This document provides an overview of principles, terms, technologies, applications and problems related to the social web. It begins with introductory sections on principles like user-generated content and network effects. Important technologies covered include blogs, wikis, social networks and microblogging. Applications discussed are news/information sharing, communities and identity/reputation. Problems addressed are data lock-in, privacy and community management challenges.

1. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Principles and tools of the social web
An introductory seminar
Dr. Konrad U. F¨rstner
o
February 19th, 2010 @ EBI, Hinxton, UK

2. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Table of content
1 Preface
2 Principles and terms
3 Important technologies/services
4 Applications
5 Problems

3. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Table of content
1 Preface
2 Principles and terms
3 Important technologies/services
4 Applications
5 Problems

4. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Preface
You get no handouts as
... we want to save trees
... you will get these slides as a PDF file
... links work pretty bad on paper

5. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Preface
Terms
“Social web”, “Web 2.0” (strongly promoted by O’Reilly),
“Collaborative web”
Very fuzzy definition
No big difference to Tim Berners-Lees basic idea of a
read-and-write web

6. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Table of content
1 Preface
2 Principles and terms
3 Important technologies/services
4 Applications
5 Problems

7. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Everybody can be a sender
Improved usability
Low technical and financial barriers
Easy to use rich desktop-like applications (e.g. due to AJAX)

8. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
User generated content
Collaborative creation
“Wisdom of crowds”
“Crowd-sourcing”

9. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Network effect
More participants = more value per participant

10. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Reusability / Mash-ups
Open standards + APIs
The web as platform
E.g. RSS “Really Simple Syndication”
Content + meta data
Makes following and sharing of content easy

11. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
The importance of data
... increases

12. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Open licenses
Classic copyright limits the sharing and extension of cultural
goods
Creative commons licenses (a.o.) free content
⇒ “Share, Remix, Reuse - Legally”

13. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Functions/user groups change
Many web services / tools are used in a different way and by
different people than planned in the beginning

14. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
The long tail
Critical mass easier reachable
Solutions for niche target groups become feasible

15. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Folksonomy
Social classification and tagging of items

16. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Social graph
Abstraction of human relationships
Node - individuals or groups
Edges - social relationships like friendships

17. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Some business models
Advertisement
Freemium - basic service for free, extras for a fee
Trend spotting
None - waiting to be bought by big player (e.g. Google)

18. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Some more recent developments
The real-time web
Location based services
Add-on: combined with augmented reality
Semantic markup
Data portability / distributed networks

19. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Table of content
1 Preface
2 Principles and terms
3 Important technologies/services
4 Applications
5 Problems

20. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Blogs
Web log
Structure of a blog post
Title
Author(s)
Content
Comments
Tags/Categories
Permalink

21. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Blogs
Blogroll
Linkback (Refback/Trackback/Pingback)
Example types of blogs
Edublog
Travelblog
Artblog
Open lab journal
Corporateblog

22. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Blogs
Self-hosted software like Wordpress, Habari
Blog services like Blogger.com, Livejournal

23. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Podcasts
Blogs/Feeds that mainly/only link audio or video files

24. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Wikis
Collaborative content generation and management
Examples: Wikipedia, Wikitravel

25. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Social network services
Some examples
Managing your social graph
General: Facebook, Friendster
Business: LinkedIn, Xing
Science: Nature network, BiomedExperts
Hospitality: Couchsurfing, Be Welcome
Mobile: Foursquare, brightkite
Create your own one: Ning

26. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Media sharing platforms
Images: Flickr, Picasa
Videos: YouTube, Vimeo
Slides (and publications): e.g. Slideshare, Nature preceedings

27. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Social tagging
URLs: delicious, simpy
News: digg, reddit
Publications: CiteULike, Connotea

28. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Microblogging
Usually limited number of characters per messages
Real-time updates and searches

29. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Microblogging
Best known - Twitter
140 characters per message
Tweet, retweets
Hashtags
Connection not necessarily bidirectional
followers and following
URL shorteners like bit.ly or is.gd gained popularity

30. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Aggregators
Bundling and sharing of users’ online activities
E.g. FriendFeed, Cliqset

31. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Table of content
1 Preface
2 Principles and terms
3 Important technologies/services
4 Applications
5 Problems

32. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Source of news
Easy individual selection of info streams
Social filtering
Serendipitous discovery

33. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Getting solutions
Asking question at general or specialized platforms
“Dear lazyweb ...”
E.g. Aarkvard, Sciencestack

34. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Knowledge exchange and management
E.g. a wiki in an institute
E.g. shared link and publication collections in a group

35. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Building and maintaining communities
Spreading news
Harvesting feedback and proposals

36. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Identity building and reputation management
For individuals or organisations

37. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Open Science
Publishing raw results
Open lab journals

38. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Table of content
1 Preface
2 Principles and terms
3 Important technologies/services
4 Applications
5 Problems

39. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Walled gardens and data lock-in
Missing data portability
Users give rights to the site owner

40. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Private data, privacy, identity
Once in the web - hard to get out again
Identity theft

41. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Community management is tough
Critical mass, rules, permissions, work flow, complaints, consensus,
vandalism, conflicts, attribution, discussion ...

42. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Interruptions
Frequent notifications = perfect productivity killer
Solution: Have fixed times for checking news

43. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Image sources/attribution
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179910918/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/72949751
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikinews_Broadcast_Studio.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Criminal_brains.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthdevelopment/2249491026/
http://www.flickr.com/photosm/stylianosm/3989939286/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86399392@N00/109404222
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/6/62/Creativecommons-informational-flyer_eng.pdf
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96302395@N00/2514147406
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Long_tail.svg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marksurman/3604105727/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162922839/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marksurman/3604105727/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinfoilraccoon/197640807
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Future73nb.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30360780@N02/3420795034/

44. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
Image sources/attribution
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:His_Master’s_Voice.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chiodini_wiki.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163151837/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burmese_music_casette_tapes,_Yangon,_Myanmar.jpg
http://flickr.com/photos/marksurman/3604105727/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neuntprotect{grmnU@D1ex{setboxz@
hbox{char127}dimen@-.45exadvancedimen@htz@fontdimen5fontdimen@}accent127
fontdimen5fontgrmnU@Do}penalty@Mhskipz@skipter_gr.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179931690/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bravenewtraveler/2278115499/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccacnorthlib/3554628032/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Team_touching_hands.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fazen/3778408/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/3807807369/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/128239619/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/russellbernice/261188642/

45. Preface Principles and terms Important technologies/services Applications Problems Sources
About this document
A
Created in L TEX using the beamer class, TeX Live, Emacs and gimp.
All these programs run on OpenBSD.
http://www.latex-project.org
http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net
http://www.tug.org/texlive/
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.openbsd.org
Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (*)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
by Konrad F¨rstner
o
http://konrad.foerstner.org
(*) Excepting the EMBL Logo
Document version 1.0 2010/02/19