Web 2.0 for Genealogists

Web 2.0 for Genealogists
Jordan Jones
GenealogyMedia.com
jordan@genealogymedia.com
NC Genealogical Society Speakers Forum / 12 Apr 2008

What is Web 2.0?
One must start with a consideration of Web 1.0 …

Web 1.0
“Web 1.0” describes the web from 1993 to 2003
It consisted of simple one-way or two-way sharing of information
Because posting and sharing was limited, Web 1.0 did not encourage collective volunteer efforts to build the sites
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Web 2.0 – Key Concepts 1
Social Networking – The creation of user-defined online communities (MySpace, Facebook)
Network information as broadly or as narrowly as you would like
Control what you want to share and with whom
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Folksonomies – Collaborative tagging, classification, and indexing. (Flickr, LibraryThing)
Folksonomies are taxonomies (classification systems) designed by the people
Syndication – Aggregation and notification of changes RSS or Atom feeds
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Mash-ups – Merging content from more than one source or website (for example: images on GoogleMaps)
Weblogs (or Blogs) – Simple, yet powerful publishing tools
Wikis or Forums – Content developed and shared by the users (Wikipedia)
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How Can Genealogists Use Web 2.0?
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 genealogical contacts

Examples of Web 2.0 Sites for Genealogists
Wikipedia, Flickr, and more

Wikis
Wikis are named after the Hawaiian Pidgin work that means “quick”; their goal is to provide quick, easy, scalable, and version-managed collaborative authoring portals
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ is the most complete encyclopedia available, with more than 2.3 million articles
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Simple Uses of Wikipedia for All Genealogists, 1
Wikipedia is an excellent source of
Accurate and complete information and links to other sources
On average, more accurate and complete than standard encyclopedias, but with a wider range of variation.
Public access maps and images, with clear Creative Commons copyright notices
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Simple Uses of Wikipedia for All Genealogists, 2
Caveat Emptor. As with any source
Critically evaluate the source and its producer for bias and relevance
Trust only sourced materials; use others for ideas, but not to establish facts
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Collaboration in Wikipedia
Correct or complete articles about people, places, and events about which you have become an expert
Share images, documents, or documentation with an audience of over 600 million annual visitors
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Wikipedia Example: Article
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Wikipedia Example: Documentation
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Wikipedia Example: Image
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Genealogy Wikis
WeRelate.org – In collaboration with the Allen Co. Library
FamilyPedia: http://genealogy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
wikitree.org – An attempt to create a tree of everyone
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WeRelate – Family Page
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WeRelate – Location Page
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Interactive Mapping – maps.google.com
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Flickr – Map Integration for Geographical Context
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Book Lists
Share lists of books you own, are reading or would like to own, swap books in real life
BookMooch.com – Share a book, receive a book
LibraryThing.com and Shelfari.com – Share your library, find others with similar books, review books
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LibraryThing – Shelf
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LibraryThing – Tag Cloud
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LibraryThing – List
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Print-on-Demand 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
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Print-on-Demand Publishers
lulu.com – Here in North Carolina. Publishes multimedia PoD and e-books
CafePress.com – Publishes many kinds of media, but also shirts, “flying disks” and other non-media items
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Image and Document Sharing
Genealogists often have many photographs and document images that they would like to share
DeadFred.com – For known and unknown photos
Flickr.com – Popular photo site
Footnote.com – Records site that allows uploads and annotations
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DeadFred – Unknown Subject
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DeadFred – Known Subject
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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 – picasa.google.com
Shutterfly – shutterfly.com
Snapfish – snapfish.com
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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 or Tag-Based Sharing on Other Sites
Different photos tagged “genealogy” show up on my website each time the page is loaded
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Footnote – Annotation of Their Documents
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Footnote – Sharing & Annotation of Your Documents
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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
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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
del.icio.us
You can also create blog and web searches for yourself or others at:
google.com/reader
bloglines.com
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Del.icio.us – genealogy Tag
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GoogleReader
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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 Rules Do not violate the copyrights of others
Share and Share AlikeTo share your own content in specific ways, see creativecommons.org. Follow the attribution and re-use limits set by others on their content.
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Contact
Jordan Jones
jordan@genealogymedia.com
These slides, and the handout, are available at: http://www.genealogymedia.com/talks/
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Web 2.0 for Genealogists

by GenealogyMedia.com on Nov 18, 2009

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