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December 19, 2005
Wikipedia and its Implications for Web Identity
The above is an excellent albeit sweeping and short summary of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. For those of you who haven't clicked on the article yet, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that consists of hundreds of thousands of webpage articles about almost any topic. And the trick to its breadth and depth is that simply by clicking on the 'Edit' button, you can contribute to the article, expanding or correcting it (only registered users can create new articles...).
As the article points out, there has recently been some controversy over the actual content contained within Wikipedia's open doors; because anyone can edit it, someone could write virtually anything. They could say that the Great Wall of China isn't actually in China, or that plants need soda pop to thrive. Wikipedia's supporters counter this by touting the site's rabid band of watchful volunteers, who rountinely monitor changed content, and update or correct it almost instantly (just see the Revision History for 'Abortion').
Some of this controversy has been abated by only allowing registered users to create new articles, removing some anyonymity from the article creation process and introducing a sort of reputation system into the mix. On one hand, identity and reputation is good on the Web, allowing authors to take credit for their work and readers to take confidence in knowing who is writing what they read. This is the basis for future Web research; one major arm of work is the Semantic Web, the ultimate goal of which is trust in web content. Over time, readers (or at least those searching for incorrect or purposely-misaligned content) will be able to sort out the good writers from the bad.
But on the other hand, one reason the Web has exploded in popularity is that people could add anything to it while being a 'nobody', and readers judged content for content's sake, not by who was writing it. With identity and reputation (and assumably popularity), suddenly the popularly known person's content would get read more often than the unpopular, unknown person's work, just by the name of the author. Content would no longer be judged by its substance alone. Maybe my fears are overblown however, as blog content (clearly not as well known as say The New York Times) has become a major news source without accredited journalists behind them.
Again, i'm all for trust and trustworthiness on the Web, as the past decade of development has been quite chaotic. But as people add certain levels of maturity to it, i wonder at the pure benefits of identity, and can't help but see positives to being a 'nobody' in some cases. The Web shouldn't take on attributes of the regular world just because it can; let's stop and think about what will be gained and what will be lost. The Web is its own medium; let's let it be itself and stand up on its own two feet.
* sorry, that title came out alot more bland and techy than i wanted it to...
Posted by MaTT at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2005
What's This Internet Thing?
An interesting PhD research-y question (if i was a PhD):
How have worldly perceptions by people of the Internet Age changed from past generations? Defining the Internet Age as people who were at least 13 years old in 1996 (widespread Internet use begins), has the increased personal and journalistic communication (email, webpages, blogs) broadened people's view of people, places, and things? Are these people more accepting of other cultures? Are they more willing to look beyond their own city or country, to be concerned with and about people they may have emailed or read about on a global website? Or are people of this age group as idealistic as previous generations' young people always been?
Posted by MaTT at 07:49 PM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2005
Get LOST!
No really, I don't mean to say 'get outta here' (i have a dire few readers as it is...). What i mean is to check out my newest website project, LOST Magazine. LOST is a monthly magazine publishing submitted articles from writers across the globe, who care and are fascinated about all subjects lost: people, places, things; your dog, your notes, your culture, your mind.
It all started from an idea by my old F&M and College Dispatch buddie John Parsley (along with Kyle Grieser). I admit, i wasn't completely fascinated by it back in May, but now i'm totally in love with it -- it's like my child, and i didn't even come up with the original idea! :)
We went live on December 1st after several months of design and development by my team of three from Michigan and Texas. Meanwhile John and Kyle provided edited content, design revisions, and overall direction from NYC. It truly has been a long-distance event, and i've learned alot from it. I also never knew how hard it is to work on a team when i'm leading it. :)
Now that Dec. 1st has come and gone, i can relax (a bit, tho this thing is hardly finished) and work on increasing readership. So please, come visit LOST Magazine; check out the great articles, post a bit on the Classifieds, and tell your friends. LOST is here to stay, but we need readers and writers like you to keep us going.
Posted by MaTT at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)