What's Happening?

Here are links to some of the sites relevant to a discussion of what is happening and what may happen with intellectual research and scholarship in a networked world.

1. Discussion and commentary about trends, many of which might impact scholarship and research.

   • http://insidehighered.com/views/2005/10/11/brooke How working with the web has changed reading and writing for one scholar.
   • http://doc.weblogs.com/ A blog that often comments on marketing and net trends, by Doc Searls, an author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, a discussion of how the web changes markets and marketing.
   • http://donatacom.com/papers/pomo51.htm The "unbundled awakening"; Terry Heaton's essay concerns TV news but applies to scholarly and research aggregation as well. It's also worthwhile checking his blog, http://www.donatacom.com/blog.shtml.
   • http://www.itgarage.com/node/725 Valuable commentary on the previous item, by Doc Searls.
   • http://blog.wired.com/sterling/ A blog discussing events and suprises in the wired world.
   • http://www.mith2.umd.edu/ http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/ Examples of institutes studying the effects of the net on scholarship and research.
   • http://tim.oreilly.com/opensource/paradigmshift_0504.html A discussion of jointly created software.
   • http://www.reed.com/Papers/GFN/reedslaw.html Reed's law: the value of a network varies with the number of subgroups it allows people to form within it. (Reed contrasts the exponential growth of possible subgroups with the standard Metcalfe's law that the value of a network grows proportionally to the square of the number of people connected to it).
   • http://www.endofcyberspace.com/ "This blog is about what happens next. It's about the end of cyberspace, but more important, about what new possibilities will emerge as new technologies, interfaces, use practices, games, legal theory, regulation, and culture adjust-- and eventually dissolve-- the boundaries between the virtual and physical worlds."

2. The phrase"web 2.0" is one current slogan for the increasing use of web services that depend on group creation of meaning and categories through multiple input from many users rather than centralized plans and evaluations.

   • http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html An essay describing the general features of"web 2.0"
   • http://web2.wsj2.com/A blog on web 2.0 issues.
   • http://www.listible.com/list/complete-list-of-web-2-0-products-and-services A list of products and services for collaboration and social creation.
   • http://web2.wsj2.com/the_best_web_20_software_of_2005.htm A year-end survey of software for social cooperation on the web.
   • http://www.writely.com/ A net service that allows people distant from one another to collaborate on writing documents on line. This company was purchased by Google last in early March.
   • http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/player-driven.ars Using players to jointly develop new computer games.

3. Discussions of"the long tail" concern the relation between"stars" and"hits" and the many items produced that lie further out along the curve. While the issues were raised with respect to marketing books and music, they apply to scholarship and libraries as well.

   • http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.htmlThe article in Wired that started the discussion.
   • http://www.thelongtail.com/ A blog about long tail issues.
   • http://www.authorsguild.org/miscfiles/midlist.pdf Long tail and book publishing.

4. Examples of web reference sites.

   • http://mathworld.wolfram.com About mathematical concepts.
   • http://plato.stanford.edu/ About philosophical topics and authors.
   • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Open sourced encyclopedia about anything.
   • http://books.google.com/ Google's controversial system for text search of books.
   • http://www.chem.brown.edu/chem-ph.html A typical repository for pre-prints of scientific articles.

5. Various kinds of aggregators, both human and algorithmic, that bring the intelligence and desires of large groups to bear on selecting items.

   1. Aggregation where selection is made by individuals or groups of individuals.

      • http://www.craigslist.org/ A collection of personals and ads contributed by users.
      • http://www.3quarksdaily.com/ Items selected each day by a group of individuals.
      • http://scienceblogs.com/ A group list of blogs with scientific themes.
      • http://dmoz.org/ The "open directory project," a guide to web sites maintained by a large corps of volunteers with responsibility for different subject areas. The question is whether such a large cooperative operation can keep up with the explosion of materials, or whether algorithmic tools are also needed.

   2. Aggregation where selection is made by automatic algorithms. We need similar but more discerning tools to aid in scholar research.

      • http://news.google.com/ Google's automatically created news summary.
      • http://www.findory.com/ An algorithmic news and topic search akin to Google News or a print-era newspaper clipping service. Other such services include http://www.topix.net/, http://tech.memeorandum.com/, and http://www.megite.com/.
      • http://scholar.google.com/ Algorithmic text and citation search in research literature.
      • http://www.technorati.com/ One of several services that keep track of trends developing in blogs and allow blog searches. http://www.feedster.com/ and http://www.newsgator.com/home.aspx are similar services.

   3. Aggregation by a combination of automatic algorithms with reader input and tagging/voting.

      • http://digg.com/ and http://www.newsvine.com/ are examples of news sites that combine automated algorithms with reader voting;; specialized scholarly sites might use these procedures.
      • http://amazon.com,in its review and suggestion mode, aggregates the judgments of readers and buyers about books and about reviews.
      • http://del.icio.us/ A site for storing and sharing web bookmarks tagged for topic.
      • http://www.flickr.com/ A site for sharing photos tagged for topic, and creating groups.

   4. Sites that use visual means to build views, comments, and art by aggregating images from many people.

      • http://www.sito.org/synergy/gridcosm/ Non-verbal group creation of art and comment.
      • http://www.communimage.ch/ A similar site originally designed for a world expo but now receiving images from many contributors.
      • http://csszengarden.com/ A site demonstrating the non-verbal visual and meaning effects that web style sheets can have. Identical verbal content is styled and displayed in dozens of different ways by visual designers.

6. http://www.dkolb.org has links to several essays of mine about writing and scholarship in the net environment. They deal especially with the status and possibilities of linked "natirve hypertext" writing.

   David Kolb, March 2006.