Blogs, Wikis, & Flickr: Oh My!

Blogs, Wikis, & Flickr, Oh My!: Sharing & Collaborating on the Modern Web
NGS FAMILY HISTORY CONFERENCE, 2009
Raleigh, NC
JORDAN JONES
E-mail: jordan@genealogymedia.com
Web: genealogymedia.com
Blog: genealogymedia.com/blog/

Roadmap
Concepts (Social Networking, Tagging, Collaborative Authoring, Syndication)
Value for Genealogists (How Genealogists Use Social Networking?)
Facebook
Wikis (Wikipedia and Genealogy-Specific Wikis)
Interactive Maps (Google, Yahoo and Map-Image Integration)
Social Networking with Images (Flickr and Footnote)
Book and Library Lists … And the Rest
Privacy and Copyright
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© 2009 GenealogyMedia.com
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Social Networking
On the modern web, people are sharing information and collaborating in new ways …

Social Networking
Social networking is the creation of
User-defined online communities
Websites containing shared content contributed by the users
Social connections among users
Key social networking sites include:
MySpace
Facebook
Flickr
YouTube
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Concept: Tagging
Tagging means categorizing content, especially images and video, with user-defined category names, called tags
Tags allow me, or anyone I share this image with, to find it using any one of the tags, as well as to find any shared content that someone has described with those tags
Collaborative tagging across an online community leads to the creation of what has been called folksonomies
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Tagging Example
I have tagged a death certificate on Flickr as follows:
genealogy
birthcertificate
delayedbirthcertificate
helenjohnson
johnson
hill
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Concept: Collaborative Authoring
Weblogs (Blogs) – Simple, powerful publishing tools
Wikis or Forums – Content developed and shared by the users
Wikipedia
Threaded conversations
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Concept: Syndication
On the web, content can be syndicated similar to the model in periodical publishing
Real Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom– Notification of website or blog changes using content feeds
Blog Readers and Aggregators– GoogleReader, Bloglines
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How Can Genealogists Use Social Networking?
The tools are there; we can determine how we use them

As Genealogists, Why Should We Care?
Archive, organize, and retain your documents, information, and images
Share your interests, research, and documents with others, as you choose
Contribute to knowledge and dissemination of genealogical information
Make and retain contacts among genealogists
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Facebook
The Uber Social Networking Site
or Simply a Time Suck?

Controlling Privacy Settings in Facebook
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Footnote’s “I Remember” Facebook Integration
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That Same Page on Footnote
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Wikis
Wikipedia and Genealogy-Specific Wikis

Wikis
Wikis are named after the Hawaiian Pidgin word “wiki” or “quick”; their goal is to provide collaborative authoring portals that are:
Quick
Easy
Scalable
Version-managed
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ is the most complete encyclopedia available, with more than 2.8 million articles
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Wikipedia for Genealogists
Wikipedia is an excellent source of:
Accurate and complete information and links to other sources
Wikipedia has been shown to be as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. (Both have approx. 2 errors per article.)
Wikipedia contains a much wider range of articles than standard print encyclopedias
New and revised articles are subject to peer review
Public access maps and images, with clear Creative Commons copyright notices
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Caveat Emptor
Critically evaluate the source and its producer for bias and relevance
Trust only sourced materials; use others for ideas and leads, but not to establish facts
There have been noted cases of authors maliciously inserting incorrect information
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Collaboration in Wikipedia
Anyone can correct or complete articles about people, places, and events about which you have become an expert
Anyone can share images, documents, or documentation with an audience of over 600 million annual visitors
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A Wikipedia Example
Battle of Guilford Court House

Wikipedia: Article Tab
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Wikipedia: Talk Tab
Wikipedia entries often contain a Talk Tab to encourage collaboration across whole categories of content, or discuss issues with the entry
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Wikipedia: Editing Tab
Wikipedia markup can be daunting, but most of the writing is in plain language
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Wikipedia: History Tab
Wikipedia entries contain detailed editorial history, allowing for roll-backs if content is deprecated
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Wikipedia: Documentation
Wikipedia pages often contain detailed sourcing
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Wikipedia: Image
Wikipedia images often contain detailed licensing information
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Genealogy Wikis
Geni, FamilyPedia, WeRelate and WikiTree

Genealogy Wikis
WeRelate.org – Developed by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy (http://www.folg.org/) and hosted in collaboration with the Allen Co. Library.
FamilyPedia: http://genealogy.wikia.com/
wikitree.org – An attempt to create a tree of everyone
Geni: http://www.geni.com/
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WeRelate – Family Page
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WeRelate – Place Page
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FamilyPedia – Surnames Page
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Interactive Maps
Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Map-Image Integration

Interactive Mapping – maps.google.com
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Google Maps – Picasa Integration
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Yahoo Maps – Flickr Integration
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Yahoo Maps – Flickr Integration
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Social Networking with Images
Flickr and Footnote

Image and Document Sharing
Genealogists often have many photographs and document images that they would like to share
Flickr.com– A very popular photography site owned by Yahoo
Footnote.com– Records and photos site that allows uploads and annotations
DeadFred.com– For known and unknown photos taken before 1960 of persons since deceased. They bill themselves as a “genealogy photo archive”
FindAGrave.com – Site for tombstone transcriptions and photos
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Flickr
Free photo storage and sharing, additional features for an annual fee
The most used photo sharing site on the web
Similar sites include:
Picasa (Google) –picasa.google.com
Shutterfly –shutterfly.com
Snapfish (HP) –snapfish.com
Aside from Google Maps integration, which is easier with Google’s Picasa, I prefer Flickr to all the other choices. It’s easier to use, more powerful, and provides Creative Commons licensing
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Flickr – Photo Collections (Groups of Sets)
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Flickr – Set
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Flickr – Tagging
Tagging is part of the folksonomies (classification systems designed by amateurs) movement
Users define the taxonomy
The taxonomy changes over time
Tags can help you organize your images, but also help you find work by others
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Flickr – Tagging Example
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Flickr – Tags and Clusters
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Flickr – Photostream (Tag-Based Sharing)
Different photos tagged “genealogy” show up on my website each time the page is loaded
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DeadFred – Unknown Subject
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DeadFred – Known Subject
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Footnote – Annotation of Documents
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Footnote – Sharing Your Documents
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Book and Library Lists …
And the Rest
LibraryThing and Others

Book Lists
Share lists of books you own, are reading or would like to own, swap books in real life
BookCrossing.com – A sort of catch-and-release program for books
BookMooch.com– Share a book, receive a book
LibraryThing.com, GoodReads.com andShelfari.com– Share your library, find others with similar books, review books
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LibraryThing – List
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LibraryThing – Shelf
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LibraryThing – Tag Cloud
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And the rest …
Contact Sharing, Link Sharing, Print-on-DemandPlus … Contact Sharing, Link Sharing and Print-on-Demand

Contacts
Especially handy to keep in touch with or find distant family members or other researchers
Plaxo.com– Address book management
LinkedIn.com– Address book management, especially used in business
Facebook.com– Often a college-age crowd. Becoming more “social” all the time, recently added a family tree plug-in
Twitter.com– Site for sharing of brief statements. Becoming a place where people get quick answers.
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Link Sharing
Sites for link sharing can be set up to focus solely on your genealogy links
digg.com
delicious.com
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Delicious.com – genealogy Tag
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Print-on-Demand (PoD) Books
Websites and desktop publishing software have come together to make small print-run and virtual (electronic) publishing widely available and easy
Genealogy titles often have long-term interest but slow sales, which is perfect for PoD and e-publishing
Limitations with “going-it-alone” in PoD include the lack of marketing and distribution, but this might be the way to go with a project intended only for family or research use
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Print-on-Demand (PoD)
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Privacy and Copyright
Do your homework

Privacy
Policy – Read your site’s privacy policy
Awareness – Be aware of what you are sharing and what you are not sharing
Hi-res vs. low-res images
Specific images
Content Persistence– Investigate your ability to delete content
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Copyright
Follow the RulesDo not violate the copyrights of others
Share and Share AlikeTo learn how to share content appropriately, see creativecommons.org.
Respect the Wishes of OthersFollow the attribution and re-use limits set by others on their content.
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CreativeCommons Licenses
Attribution
Attribution Share Alike
Attribution No Derivatives
Attribution Non-Commercial
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
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Contact
Jordan Jones
jordan@genealogymedia.com
These slides, and the handout, are available at: http://www.genealogymedia.com/talks/

GoogleReader
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Web 1.0
“Web 1.0”: The web from 1993 to 2003
Simple mainly one-way delivery of information
Posting and sharing by contributors was limited
Minimal collective volunteer efforts to build sites
Where collective efforts did exist, they were not real-time, but required approvals for posts and changes
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Collaborative Tagging & Collections
Folksonomies – Collaborative tagging, classification, and indexing
Taxonomies (classification systems) designed by members of the community
Often displayed in tag clouds (for example: LibraryThing, Flickr, Footnote)
Mash-ups – Merging content from more than one source or website (for example: images on GoogleMaps)
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Link and Blog Sharing
Sites for link sharing can be set up to focus solely on your genealogy links
digg.com
delicious.com
You can also create blog and web searches for yourself or others at:
google.com/reader
bloglines.com
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Blogs, Wikis, & Flickr: Oh My!

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