security. The site is straightforward and gives good clear definitions of problems while offering practical advice for the user to protect themself online.
Site 2: Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the preeminent online organisations relating to amongst other things online privacy and security, and although localised for the United Sates, the site still holds a lot of relevant information for netizens from all parts of the world. In particular the EEF's privacy section is an excellent resource for those wishing to delve deeper into the very complex world of privacy and security online. It offers up to date news and information on current issues including rulings from various court cases and changes to privacy laws while providing opinion pieces and whitepapers on research conducted within the field.
Return to Index
31. Hypertext: links or structure?
"While the WWW depends on hypertext, most of it uses hypertext merely for navigation (as in the first kind). Individual documents and even sites generally look much like linear, paper-printed materials. But, the whole of the web is rather more like the loose, unstructured ‘hypertext’ of the second kind. This suggests that hypertext is about both linking in the traditional way, but more effectively; and about structuring in a completely new way, based on this technology." (Allen, n.d)
Hypertext as defined by the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary as a database format where related information to that being displayed can be accessed by the user through clicking on the highlighted text (Merriam-Webster, 2002). Although Ted Nelson coined the term in 1965, the actual concept of Hypertext extends back to 1945 and Vannevar Bush with his Memex concept where with a device comprising of photographic, electrical and mechanical elements would allow the user to make links between documents stored on microfiche (Bush, 1945).
From that initial concept, through to the invention of Hypertext Markup Language by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and the subsequent World Wide Web, the Hypertext concept has developed to become the Hypertext reality. Now it can be argued that much of the structure of a web page comes from its Hyperlinks and how they are organised.
In fact over time users have come to rely on a very set structure of Hyperlinks to help them navigate around websites and individual pages. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has highlighted this through his ongoing studies that have shown how users have grown accustomed to this basic structure of a website, and as a result have expectations of where they will find particular elements including navigation flowing across the top of the page to contact us and about us links in the footer of a page.
As it is this navigational use and aspect of Hypertext that users are most familiar and comfortable with, it would seem then that the inherent nature of a Hypertext link or Hyperlink is to provide linear navigation around a web page or website. It could be said though; this conceptual linear structuring utilising Hypertext fails to take advantage of what Hypertext can truly offer.
The real ingenuity of Hypertext comes from the act of linking pages and referencing material on offsite pages, Hypertext allows the author to create an experience that lacks the comfortable linear structure and allows the readers discovery of knowledge and ideas to be more organic. It is this organic referencing aspect that gives Hypertext its real power. In recent years this particular linking practice has flourished, particularly through blogs linking to sites further highlight concepts or sites of interest in context with their own material.
This concept of linking still has its limitations, as pointed out by Ted Nelson in his Google TechTalk presentation, Transclusion; Fixing electronic literature. Nelson puts forward that currently Hypertext is only a one-way path. Links only go outward and as such when browsing a page it is impossible to see pages that link to it (Nelson, 2007).
To some extent this limitation of Hypertext is overcome with a Ping or Trackback where an acknowledgement is made from the linking site to the originating site. This is still mostly limited to blog sites and still does not offer the user any linking reference if browsing the outwards site. It can be argued though that this practise is a further step towards the greater underlying Hypertext structure of the Internet.
Site 1: Use It http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050103.html
This particular article was written by Jakob Nielsen in 2005 and is part of his excellent site Useit.com. The article presents a number of interesting further concepts on the direction of Hypertext that still stand today. Of particular note is the concept of "Explicit Structure" (Nielsen, 2005) and the incorporation of buttons which allow a user to go straight to sections such as about us, contact us or the like. It is also concepts like this and "Fat Links" (Nielsen, 2005) and "Physical Hypertext" (Nielsen, 2005) which have the potential to drive the future of Hypertext and the World Wide Web.
Site 2: Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/jhup/decenter.html
While not directly writing about the World Wide Web, I find this section from chapter one of Landow's 1992 publication on Hypertext rings true with today's World Wide Web. Landow's description of Hypertext as an infinitely de-centerable and re-centerable system allowing the user to make their interests the de facto organising system (Landow, 1992), highlights the true non-linear nature and power of Hypertext. This concept fits with idea of the World Wide web and constant linking to external websites for annotated information of explanation of deep thought. In particular where a user can choose the path that they follow from site to site.
Return to Index
33. Information and Attention
"In the era of the ‘attention economy’, readers and users of Internet information must be carefully craft, in their own minds, the kind of metadata which will – almost instinctively – ‘fit’ with the metadata of the information sources they want, so that – in the few brief moments of initial exchange, when a seeker of information encounters information being sought, rapid, effective judgments are made that ‘pay off’ in terms of further reading, accessing and saving." (Allen, n.d)
The Internet is filled with a near infinite amount of information yet we have a finite amount of time or attention to which we can give it. As a result we must learn how to find the information on the Internet that we seek, both quickly and efficiently. As a result as we learn how to use the Internet we tend to learn how to sift through the metadata of websites that is presented to us simply through our browsing or the various tools available to us such as search engines.
Metadata is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as; "data that provides information about other data" (Merriam-Webster, 2002). This metadata can be obtained in various ways and come in many forms. Probably most obvious on the Internet is the metadata that is presented via a search engine.
Through the use of a search engine a user can find such things as site titles, descriptions and URL's. Even before a user has looked at a page they are deciding if this site holds what it is they are searching for. Users are summing up this metadata, seemingly arbitrarily to determine the worthiness before clicking through to the page.
Of course the process is not arbitrary, an experienced user will have an idea of what they are searching for. This gleaning of data provided by the search engine can allow users to gain a mental picture of the site in question and determine if future investigation is prudent.
On making the decision to further explore the data on the offered web page, the user is then again presented with further metadata to determine continued reading. This time it may not be presented as obviously as the search engine page yet it's still there. The layout and design of the page, the introduction to the page or article, pictures, any text that stands out as the user scans the page.
Even with the tools available to us today, management of this metadata is becoming more and more difficult. With an ever increasing amount of data available to us, Recently Google engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj stated on the official Google blog that Google had indexed one trillion pages (Alpert & Hajaj, 2008) and counting, and the probability that not every site owner or developer puts meaningful data into things such as titles or descriptions.
Web developers need to look to new methods of managing this vast amount of information and making the available information more relevant. Recently Google introduced an annotation and ranking system for registered users of their popular search engine called SearchWiki. Users can make private comments and notes for sites coming up in search results wile rating and ranking the results. All this has no actual effect on the users search results but can provide useful reference material in the future.
I feel Google needs to take this a step further and include a tagging feature to allow users to also tag search results for later use. End users could then choose to search with user tags on or off. This would then allow for a further refinement of searching through the available metadata on the Internet.
Site 1: The Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
This blog post written by Google product manager Cedric Dupont and software engineer Corin Anderson further describes the features of Google's new annotated search function SearchWiki. The article also contains an embedded video that provides a great tutorial showing the user how this new tool is utilised within their searches. Personally I find this new social feature for searching metadata an amazing step forward, allowing the user to comment on, rank and also hide search results. As the amount of metadata increases in the online world then users will need more powerful and innovative ways of sifting through this data.
Site 2: Delicious http://delicious.com/
Delicious.com is a site that specialises in folksonomy or social tagging of bookmarks. Many people utilise Delicious for online book marking and the sharing of interesting links with their online networks. I feel though, Delicious can offer a whole lot more than just a repository for the fruits of ones Internet browsing. Based on the very fact that thousands of users daily track sites and pages which they then tag or annotate with further information can make Delicious a very powerful tool for searching vast amounts of data which has been further narrowed down for the user.
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Bibliography
Alpert, Jesse & Hajaj, Nissan. (2008). Official Google blog: We knew the web was big. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html
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Delicious (n.d) Retrieved January 14, 2009, from http://delicious.com/
Dupont, Cedric., & Anderson, Corin. (2008). The official Google blog: SeachWiki: Make search your own. Mountain View: Google. Retrieved January 14, 2009, from http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Privacy. (n.d) Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://www.eff.org/issues/privacy
Hunt, Ben. (2003). Web Design from Scratch. Retrieved January 22, 2009, from http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/
Hypertext. (2002). In Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. Retrieved January 15, 2009 from http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=hypertext&x=0&y=0
Landow, George P. (1992). Hypertext: The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology (11-13). Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved January 17, 2009, from http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/jhup/decenter.html
Metadata. (2002). In Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. Retrieved January 14, 2009 from http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
Moyer, Shawn (Speaker)., Hamiel, Nathan (Speaker)., & Peters, Sara (Presenter). (2008). TechWebTV: Black Hat 2008; Satan is on my friends list [Vodcast]. Las Vegas: Black Hat. Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2lGKzHYBXtQ
MySpace (2003) Retrieved January 22, 2009, from http://www.myspace.com/
Nelson, Ted (Speaker). (2007). Google TechTalk: Transclusion; Fixing electronic literature [Vodcast]. Mountain View: Google. Retrieved January 15, 2009, from http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kAW8qeays&feature=channel_page
Nielsen, Jakob. (2005). Reviving Advanced Hypertext. Retrieved January 16, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050103.html
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Let's Get Ready To Rumble
After nearly 3 weeks hiatus, and with a wedding and honeymoon now over, I am ready to face the remainder of Net11. First task, submit my concepts assignment then read a hundred or so blogs and posts before tackling the remainder of my modules. Phew!
Sometimes I wonder if having time off is such a good idea :/
Sometimes I wonder if having time off is such a good idea :/
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