A lecture about Web2.0 I gave at the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Trento

1. digg.com/spy
● “Democracy in action” ?!?!?

2. Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web
2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web
2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 Web 2.0
WEB 2.0 From http://flickr.com/photos/kosmar/62381076/

3. Getting to know each other ...
Do you:
● Know what is a blog?
● Keep a blog?
● Know what RSS is?
● Use a news (RSS) reader (such as bloglines.com)?
● Know what a wiki is?
● Write on a wiki (at least once)?
● Know what del.icio.us is?
● Use del.icio.us?
● Know what Flickr.com is?
● Use Flickr.com?
● Use Slashdot.org? Digg.com?
● Know how Google ranks pages and decide what is
relevant?
● Know Google maps?

4. What is “Web 2.0”?
'I don't know what you mean by quot;gloryquot;,' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you
don't—till I tell you. I meant quot;there's a nice knock-down
argument for you!quot;'
'But quot;gloryquot; doesn't mean quot;a nice knock-down argumentquot;,'
Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a
scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—
neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words
mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be
master—that's all.'

5. What is “Web 2.0”?
Non capisco che cosa volete intendere dicendo quot;gloriaquot; – disse Alice.
Humpty Dumpty sorrise con aria di superiorita'.
E' naturale che tu non capisca .... finche' non te lo spieghero' io.
Volevo dire che quot;questo e' un ottimo argomento per darti torto!quot; -
Ma quot;gloriaquot; non significa quot;un ottimo argomento per darti torto!quot; -
obietto' Alice.
Quando io adopro una parola - disse Humpty Dumpty con tono
piuttosto sdegnoso - essa ha esattamente il significato che io le
voglio dare .... ne' piu' ne' meno.
Bisogna vedere - disse Alice - se voi potere fare in modo che le
parole indichino cose diverse.
Bisogna vedere - disse Humpty Dumpty - chi e' che comanda ... ecco
tutto.

6. The term “Web 2.0”
● When is a string a word?
– More than 13,000,000 Web page mention
“web2.0” (can I summarize them in 1 hour?!?)
http://www.google.it/search?q=web2.0
– Buzzword?
● Agreed word for agreed meaning? Not really
● DISCLAIMER: this is my take on the trend.
– Adoption of new words in our new fast world is an
interesting topic but not the topic of this talk ;-)
● http://www.google.com/trends?q=web2.0%2C+ajax+javascript%2C+folksonomy%2C+m
ashup%2C+podcasting&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
● WARNING: the presentation is buzzwords-
plenty!

7. http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/03/the_new_geek_sp.html

9. From http://flickr.com/photos/kosmar/62381076/

10. Outline of the talk
● Disclaimer: Web2.0 is an evolving buzz-trend
● History of the term Web2.0
● Key concepts
– User participation
– Web as platform (API, mashups)
– Interactivity (ajax)
● Examples:
– del.icio.us, flickr, blogs, wikipedia, ...
● And the future?

11. Web 2.0: history of a meme
● First things first: what is Web1.0?
● Dotcom bubble
● In 2001 there was the Dotcom burst
● BUT the Web, “far from having quot;crashedquot;,
was more important than ever, with exciting
new applications and sites popping up with
surprising regularity”

12. ● “What's more, the companies that had
survived the collapse seemed to have some
things in common. Could it be that the dot-
com collapse marked some kind of turning
point for the web, such that a call to action
such as quot;Web 2.0quot; might make sense?”
● Which web1.0 experiences survived? And
why?
– Amazon
– Ebay
– Google

13. Amazon.com vs BarnesAndNobles
Amazon let users add value:
Explicit: Ratings, Reviews
Implicit: Collaborative filtering of buying behaviour data
Affiliation programs: set up your own Amazon.com shop
The value of this database is given back to the
community
On-site marketing is completely based on
wisdom of the crowd
BN.com had a brand, Amazon had a
platform!
From i-merge slides

14. Ebay
•Value of the platform increases with every
new participant
•Providing an ecosystem where everybody
gets a piece of the cake
•Long tail business model
•Integrating social realities at the heart of
the architecture: Reputation, Trust,…
•What is the asset of Ebay?
From i-merge slides

15. Ebay (2)
From i-merge slides

16. Google
• Search engine war won based on maximizing
the intelligence of its user base: PageRank
system, which has two rules:
1.Hyperlinks are votes of attention
2.Some voters weigh more than other voters,
because they themselves are heavily linked to
• Implicit harvesting the distributed
intelligence of the network
• Google bombing = communities that exploit
this algorithm:
– e.g: “miserable failure” or “buffone” or
“incapace” or “regali”
From i-merge slides

17. Who invented the “web2.0” term?
Tim O’Reilly
“Those companies who survived the
dotcom burst knew how to build an
environment in which users could
participate, although the nature of
that participation isn’t always clear”
What Is Web 2.0 - Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of
Software - by Tim O'Reilly
09/30/2005
www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

18. Web2.0 Conference
Web2.0 Conference
by O'Reilly group
October 5-7, 2004
http://www.web2con.com/
And since then ...
http://www.google.com/trends?q=web2.0%2C+ajax+javascript%2C+folksonomy%2C+mas
hup%2C+podcasting&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

19. Web2.0 ~ social web
● I prefer the term “social software” or “social
web”
● But ... who am I?

20. Web1.0 --> Web2.0
WEB 1.0:
­ We thought the web was about publishing,
advertising and « multimedia »
WEB2.0:
­ The web as a platform
­ User participation built in the very heart of it
­ Users add value
(from i-merge slides)

21. Web2.0 key concepts
● The web as a platform
– “the service automatically gets better the more
people use it”
– quot;architecture of participationquot;
● Harnessing Collective Intelligence / Wisdom
of the crowds
– Users contribute and add value (wikipedia,
del.icio.us, flickr, digg, youtube, free
software/open source, blogs, ... readwrite web ...
cornucopia of the commons)

22. The web as a platform: what is a platform?
A digital environment
On which users can interact with data and/or
with eachother
Thereby creating added value for themselves or
for the platform as such
The architecture of the platform determines the
nature of this participation and the value that
results from this participation
A platform can focus on the individual, the
collective, the data or a common goal
(a virtual world?)
(from i-merge slides)

23. Examples
● Let us explore some examples
● And try to find the common patterns

24. Bookmarking is so Web1.0
● From personal bookmarking ...
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

25. Del.icio.us
● ... to social bookmarking
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

26. Del.icio.us (2)
● A small difference (bookmarks are public by
default) made a huge difference!
● You can be informed of what your “friends”
(people you trust and admire) bookmark!
● You can see what is popular at the moment!
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

27. Tags
● How do they work on del.icio.us?
● Screenshot!
●
●

28. Tags
● You can see which other users used the tag
“sociology”! Or the new made-up tag
“sociologytn”!!
– Leads to new interesting links
– Leads to users who are doing similar things
(possible future friends and partners!)
●
●
●

29. Tags

30. Tags
•Other users who bookmarked this same link
– Leads to users who are doing similar things (
discovery)
– They also gave other tags to this link ( increasing
semantic field)
– They bookmarked other links ( inspiration)

31. Tags
● Users contribution is a must! Simplicity is
key!
● Folksonomy (flat strings, no structure).
● Before there was taxonomy (Yahoo!)
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

32. Other uses of tags
● And also flickr, youtube, last.fm, citeulike, ....
●

35. Blogs
● Some examples

36. Blogs: As easy as email!
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

37. RSS

38. Blogs (2)
● RSS
– Extremely SIMPLE! --> adoption | what about the
Semantic Web? OWL?!? Microformats is a simpler,
evolutionary approach

39. RSS readers
● Bloglines screenshots

40. RSS: only from blogs?
● Joking?
● Repubblica, cnn
● Search on google (pubsub better)
● Events
● Everything (that) is a list, everything is a list

41. Wikipedia
Like Britannica Encyclopedia???
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

42. Wikipedia
● User-contributed encyclopedia. Everyone can
create new concepts or edit old ones!!!
Would have
you bet on
this
mechanism
5 years ago?
Revisit “what
is possible”
and “what
not”.
Users
contribution!
Like free
software but
for content!
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

43. Neutral Point of View
● An interesting (sociologic?) challenge: “can
we all (!) agree on the meanings of words?”
Edit wars are
extremely
insightful!
Have a look at
the “history”
page to see
users
contributions
Image from http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512

44. Wikipedia software
● It is MediaWiki (http://mediawiki.org)
– There are tons of other free software wikis tools
(moinmoin, pmwiki, ...)
● Download the software (Free software) and
create your own.
– Great for collaborative writing (a book?) and for
documentation
– Move everything you write (your company?) on a
wiki!
– www.sociologiatrento.it/wiki ?

45. Digg

46. Digg
● Skip it?
●
● Decentralized Users contribution allows to
spot what is cool. Democratic? Wisdom or
herd behaviour? What gets “noticed”? (“sex”
or “africa”?)
● Slashdot.org has similar dynamics
● Other ways to discover “interesting stuff”:
del.icio.us/popular, flickr interestingness, ...,
blogpulse, cloudalicious
●

47. Mashups
• Websites that are built from pieces of
other websites (that expose simple and
useful APIs)
– RSS google maps, last.fm, ... web services
• http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/06/08/index4a_pag
e2.html?tw=commentary
• http://www.programmableweb.com/api/Flickr/mashups
• Ex: http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/index.php?group=colorfields
• Is Flickr worst off or best off if a lot of
other cool services use “its” images?
• BE OPEN! EXPOSE DATA VIA SIMPLE APIS!

48. Mashups (combining info from different sites)
● Technorati http://technorati.com/tag/sociology sociologia
● http://popurls.com/
– Who created this content?
● More? http://programmableweb.com/

49. Mashups (combining info from different sites)
● Craiglist + gmaps http://www.housingmaps.com/
● Gmaps +ebay
http://www.markovic.com/markovic.com/ebay/search.php
● Gmaps+georss+flickr+geocaching+...
http://www.dynamite.co.uk/local/
● Gmaps+... http://mibazaar.com/missingkids.html
● gmaps+realtimetrains http://dartmaps.mackers.com/
● Gmaps+ news on cartoon riots
http://www.lastingnews.com/maps/cartoons_protests.html
● Gmaps + your friends ?
● http://berkeleyca.crimelog.org/all
● http://maps.google.com/green/gg_interior_sf.html

50. AJAX
● AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a
Web development technique for creating
interactive web applications.
● Web applications will replace desktop
application: Gmail , Google Calendar, Meebo,
Kiko, Writely, Pixoh, and DabbleDB.
● How can I find cool examples?
http://del.icio.us/popular/ajax
● http://www.pageflakes.com/
● http://digg.com/spy

51. Writely (google)

52. Greasemonkey
● There are so many data out there, why not
play with them?
● Greasemonkey let you easily do this!
– Javascript + XHTML DOM model

53. Licence
● Some Rights Reserved!
● Content protection (like the default copyright
of everything you produce!) limits re-use and
prevents experimentation.
● Creative commons allows you to state “some
rights reserved”. I would suggest
– CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence
– http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
– Allows commercial use of your content

54. Summary?
● What ties everything together?
● Social relationships
– Links (a la google)
– Trust (friendship) relationships on social web (not
only ebay in which reputation~money, slashdot, google, epinions, flickr, ...)
● All the successful Web2.0 ventures are
exploiting humans need to be connected and
recognized, and the network effect.
● Social capital, reputation economy, ...
– “Down and out in the magic kingdom”, sci-fi novel by Cory Doctorow
● “It's all about you” (everything is public) ...
and your relationships!

55. Marketing2.0
● Companies (brands) are really interested in
this new social architecture, it is a total shift
from previous ones
– Tv, radio, newspapers are one-to-many
(broadcast) [people are passive swallowers]
– Blogs, Web2.0 is many-to-many [people are
active, they contribute (We Media)]
● Advertisement does work nomore, pay
attention to what people say, they can
destroy your reputation.
– Word of mouth, viral marketing
– P2p advertisement (hidden persuaders in plain
sight?)http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/public/nyt-rob-walker.html

56. Summary?
­ The web as a platform
­ User participation built in the very heart of it
­ Users add value
● Bottom-up
● Democratic (anarchic?)
● On the shoulders of your peers (not necessarily
giants!) --> Evolutionary (towards the best?) -->
Smartmobs (book by Rheingold)
● Inclusive
● Easy to be engaged

57. Where do we go from here?
● What will be Web 3.0? Who will define it?
● ItalianWeb2.0 ?!?
● Or better, what will be the next “buzzword”,
able to shape how the world think about the
world?
● Contribute2.0 ;-)

58. Suggested resources
● I copied ... ehm ... took inspiration from:
● I-merge slides (http://i-wisdom.typepad.com/iwisdom/2005/12/imerge_web20_se_1.html)
● Ethan's Readwrite slides (http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=512)
Image from

59. ● Creative commons licence! Remix culture!
● Everything but what is derived from other
resources (basically the slides in which there
is a “from http://....” are not under creative
commons)

60. About me
● (dormient) blog:
http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/
● Email: massa@itc.it (but email is so 1.0!)
● Identity in real world: Paolo Massa
● Identity in Web2.0 worlds: “phauly” (flickr,
del.icio.us, ...)

61. Thanks
Questions2.0?

62. ● Wiki: mediawiki
● Blog: wordpress
● Feeds reader: bloglines
● Aggregator: digg
● Social bookmarking: del.icio.us, connotea,
citeulike
● Photos: flickr
● Video: youtube
● Google maps
●

63. ● FIRST CONFERENCE (tim o' reilly!)
● What web2.0 mean? Humpty dumpty BUZZword
● Many 2 many / read write web
● amazon/ebay/google (users add value)
● Web as platform / architecture of participation / long tail
● RSS (news readers): bloglines, ... <---- speak little about the Format!
– Anche bloglines puo' essere pubblico (vedi chi legge quello che tu leggi ...)
● Tags (folksonomy): Flickr, del.icio.us, youtube, ... digg (pligg), last.fm, ..., connotea, citeulike, ... (users
trust each other, friends)
● WISDOM OF THE CROWD (relevant staff gets discovered as a by-product of users' activity)
– The amateurization of nearly everything
– del.icio.us/popular, flickr interestingness, ..., blogpulse, cloudalicious
– From outsourcing to crowdsourcing?
– Empowerment, normal people are important, buzzmetrics, p2p advertisments, ...
– We media, grass root journalism, open source/free software
● Social software / trust, reputation, there are no expert! (slashdot, foaf/semantic web) / orkut friendster /
linkedin, ryze, myspace
● Clutrain manifesto
● Emergent
● Blogs
– Technorati
● E-advocacy (moveon.org, participate.org, ...)