153

Social Software and Web 2.0 Technology Tutorial

Abstract

This tutorial will provide the reader with a more in-depth understanding of the technologies associated with Web 2.0. MBA students from the Robins School at the University of Richmond are recognized for their overall contributions to this tutorial and to the particular sections indicated.

Weblogs () Justin Hall created Justin’s Home Page (http:// www.links.net/vita/web/original.html), which is Joe Biedenharn, generally considered one of the first filtered blogs Jeff Snyder, Alex White (Zuiker). By late 1997, blogs began to resemble their current format in that posts were dated, History of Weblogs (Blogs) filtered, and personalized. In the minds of many creators, the interactivity of their Web sites Back in the earliest days of the Internet, weblogs distinguished them from the more standard Web (World Wide Web logs or journals, also referred pages that only allowed users one dimensional to as blogs) were simply lists of Web links that access to content. The early 1990s evolution of afforded early Internet users easy access and blogs led Jorn Barger to coin the term weblog as navigation to new Web sites. In 1992, Internet a description of the postings to his Robot Wisdom pioneer Tim Berners-Lee actually developed Web site (http://www.robotwisdom.com/#top; and maintained the first-ever weblog known as Blood, 2000). Weblog, or blog for short, is now the What’s New Page, available at http://www. the universally accepted name for all Web sites unc.edu/~zuiker/blogging101 (Zuiker, 2004). As that feature postings displayed in reverse chrono- the World Wide Web continued to expand, blogs logical order. evolved as Web page authors began to filter con- While blogs experienced significant content tent to their particular points of interest. In 1994, refinement in the 1990s, growth was relatively

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modest; there were only 23 known blogs in ex- to gather information and post opinions on any istence at the beginning of 1999 (Blood, 2000). and all subjects. Current trends seem to indicate Contrast this to 2006, in which there were an that more and more news and entertainment will estimated 50 million blogs, with new blogs com- come from peer sources, such as blogs, rather ing online every second (Tapscott & Williams, than traditional sources such as newspapers and 2006). This explosive growth can be attributed to television. While the history of blog growth has two main factors: the debut of free blog-creation been profound, the ease of blog creation and users’ Web sites and users’ desire for more interactive, clear desire for more peer-created and interactive unfiltered content. In July 1999, the launch of Pitas content indicates that blogs will become more and allowed bloggers a free and easy way to design a more prevalent. weblog (Blood). Shortly after the launch of Pitas, Blogger was created, and the steady growth of Current Trends blogs exploded with hundreds of blogs popping up seemingly overnight (Blood). Blogs are used in a wide variety of applications While the ease of use of these free tools throughout everyday life. Blogs can be used to undoubtedly played a huge role in blog develop- connect and correspond with friends and col- ment, the growth explosion of blogs cannot be leagues on sites like MySpace (http://www. fully explained by functionality improvements myspace.com); keep up to date and discuss the alone. Users’ desire for unfiltered, peer-posted latest sports, business, and political news on media content supported the tremendous growth Technorati (http://technorati.com); or communi- of blogs in areas such as politics, sports, and cate about work-related happenings and business entertainment. Aliza Risdahl (2007), author of issues with senior executives and coworkers in a the book Ecommerce, believes that the explosive corporate or business setting. While all of these growth of blogs at the turn of the century can be applications have become increasingly preva- attributed in part to users’ desire to post articles lent in recent years, sites such as MySpace and and opinions concerning the latest news on the Technorati have enjoyed more relative growth 2000 presidential election and the Iraq war. One and adoption than corporate blogs. Consider the significant event that contributed to the legitimacy following: In 2006, MySpace had 80 million mem- of blogs as a reliable source for news and current bers and experienced year-over-year site growth events was the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Internet of 752% (Granneman, 2006). While growth was blogger Matt Drudge was the first to break the not quite as spectacular at Technorati, it was story that President Bill Clinton was reportedly still significant; quarter-on-quarter site traffic having an affair with White House intern Monica increased by roughly 150% during the first half Lewinsky (Whitworth, 2008). The tremendous of 2007 (Sifrey, 2007). This is in stark contrast growth of blogs in the early 21st century seems to to the growth of the corporate blog, as only 6% support the view of TakingITGlobal (http://www. of Fortune 500 companies reported that they kept takingitglobal.org) founder Michael Furdyk when and maintained a blog in 2006 (Nail, 2006). In he states, “Our generation really doesn’t trust the order to explain the reasons behind these growth media and advertising as much as we trust peer statistics, it is necessary to explore these major to peer opinion and social networks” (Tapscott trend differences from a demographic and per- & Williams, 2006). ceived-value perspective. Over just 15 years, blogs have evolved from According to Tapscott and Williams (2006), a few Internet sites containing Web links to a young people born between 1977 and 1996 choose network of over 50 million sites that allow users to interact online as content creators. These so-

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called “N-Geners” believe that blogs and social addition, blogs are less costly and easier to use networking sites are valuable because they allow than many other communication tools. Because individuals to communicate using “unfiltered of this, corporations will continue to unlock the self-expression” (Tapscott & Williams, pp. 52-53). value of blogs by developing a more focused While critics argue that all of these blog choices approach, managing expectations, and gaining and opinions lead to oversaturation in the market, expertise. Current growth trends and adoption young people seem to like the amount of choices by young users indicate that blogs will continue and interactivity that the current blogosphere to be more and more accepted as an effective, provides. With roughly 73% of bloggers under low-cost communication tool. 30 years old, statistics from the Communication Initiative Network (2006) seem to support this Business Applications claim. Unlike young Internet bloggers, most corpo- Although the concept of blogging is considered rations simply cannot express how their internal a recent trend in communications and social blogs add value. Research compiled at the Porter networking, many firms have begun researching, Novelli Institute reveals that 63% of corporate investing in, and implementing blogging capa- respondents started their company blog with no bilities in order to effectively communicate with specific need or purpose in mind. Not surprisingly, their stakeholders. Blogs enable the “voice” of a corporate respondents reported a low level of company’s leadership, its brands, or its interests usage on their blogs as 71% stated they were not to be accessible to a wide and varied audience. pleased with the number of postings (Reicherter In general, three distinct types of blogs have & Nail, 2006). been found to be most pervasive in practical In an effort to assist corporations in unlock- application: internal blogs, external blogs, and ing the value of blogs, Gartner researchers have interest-driven blogs. offered three main suggestions. First, identify Internal blogs are those that have been created a point of focus for the blog and then work to through internal development practices in an ef- understand the current bloggers and etiquette fort to conjoin disparate employee bases around within the particular environment. Second, keep concepts, work streams and processes, or idea expectations at a reasonable level. While blogging generation. According to Mann (2006), firms have can act as a low-cost supplement to other forms of recently begun assessing an internal blog posting communication, it is not a replacement. Finally, capability through three approaches: universal, keep in mind that creating and maintaining an targeted people, and targeted project. Universal effective blog does require a fair amount of skill internal blogs are created by the firm, are inwardly and effort. Be realistic about your company’s facing to the employee base, and ask the universe abilities, and if necessary, do not hesitate to out- of employees to contribute to the internal blog source initial blog hosting efforts (Valdes, Austin, process (Mann). Examples of this may include the & Drakos, 2007). encouragement of nonbusiness-activities blogs or While current trends indicate that blogs are rumor-mill blogs. Any employee may contribute growing much more rapidly in the social net- to the blog, while additional employees assist in working and media sphere, corporate blogs will answering the outstanding questions presented not lag behind forever. As N-Geners continue to via the blog. age and advance in their careers, their preference Targeted-people and targeted-project internal and familiarity with personal blogging will lead blogs are similar to each other in that only a select to a natural extension into their work life. In few individuals may initiate and contribute to

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the blog. Targeted-People blogs can be typically office, where officials gathered, analyzed, and seen through a firm’s senior management espous- developed holistic assessments based upon these ing company values, mission, and mission goals reports. Using blogs, disaster management offi- (Mann, 2006). For example, Pfizer, Inc. conducts cials are now able to quickly post their accounts an internal blog in an effort to pool its internal of the disaster, provide up-to-date assessments of communication policy, offering the latest com- the information, and quickly turn around critical pany news, changes to its policies, or direction direction to officials who are at the disaster. These from the top. Employees may contribute to the blogs’ speed, accuracy from first-hand accounts, blog, but may not initiate new blogs. and chronology provide a much more efficient Targeted-project blogs tend to be similar to mechanism for delivering information internally targeted-people blogs, but focus on specific ele- to the disaster management officials. ments of the firm’s current business environment External blogs are those that outwardly face (Mann, 2006). Examples of this may include the the general Web community. These blogs are construction of a new building, the status of a developed by a firm in an effort to both inform new R&D (research and development) project, or and persuade stakeholders regarding company the implementation of enterprise-wide software. values and brands. Southwest Airlines maintains These types of blogs allow employees to ask ques- an outwardly facing blog that provides a sense of tions and receive answers related to projects, thus community to its users (Southwest Airlines Blog raising the level of common knowledge amongst , 2008). A recent blog (dated February 17, the employee base. 2008) was written by Southwest’s public relations Mann (2006) insists that highly successful (PR) coordinator, and refers to Valentine’s Day internal blogs, such as learning diaries, rumor- travel. Through this blog, the firm’s PR coordina- mill blogs, and job blogs, promote the general tor presented a contest to the blog community to well-being of the employee base. These blogs share its thoughts about Valentine’s Day travel. elevate understanding of particular topics, diffuse The best written blog, as voted by the blog com- rumors, and enhance human resource capabilities munity, would win a prize. Clearly, this external- that drive comprehension of job roles and ac- facing blog from Southwest provides a sense of countabilities (Mann). Prentice (2007), however, community for those that fly the airline, while indicates that employees may still be hesitant to engaging the customer and providing a sense of contribute in a forthcoming manner due to per- closeness to the brand. sonal intellectual property. Employees’ desire to Similarly, Glenfiddich (“Glenfiddich Runs ask questions or to “stick their necks out” through Blog as Part of Online Consumer Loyalty Club,” the blog may be restricted as employees may feel 2006) developed a whisky blog to augment the that their postings could reveal too much informa- online presence of the brand. Participants in the tion about their capabilities or their worth. blog have exclusive access to specific loyalty-club The United States Government’s Disaster promotions and are educated about whisky. Tar- Management Techniques are an example of a geted to whisky connoisseurs, the blog provides practical business application for internal blogs. information about whisky-related events with the Vining (2007) identified that blogs can assist hope of attracting new customers and rewarding disaster management officials in assessing dam- current drinkers. Through this development, age and fatality counts. The previous process for Glenfiddich was able to compile a database of collating this information was through a standard over 100,000 drinkers to augment its online paper-based process. Reports were manually marketing efforts. handwritten and sent in to a central processing

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Outwardly facing blogs that provide informa- University of Houston Clear-Lake (2008) posted tion and promotional content may be the most a Web site that provides educators with facts practical use for firms trying to build and/or retain about blogs, how blogs can be introduced into a their brand identities. Pinedo and Tanenbaum learning environment, and how other major educa- (2007) discovered that some firms are attempt- tors are capitalizing upon blog capabilities. The ing to communicate critical industry information site indicates that the major uses of educational through blogs. In 2007, Sun Microsystems sent the blogs include, but are not limited to, the follow- SEC a blog posting that raised a question regard- ing: content-related blogs, instructional tips for ing the “broadness” of the blogosphere (Pinedo students, course announcements and readings, re- & Tanenbaum). In general, Sun Microsystems flective-writing journals, assignment submission, wanted to determine whether it could disseminate dialogue for group work, and sharing of course- its company information via its blog while still related documents. Likewise, the commonly used complying with the SEC regulation FD disclosure Blackboard system contains a discussion forum requirements (selective disclosure and insider for each class. This discussion forum is similar trading). The SEC would not comment whether to that of a blog in that students of the class may the blog would be sufficient, but, surprisingly, the leave remarks, ask questions, or find answers SEC responded to the blog via the blog. Clearly, related to the classroom materials. as blogs gain additional attention and become If a firm or an educational institution decides more widely accepted and available, additional to implement an inwardly or outwardly facing SEC regulations and considerations may weigh blog, the entity is still faced with a major dilemma: upon the blogosphere. control. When the blog space is open, the free form The third practical business application of or freelance mechanism for autonomous mono- blogs is for special-interest groups. Most often, logue is inevitable. The control over this form of these blogs represent political, social, or ethnic speech is loose at best. Lundy, Drakos, and Mann groups that seek to persuade individuals to see (2007) suggest that the firm or institution develop their perspective or persuade government officials a corporate blogging policy. Such a policy limits to adjust their views or votes. Groups such as risk to the enterprise and, accordingly, should be RedState.com or BarackObama.com provide blog a subset of an overall communications plan, on space for interested parties to view political posi- which employees should be trained. By putting a tions. These special-interest groups often carry blogging policy in place, the firm or institution can large audiences. Mooney (2008) points out that highlight the rules of engagement for blogging: other general blog sites, such as Boing Boing, have what to say, what not to say, grammar choice, and audience sizes that are beginning to rival major interpretation rules. The firm or institution should media outlets. In fact, Boing Boing has a quarter minimize the risk of leaking company-sensitive of the registered audience of the New York Times materials or trade secrets while encouraging online. Technorati compiled a top-100 listing of productivity through blogging, rather than the the most linked information sources, 22 of which “blogging down” of the blogosphere. are blog sites. How to Blog Educational Applications A main growth driver for blogs over the past Educational applications for blogs are less in- several years has been the ease of creation and tensive from a control standpoint, but have the accessibility of blogs to everyone. Sites such as most potential upside for learning value. The http://www.blogger.com, http://www.wordpress.

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com, and http://www.blogdrive.com enable us- a political guru looking to influence voters, hon- ers to set up a blog in a matter of minutes. Each est communication is necessary to fully engage of these sites takes users through a simple setup people in meaningful dialogue (Neal, 2005). process in which the name, format, intended Finally, bloggers should continue to explore ways audience (i.e., public or private), and background to expand their blogs with knowledge from other configuration of the blog are established (Derouin resources. Content for blogs may spring from et al., 2008). After several easy steps, bloggers a variety of outlets, so bloggers must be aware are free to post entries and begin communicating of this and maintain a keen focus for additional with the world. Some of these Web sites offer information (Neal). Developing a successful blog free templates and blogging capabilities while may seem difficult but, in reality, it is as easy as others charge a fee for more add-ons and high- engaging in an honest, dynamic conversation tech capabilities. Therefore, whether the blogger about an area of interest. is a computer-savvy business person looking to establish a communication link with other like- Conclusion and Future Trends minded people or a grandmother looking for a better line of communication with her grandson, Weblogs have forever changed the manner with there is a blog template available that will satisfy which people and businesses communicate. In a those needs. few short years, the growth of weblogs has signi- It is not as easy to maintain an interesting fied the benefits of mass collaboration. People want blog as it is to create one. Blogs are designed to hear and be heard; they want pertinent, honest as a communication tool: a modern-day digital information; they require up-to-the-second data; conversation between people across the globe and they want it their way. Blogs can provide all (Mastio, 2007). So the question becomes less about of these benefits and will continue to evolve with computer savvy and more about communication the growing demand of global communication. skills. Anyone can start a blog, but it takes some The future of blogging, and mass collaboration effort to maintain a successful, engaging blog. in general, is bright. People will continue to search For starters, a blogger should “blog about what for ways to customize experiences and informa- [she or he] know[s]” (Neal, 2005). Possessing a tion. Highly engaged, Internet-savvy people will high level of interest in the subject matter will look to customize the educational, technological, encourage the blogger to invest time and energy and business resources they use both at home and in the conversation (Neal). Successful bloggers at work. Businesses and individuals alike will such as Matt Drudge of http://www.drudgereport. strive to maintain a constant conversation with com and Perez Hilton of http://www.perezhilton. people around the globe in order to harness the com display a genuine interest and passion for collective knowledge made available by technol- their subject matter, be it politics or celebrities. ogy such as weblogs. Hill (2006) recommends writing blogs as if every Individuals will continue to utilize blogs in reader is a paying subscriber and it is the author’s order to gain new perspectives and collaborate job to convince readers to renew their subscrip- with like-minded people. People will use IT tions. This mindset will compel the author to enhancements and blogs as a means to redefine maintain focus and passion about the blog and the marketplace and work environment (Morello its success. & Burton, 2006). As underserved markets such Further, honesty is a key criterion for any as India and China become more developed, an interesting conversation. Whether the blogger is entire new generation of computer users will a CEO relating a strategic vision to employees or

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emerge and offer bloggers an even larger base Hill, B. (2006). Blogging for dummies. Indianapo- from which to gain perspective. lis, IN: Wiley Publishing. Businesses will utilize blogs to profit from Lundy, J., Drakos, N., & Mann, J. (2007, June 15). the collective knowledge of the masses rather Why your enterprise needs a corporate blogging than simply issuing directives to the masses. As policy. Gartner Research. explained by Tapscott and Williams (2006), blogs can serve as means for businesses to “integrate the Mann, J. (2006, October 24). PCC conference talents of dispersed individuals.” In the years to reveals best practices in internal corporate blog- come, successful businesses will discover ways to ging. Gartner Research. benefit from the highly individualized employee Mastio, D. (2007). Blogging: Do try this at home. (Morello & Burton, 2006) and will realize that Masthead, 59(3), 12-13. the individual, not the manager, will determine the work environment (Morello, 2007). Investors Mooney, C. (2008, January/February). Blogo- will want direct access to the CEO, CIO, and CFO nomics: Bloggers of the world unite! Colombia through blogs. Frequent communication will be Journalism Review, pp. 18-19. the norm, not the exception, as the public demands Morello, D. (2007, June 4). CIOs and IT leaders: more dialogue with employers, and weblogs will Prepare for the “pull” mind-set of consumer IT. certainly play an important role in connecting Gartner Research. businesses with individuals. Morello, D., & Burton, B. (2006, March 27). Future worker 2015: Extreme individualization. References Gartner Research. Nail, J. (2006). Five indicators that 2007 will Blood, R. (2000). Weblogs: A history and per- be the year of the corporate blog. Influence 2.0. spective. Rebecca’s Pocket. Retrieved February Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http://blog. 9, 2008, from http://www.rebeccablood.net/es- cymfony.com/2006/08/five_indicators.html says/weblog_history.html Neal, S. (2005). What about these blogs? Public Communication Initiative Network. (2006). Stats: Management, 87(5), 18-21. Age demographics make a difference in blogging. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http://www. Pinedo, A., & Tanenbaum, J. (2007). The danger comminit.com/en/node/243880/36 of blogging. International Financial Law Review, 26, 130-131. Derouin, T., et al. (2008). How to start a blog. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www. Prentice, B. (2007, December 4). Three potential wikihow.com/start-a-blog pitfalls of corporate social networking. Gartner Research. Glenfiddich runs blog as part of online consumer loyalty club. (2006, September 3). New Media Age. Reicherter, B., & Nail, J. (2006). Corporate blog Retrieved from http://blog.glenfiddich.com owners report success, but differences in resources devoted to blogs. Porter Novelli. Retrieved Febru- Granneman, S. (2006). MySpace, a place without ary 16, 2008, from http://www.porternovelli.com/ my parents. Security Focus. Retrieved February site/pressrelease.aspx?pressrelease_id=123& 16, 2008, from http://www.securityfocus.com/ pgname=news columnists/408

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Risdahl, A. (2007). Ecommerce. Avon, MA: F+W How-To Manual. (n.d.). Retrieved from http:// Publications. www.wikihow.com Sifrey, D. (2007, April). The state of Technorati. McDougall, J. S. (2007). Start your own blogging Silfry’s Alerts. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from business. Canada: Entrepreneur Press. http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000492. Technorati. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://tech- html norati.com Southwest Airlines Blog Website. (2008). Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.blogsouth- west.com Podcasts and Videocasts Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinom- ics. New York: Penguin Group. Kristen Booros, Sean-Thomas Pumphrey, University of Houston Clear-Lake. (2008). Blogs in education. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from Kristin Watts http://awd.cl.uh.edu/blog Introduction and History of Podcasts Valdes, R., Austin, T., & Drakos, N. (2007). Cor- porate blogging. Gartner Research. Retrieved Podcasts are a relatively new technological phe- February 16, 2008, from http://www.gartner. nomenon that has had a huge impact on audio, com , and print media for the public. Podcasts are Vining, J. (2007, April 17). Blog/wiki use in digital audio recordings, with or without video, disaster management gains credibility. Gartner that are able to be automatically downloaded using Industry Research. specific software to the users’ files (McBride & Wingfield, 2005). This is distinguished from an Whitworth, D. (2008). Oral history: The Monica ordinary audio file that is posted on the Internet Lewinsky scandal ten years on. Times Online. and clicked on once or saved manually by the user Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http://women. (McBride & Wingfield). Podcasts were introduced timesonline.co.uk/tol/ life_and_style/women/re- as a cross between a blog and an audio file. A blog lationships/article3185449.ece is a form of communication in which the creator Zuiker, A. (2004). Blogs: A short history. Blog- can post any type of information, from personal ging101. Retrieved February 14, 2008, from anecdotes to current news, for all World Wide http://www.unc.edu/~zuiker/blogging101 Web users to read (Morris & Terra, 2006). A podcast essentially adds an audio file to a blog, which then can be downloaded to a user’s PC and then to an MP3 player (Morris & Terra). Podcasts Additional Resources are available to anyone with a computer and the Internet, and can be easily created by following Bloggertalk. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www. simple steps. They provide greater convenience bloggertalk.net to consumers and will continue to be used more as the trend for interactive experiences increase Hill, B. (2006). Blogging for dummies. Indianapo- in today’s society. lis, IN: Wiley Publishing. Podcasts have an interesting and collaborative history, beginning with a Boston-area television

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and radio personality, Christopher Lydon (Doyle, casts, they are usually free to download. Podcasts 2005). Lydon created a radio program for Boston have the potential to impact each individual user University called The Connection. This program in a unique way. The development of podcasts in triggered the growth of the operation from US$5 the years to come will be interesting to follow. million to US$25 million. After being fired from the radio station because he was unable to manage Current Trends the rights to his content, Lydon was asked by Dave Winer to write a blog for the first BloggerCon at There are several current podcasting trends that Harvard in 2003. Lydon was more interested in vary for individual users vs. corporate users. Even his voice talent, so Winer compromised and had though there is a relatively small percentage of the Lydon record rather than write. This was the first American population who know what a podcast attempt to make an audio blog. Lydon continued, 1 is, there are several trends in force. Generally, year before the 2004 presidential election, to audio podcasts are created for one of four kinds of blog in an attempt to stir up additional blogging purposes: (a) personal, (b) art, (c) informative or for the election (Doyle). This audio blog was the educational, and (d) performance (Felix & Stolarz, first step in the creation of the podcast. 2006). can be added to the podcast in order In order to have the audio files automatically to make it a videocast that appeals to the eyes updated, the audio blogs needed to be connected and ears of the listener or watcher. Podcasts are with an RSS (really simple syndication) feed. Dave very convenient (McBride & Wingfield, 2005). Winer and Adam Curry, previously an MTV host, One can listen to a podcast in a car, on a walk, wrote a software program that would automati- or at a computer. In addition, podcasts are easy cally download new files that have been uploaded to find on the Internet, covering a variety of top- to a Web site (Haygood, 2007). This advanced ics and interests for all listeners of all ages. The podcasting from its audio-blog origin. As new podcast topics can range from learning Spanish material was downloaded by the creator to a Web to a personal travel journal account. They are site, the RSS feed would pick it up and automati- also easy to create without the use of expensive cally download it to the personal computer. From equipment. The opportunities and cost-saving here, the user could download the podcast onto benefits of podcasts are left to the imagination an MP3 player and listen. The term podcasting of the individual and corporate users. was coined in September 2004 (Haygood). Personal podcasts are left up to each individual The popularity of podcasts has continued designer or author of the information and what one to increase as more individuals and companies wishes to share on the World Wide Web. These become familiar with this new technology and podcasts can usually be placed in one of the fol- the benefits. There were 4.8 million podcast lowing categories: diary podcasts, documentary downloads in 2005, increasing from only 820,000 work, media fact checking, informational, edu- podcast downloads in 2004 (Haygood, 2007). cational, religious, or entertainment (McBride Additionally, podcast awareness grew from 22% & Wingfield, 2005). Podcasts have the ability to of Americans in 2006 to 37% in 2007 (Haygood). truly be personalized by an individual. With a relatively low percentage of Americans Corporate trends for podcasts include in- who know what podcasts are, there is consider- forming employees, boards and shareholders, able room for growth. Podcasts can easily be and consumers. Podcasts are an inexpensive yet subscribed to from iTunes, through Apple, or high-impact form of audio content that can be through individual Web sites that offer podcasts. utilized by corporations large and small to train In addition to the ease of use and creation of pod- and give information to their employees (Latham

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& Lundy, 2006). Employees are able to retain more and true potential for increased profitability using information by listening to this type of media and this type of medium for ads. then being able to listen again when necessary (Latham & Lundy). Another advantage to using Business Applications this type of application for employees is that podcasts are available on many different portable There are many internal and external business devices, which enables the user to multitask while applications for which companies can use pod- listening (Latham & Lundy). Thus, an individual casting. If used correctly and creatively, these employee could be listening to or watching an applications will increase corporate productiv- instructional podcast while completing the task. ity, enhance the communication efforts of the This enhances learning capabilities because the company, and create an interactive experience employee is actually doing the activity while with customers. Since podcasting is relatively listening to the instruction instead of just reading inexpensive and easy to use and maintain, the the material or listening to a lecture. Podcasts applications for the technology are only limited can be used to give information to shareholders by the imaginations of the people in control of who are not in attendance at annual meetings the podcasting programs within the company. or to help employees understand the format or Successful corporate podcasting programs share content of the annual meeting (Felix & Stolarz, a common thread: They expand upon the existing 2006). The information can easily be edited so culture of the company and are perceived as add- that highly guarded content is not revealed to ing value to employees and consumers. the public. In addition, corporations can inform Internal podcasting gives employees an op- consumers about current products and services. portunity to creatively communicate with and For example, General Motors used podcasts to learn from one another. Updates on company explain and describe new products it was selling and industry news can be posted weekly to make (Haygood, 2007). Corporations large and small sure that all employees are up to date with the can easily find benefits to using podcasts as they current events in the industry. Podcasting also are easy and economical to create. lets employees see and hear directly from top Another current trend for podcasting is ad- executives within the company. CEO podcasts vertising. Podcasting has allowed advertisers to are an effective way for the top executive to share capitalize using this new technology. Statistics his or her vision of the company with employees show that US$80 million were invested in podcast and update them on how that vision has been advertising in 2006 and that number is expected to furthered through the course of business (Sona, increase to approximately US$400 million by 2011 2008). Executives from human resources can also (Haygood, 2007). The use of podcasts is becom- use podcasting to communicate general orienta- ing more sophisticated as new companies utilize tion, benefits packages, training seminars, and the software to target consumers (Haygood). Ads best practices with new hires. will become more personalized and companies Communicating the best practices of a com- are likely to be willing to spend more money if pany is an excellent application for podcasting they know their ads are more likely to be seen in a business. For example, the top producer in by one of their target consumers. Of course, this sales each month can post a podcast giving tips trend may fade if consumers find advertisements and advice on how to increase sales productivity. to be similar to pop-ups or spam e-mail. There is Top manufacturers within the corporation can a wide-ranging future for advertising via podcasts share how they increased capacity and reduced the cost of inventory. Human resource managers

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can share how they increased employee retention customer a way to relay their thoughts with the while reducing training costs. Using podcasting company. Podcasting gives the consumer of a to effectively communicate the best practices of company’s product or service an excellent avenue an organization is an inexpensive and powerful to provide feedback and suggestions about how the tool that ultimately leads to greater productivity company can improve (Ochalla, 2008). Effective (Miller, 2007). businesses can utilize this information to make Another outstanding internal application appropriate changes to advance their services. for podcasting is for seminars. Attending every Since customers know the product or service meeting of a seminar can be next to impossible. better than anyone else, many companies use Creative companies tape each seminar meeting their own customers to champion their products. and post it online in the form of a podcast; some This podcasting application not only allows loyal companies edit the recording to include only the customers to form an intimate relationship with highlights in a 15-minute broadcast. Not only is the brand, but also gives potential customers who this application a benefit for the employee who may be immune to normal marketing efforts an attended the conference but could not make a opportunity to be introduced to the company specific meeting, it is also beneficial to the as- by an ordinary person who has benefited from sociate who could not make the conference at the company’s products and services (Salerno, all. Creative execution of podcasting is also a 2005). plus to the business that wants to save on travel Corporate podcasts are an effective way to costs. After the seminar is over, podcasting can communicate to customers. Companies whose be used to obtain feedback from the attendees on business depends upon weather conditions (ski what they learned, and liked and disliked about slopes, fishing excursions, etc.) can update the the event (Dodson, John, & Doughty, 2007). customer quickly and correctly, which provides Obtaining quality, objective feedback and a meaningful interaction with the brand. The suggestions are excellent internal uses of pod- customer views this as an added value to the other casting. Feedback can be given from employees products the company sells. on essentially every topic that is pertinent to an Podcasting effectively requires commitment organization. Feedback and suggestions on the and creativity. Dedication to this technology direction of the company, upcoming projects, new extends the brand of the company and enhances product development, and a litany of other items the experience for both the employee and the ultimately give each employee a voice and allow customer (Franklin, 2008). them to feel like more of a contributing member A summary of relevant internal and external to the corporation (Young, 2008). business applications is as follows: The internal business applications for pod- casting run the gambit from sharing best prac- Internal Applications tices to communicating a vision of the company. • Updates on corporate and industry trends Creative and consistent internal use of podcasting • Communication from top executives can lead to a more effective, knowledgeable, and • Seminars collaborative organization. • Training While internal podcasts focus on the em- • Suggestions and feedback ployee, external podcasts focus on the customer. Well-organized customer podcasts enable a External Applications customer to interact with the corporate brand • Updates on corporate and industry trends in a profitable way. External podcasts give the • Customers championing the brand

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• Customer interaction How to Create a Podcast • Customer updates (weather conditions, etc.) When creating a podcast, it is important to ensure • Suggestions and feedback that you first have the proper software downloaded on your computer. Audacity is the most common Educational Applications software used for digitally recording podcasts (Richardson, 2006). Audacity is a free program Podcasts are being used as an educational tool that can be used to record, edit, and replay sounds both in undergraduate and graduate school. and can convert your sound file into WAV, AIFF, Podcasts enable students to be able to listen to a MP3, or OGG formats (Audacity, 2008). missed class or get more information on a certain assignment (McBride & Wingfield, 2005). The Download the Software technology streamlines more information from professors and administrators to the students. To download Audacity, visit the Audacity Web Assignments, lectures, and additional material site at http://audacity.sourceforge.net and down- could be automatically uploaded for student use, load the most recent version. To properly convert which would eliminate the need for the student to your file to MP3 format, you must also download have to search through school databases or other the most recent version of the LAME encoder forms of communication to get the information. from http://lame.buanzo.com/ar (Richardson, This would encourage efficiency and effectiveness 2006). When saving the LAME program to your within the educational system. Educational uses computer, you must remember where you save it of podcasts are developing and will most likely because you will be required to find the program be a new creative instructional device used more once you open the Audacity software. You will and more by professors. then be prompted by WinZip to unzip the LAME Outside of the formal education system, in- file. Unzip the file to finish saving the software dividuals are able to learn almost anything from to your computer. how to cook a turkey to how to snowboard using a Once you have saved the applications to your podcast (Morris & Terra, 2006). Podcasts, which computer and unzipped the LAME file, you should can be retrieved from extremely reliable sources, open Audacity and record a practice file. Once are an educational tool that can be used outside you have recorded the file, select the option “Ex- of the classroom. The opportunities are endless port as MP3” under the File menu (Richardson, and there are many individuals who are not aware 2006). You will then be prompted to find the loca- that this type of technology could be beneficial. tion where the encoder is located. At this point, One could also research and teach oneself about you should locate the file entitled lame_enc.dll. a new product he or she is considering purchas- Audacity will then recognize the LAME file as ing by getting a more one-on-one experience the encoder for saving future sound clips in MP3 through a podcast than reading it on the Internet format. After saving the test file, you can delete or going to the actual store. Podcasting is a new it from your computer if you wish. Simply sav- convenience that can be utilized for much more ing the file using the LAME encoder will enable than entertainment. As an educational instrument, Audacity to appropriately locate the file when podcasting will continue to make a bigger impact exporting any sound clips into MP3 format. as society continues to grasp the full utility that this application holds.

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Record Your Sound File and Save in You can also create an ID3 in iTunes. Some MP3 Format users prefer to add ID3 tags in iTunes rather than Audacity because iTunes has more options and After you have downloaded Audacity and LAME gives you more flexibility in customizing genres and allowed Audacity to appropriately locate the and incorporating artwork (Morris & Terra, 2006). LAME file, you are ready to begin recording your To create ID3 tags in iTunes, simply select “Get podcast. Before recording, you might want to make Info” from the File menu and enter information an outline of what you want to say (Richardson, into the pertinent fields. You can also add art- 2006; Williams & Tollett, 2007). You may also work in iTunes by clicking on the Artwork tab want to set a predetermined length prior to actually and dragging desired art into the Artwork field recording (Williams & Tollett). Once you have (Morris & Terra). finished recording, you should listen to the sound file to determine if you approve of the quality of Share Your Podcast the recording (Richardson). If you would like to edit the sound clip, you can use Audacity to cut You can share your podcast by (a) e-mailing the out unwanted segments. file directly to a friend, (b) using an RSS feed to To delete a segment in Audacity, first find the save the file to your Web site or blog, or (c) adding segment that you want to edit (Morris & Terra, your podcast to the iTunes library. 2006). Click the Selection tool and click and drag across the unwanted segment. Then, click • E-Mail the File Directly to a Friend. The the segment between the two cuts one time and simplest way to share your podcast with an- press the Backspace key. Once you have deleted other individual is to e-mail the file directly to the segment, review the clip. If you do not like that person. To do this, simply attach the MP3 the edit, select “Undo Change of Position Region” file to an e-mail and send it to your friend. under the Edit menu (Morris & Terra). If you like Your friend can download the file from the the edit, save your changes. Once you are content e-mail to iTunes to listen to it. However, with the quality of the sound file, you are ready podcasts are generally intended for a wide to share your podcast. audience and it would be tedious to send an e-mail to all of your intended listeners. Add an ID3 Tag to Your Podcast Accordingly, the following two methods of sharing your podcast are recommended. An ID3 tag is a way of identifying an audio file’s • Use an RSS Feed to Save the File to Your artist, album, and track title (Morris & Terra, Web site or Blog. To post the file to your 2006). Adding an ID3 tag to your podcast is personal Web site or blog, you need to enter important because it allows users to organize XML (extensible markup language) code and easily locate various podcasts on their MP3 that indicates the location of the MP3 file player and recognize which sound clips are play- (Godwin-Jones, 2005). Typically, such XML ing (Morris & Terra). Creating an ID3 tag is easy code will be in RSS 2.0 format (Godwin- in Audacity: Simply choose the “Edit ID3 Tags” Jones). RSS stands for really simple syndica- option under the Choose Project menu and fill in tion and is a Web content syndication format the fields (Morris & Terra). Audacity will give (Morris & Terra, 2006; Richardson, 2006). you the option to automatically create tags when Because most podcasters use software to you save a project, so it may be easiest to do so generate RSS 2.0 feeds, it is not necessary while saving the initial file. to go into detail about how to actually create

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an RSS feed. If you would like to learn more plications. From individual use to the corporate about RSS 2.0, please refer to the resources world, the current trends of podcasting and vid- at the end of this section. eocasting will be changing as society embraces Today, blogging software, such as Blogger, this new technology. can be used to automatically create the RSS feed based upon the title and description that the user enters (Godwin-Jones, 2005). You References can also use free Web sites such as Feed 2JS, available at http://feed2js.org/index. Apple. (2008). FAQs: For podcast makers. Re- php?s=build, or Feedburner.com to build trieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.apple. a feed. Once the XML code is generated, com/itunes/store/podcastingfaq.html the link is published to the Web site and is Audacity. (2008). The free, cross-platform sound available to the public (Godwin-Jones). editor. Retrieved February 15, 2008, from http:// • Make the File Available on iTunes: While audacity.sourceforge.net iTunes does not host podcast files, you can easily make your podcast available on iTunes Dodson, S., John, M., & Doughty, R. (2007, Sep- once you have created your own RSS feed tember 18). Link news. The Guardian. Retrieved (Apple, 2008). To make your podcast avail- April 29, 2008, from http://educationguardian. able on iTunes, you must simply click on the co.uk Submit a Podcast icon in the iTunes store. Then, place the link to your podcast in the Doyle, B. (2005). The first podcast. Econtent, box and hit Submit. Your podcast will then 28(9), 33. be available to the public and iTunes will Farkas, B. (2006). Secrets of podcasting: Audio automatically update your podcast once new blogging for the masses. Berkley, CA: Pearson episodes are made available (Apple). Education, Inc. Felix, L., & Stolarz, D. (2006). Hands-on guide Conclusion to video blogging & podcasting. Burlington, MA: Elsevier, Inc. It is evident that podcasting has a number of uses in everyday life, including creating radio shows Franklin, D. (2008). Web 2.0: High tech and high for friends, advertising, and making the general touch. Credit Union Management, 31(2), 38-42. public aware of certain issues. Podcasting has a number of business applications as well, includ- Godwin-Jones, R. (2005). Emerging technologies ing training employees, internal communications, Skype and podcasting: Disruptive technologies for allowing attendees to review annual meetings, language learning. Language Learning & Tech- and maintaining relationships with customers. nology, 9(3), 9-12. Retrieved February 15, 2008, Educationally, podcasts can be used in various from http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num3/emerging ways to facilitate and increase learning. Creat- Haygood, D. (2007). A status report on podcast ing a podcast is relatively simple. By following advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, the steps above, one can easily create a podcast 47(4), 518-523. from the comfort of home. It is clear that podcasts will have a lasting effect and will continue to be Latham, L., & Lundy, J. (2006, March 8). Pod- used in classrooms, marketing programs, music casting is a new medium for training and com- downloads, and an expanding set of business ap- munication. Gartner Research.

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McBride, S., & Wingfield, N. (2005, October Morris, T., & Terra, E. (2006). Podcasting for dum- 10). Audio players: As podcasts boom, big media mies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. rushes to stake a claim; Clear Channel, networks Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, jump at offering downloads after lessons from and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. rivals; “Is anybody out there?” The Wall Street Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Journal, p. A1. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http://proquest.umi.com Stephens, M. (2006). Web 2.0 & libraries: Best practices for social software. Chicago: ALA Miller, R. (2007, April 22). Keeping up with the TechSource. iPod generation: New media technologies can offer a more effective way to communicate with employees, customers, shareholders and investors. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved April 29, 2008, Wikis from http://www.telegraph.uk.co Grant Garcia, Morris, T., & Terra, E. (2006). Podcasting for dum- mies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. Drew Mann, Mike Matthews

Ochalla, B. (2008). Old dog, new tricks. Credit History of Wikis Union Management, 31(2), 46-49. Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, The first wiki precursor dates back to 1945 when and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Vannevar Bush published an article explaining Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. his vision of a microfilm hypertext system that he called the “memex” (a blend of the words Salerno, F. (2005). Podmarketing. Direct, 17(9), memory and extender; Bush, 1945). Another 52-53. precursor of the wiki concept emerged in 1972 Sona, H. (2008). Podcast and blog: The engag- when researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University ing brand. Strategic Communication Manage- created the ZOG (an early hypertext system) mul- ment, 12(2), 3. tiuser database. The ZOG interface consisted of text-only frames; each frame contained a title, a Williams, R., & Tollett, J. (2007). Podcasting and description, a line with standard ZOG commands, blogging with GarageBand and iWeb. Berkeley, and a set of hypertext links leading to other text- CA: Pearson Education, Inc. only frames (Abrams, 1998). Young, S. (2008). Could you podcast? NZ Market- In 1981, two members of the ZOG team at Carn- ing Magazine, 27(1). egie-Mellon spun off a company and developed an improved version of ZOG called Knowledge Management System (KMS), a collaborative tool based on direct manipulation, allowing users to Additional Resources modify the contents of frames, freely intermixing text, graphics, and images, all of which could be Felix, L., & Stolarz, D. (2006). Hands-on guide linked to other frames (Abrams, 1998). The KMS to video blogging & podcasting. Burlington, MA: database was accessible from any workstation on Elsevier, Inc. a network and, thus, changes became visible im- Finkelstein, E. (2005). Syndicating Web sites mediately to other users, which enabled multiple with RSS feeds for dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley users to work concurrently on shared documents Publishing, Inc. and programs.

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In 1985, the ZOG system was the model for development of Netscape Navigator. That same Janet Walker’s Document Examiner, which was month, CERN allowed anyone to use the Web created for the operation manuals of Symbolics protocol and code for free (Abrams, 1998). Finally, computers. Document Examiner was then used the stage was set for the appearance of Ward as the model for the Note Cards system, released Cunningham’s WikiWikiWeb. that same year by Xerox. Note Cards, a hypertext In 1994, Ward Cunningham started develop- system, featured scrolling windows for each note ing the WikiWikiWeb as a supplement to the card combined with a separate browser and naviga- Portland Pattern Repository, a Web site that tor window. Note Cards inspired Bill Atkinson’s contained documentation about design patterns WildCard, later called HyperCard. In the late (Cunningham, 2008). 1980s, Ward Cunningham wrote a HyperCard People, Projects and Patterns, categories stack that was the impetus to the wiki idea (Cun- Cunningham used to organize his wiki, the ningham, 2008). WikiWikiWeb, was intended as a collaborative Kent Beck, after obtaining access to Hyper- database focused on making the exchange of Card when he joined Apple Computers, introduced ideas between programmers easier. Cunningham HyperCard to Ward Cunningham. Cunningham wrote the software using the Perl programming used HyperCard to make a stack with three kinds language. He named it using the Hawaiian word of cards: cards for ideas, cards for people who wikiwiki, which means quick, to avoid calling it hold ideas, and cards for projects where people quick-Web (Cunningham, 2008). share ideas (Cunningham, 2008). Cunningham installed a prototype of the Next, Cunningham made a single card with software on his company Cunningham & three fields (name, description, and links) that Cunningham’s Web site c2.com on November served all three purposes. The HyperCard fields 6, 1994. A few months later, after some initial were WYSIWYG (what you see is what you repository work was completed, Cunningham get) editors; however, linking between multiple sent the following e-mail to a colleague, dated cards was still a hassle. Cunningham deserted March 16, 1995: the regular stack links and instead used search on demand (Cunningham, 2008). Steve—I’ve put up a new database on my web Only through the hypertext capabilities of server and I’d like you to take a look. It’s a web the World Wide Web was Cunningham’s first of people, projects and patterns accessed through wiki made possible. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee a cgi-bin script. It has a forms based authoring of CERN (Centre European pour la Recherche capability that doesn’t require familiarity with Nucleaire) built the first hypertext browser, which html. I’d be very pleased if you would get on and he called WorldWideWeb, and the first hypertext at least enter your name in RecentVisitors. I’m server (info.cern.ch). The next year, Berners-Lee asking you because I think you might also add posted a short summary of this project on the alt. some interesting content. I’m going to advertise hypertext newsgroup, marking the debut of the this a little more widely in a week or so. The URL Web as a publicly available service on the Internet is http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki. Thanks and best (Abrams, 1998). regards.—Ward. (Cunningham, 2008) Enough momentum generated over the next few years that organizations were forming to On May 1, 1995, Cunningham sent an “Invita- capture the power of WorldWideWeb. By April tion To The Patterns List” to a number of program- 1994, Mosaic Communications Corporation had mers, which caused an increase in participation. changed its name to Netscape and continued The site earned immediate popularity within the pattern community (Cunningham, 2008).

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Immediately, clones of the WikiWikiWeb 2. Process-focused wikis are often used in software were developed. Cunningham himself business to document or manage a process. wrote a version of a wiki that could host its Often, notifications are used to let members own source code, called Wiki Base. Program- know of a change or addition that has been mers soon started several other wikis to build made. knowledge bases about programming topics. 3. Community wikis are most often used for Popularity continued to grow for wikis in the free subject matter that is of interest to a select and open-source software (FOSS) community. group of people. Examples might be sport Wikis were ideal for collaborating on, discussing, fishing, rock climbing, or Star Trek. and documenting software. Being used only by 4. Ease-of-use wikis are simply an easy way specialists, these early software-focused wikis to create a Web site. Someone wanting an failed to attract widespread public attention (Cun- immediate presence on the Web without the ningham, 2008). trouble and expense of learning HTML or Until 2001, with the introduction to the gen- hiring a Web designer can utilize a wiki. The eral public by the success of Wikipedia, wikis normal collaboration and open editing are were virtually unknown outside of the restricted normally disabled with this type of wiki as circles of computer programmers. Since then, it is set up as more of a read-only site. The wikis have developed by incorporating many of ability to make the wiki private and to lock the features used on other Web sites and blogs, pages makes this possible. including support for various wiki markup styles, editing of pages with a graphical user interface Content-focused wikis currently rule the wiki (GUI) editor and WYSIWYG HTML (hypertext world, with Wikipedia at the top of the list. Most markup language), optional use of external editors, people who have no idea what a wiki is have support for plug-ins and custom extensions, use of heard of, and have even accessed, Wikipedia. RSS feeds, integrated e-mail discussion, precise Process-focused wikis are most often seen within access control, and spam protection. organizations and are accessed through a company intranet. Their use is most common among project Current Trends managers who are running complex projects or processes. Community wikis are often the mom- According to the Gartner Hype Cycle, wikis are and-pop type of wikis. Some are very small, such in the “Trough of Disillusionment,” with an es- as a wiki for a small town’s historical society. timate of 2 to 5 years until mainstream adoption Some are quite large with a much more important (Knox et al., 2007) and only 5% to 20% market impact on the world, such as the Wiserwiki, which penetration of the target audience as of mid-2007 is an online medical book created by a leading (Drakos & Andrews, 2007). publisher and edited by board-certified physicians What is the market that wikis are penetrating? from around the world. Wiki usage can be generally categorized as A number of free online wikis have become one of four types (Woods & Thoeny, 2007). popular. Each of these has subtle differences. They include PBwiki, Wetpaint, Wikia, BluWiki, and 1. Content-focused wikis are those that have XWiki. Some of these wikis use advertising and large amounts of content and are edited by some simply ask for donations from their users. large numbers of people. These wikis should Some use WYSIWYG text entry and some use be easy to use and edit. more cryptic HTML formatting. Some require the user to download software and some work directly online.

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One of the free wikis, Wikia, was founded by Wikipedia. A Lexis-Nexis search revealed that Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales. According to most of today’s published articles are still written Wales, this for-profit wiki company may go public to educate readers as to what a wiki is and how in the future (Hong, 2008). Revenues for this wiki one might be used in a business setting rather site are generated through advertising. than on how businesses are using them and what A search of the most active communities on advantages or gains are being realized. According the Wikia Web site revealed that community to a survey by McKinsey, at the close of 2007, wikis seem to be most popular. The top list in- approximately one third of businesses were cur- cluded wikis on the TV show 24, astronomy, and rently using or were planning to use Web 2.0 the Muppets, as well as seven on Star Trek and technologies, including wikis (“Insurer Takes a Star Wars. It seems only natural that those who Bold Leap into Web 2.0,” 2007). currently gravitate to wikis as a social outlet Most wikis that find their way into small busi- would be interested in these topics. In fact, none nesses start from the bottom of the organization, of the top-55 sites seemed to be of any serious often without the knowledge of upper manage- substance. ment. Young employees who are adept at social It seems that most business wikis utilize com- networking software often start communicating pany intranets rather than the Internet. Based on in the workplace through blogs and wikis. These interviews with small businesses in North Amer- unstructured communication tools form a col- ica and Europe (Brodkin, 2008), one observer laborative work space in these organizations. predicts that Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration Upper management is sometimes introduced to software will continue to dominate the market, these Web 2.0 technologies only after they have and Web 2.0 technologies, including wikis, will become a part of the company workflow through make major inroads in companies in 2008. an underground culture. Numerous government agencies are also us- A small firm interviewed in early 2008 was ing wikis. In early 2008, the U.S. Congress was working from the top to implement wikis from the tallying and tracking earmark spending (known bottom. The CEO of this 150-person professional as pork-barrel spending to most) for the Office services firm met with the firm’s 35 20-somethings of Management and Budget. According to The to get ideas on how the firm might benefit from Web Washington Post, over 13,000 earmarks were 2.0 technologies. One of the ideas that emerged compiled by various federal agencies in a 10-week from that meeting was the use of technology wikis period (Barr, 2008). Without the use of a wiki, for the firm’s knowledge workers. It seemed that the process would have taken over 6 months. most of the company’s engineers had notepads, This is a closed wiki, available only to the 5,500 scratch paper, word files, and spreadsheets where members who are registered under their federal they documented ideas and tasks for the projects agencies. Of course, we must ask ourselves if they work on. Once a project or employee is gone, empowering congress to spend tax money faster so are those ideas, at least in any written form. and more efficiently is a good thing. A number of the young, tech-savvy staffers were brought together by the CEO to create wikis for Business Applications the firm’s knowledge management using the underutilized SharePoint software sitting on the As of early 2008, wikis appear to be slowly find- firm’s server. The wikis were first seeded with ing their way into businesses. However, it seems some of the firm’s existing technical documents most small business owners and CEOs still do that were spread about in different forms. At that not know what a wiki is other than the popular point, the hope was that the employees would use

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this wiki to look up information, add information, cessful implementation of these technologies supplement current writings, and document new based on the DrKW case: ways of doing things. The CEO openly showed his support of this idea by setting up his own wiki 1. A Receptive Culture: The DrKW culture and blog on the company’s intranet. was already one of collaboration and coop- According to McDougall (2007), a firm’s eration. Any firm with this type of culture underutilization of its wiki capabilities is not should have a leg up on the beginnings of uncommon. A recent survey found that one in successful implementations of wikis. Most five companies has wikis available on its server, firms who utilize knowledge workers should but they go unused (McDougall). Some firms are realize an advantage. taking a proactive approach to this problem. A 2. A Common Platform: DrKW found that 32-person law firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, using a single platform for wikis allowed has a contest that provides a US$1,000 reward for for better searches between seemingly the most contributions to its internal wiki (Nus- disconnected groups within the enterprise. senbaum, 2008). The purpose of this “encouraged The small engineering firm we spoke of collaboration” was to wean the employees off of the previously has also taken that approach. In less-efficient Lotus Notes communication tools its case, mechanical, electrical, and civil and to have a central repository for everything engineers’ work, while different and per- from contracts to case files. formed separately, is connected throughout While most small companies do not seem to a project. According to the company’s CEO, be on the wiki path yet, many large technology their knowledge base, likewise, should be companies have been using wikis successfully connected. for some time. Sun Microsystems uses wikis 3. An Informal Rollout: By their very nature, across its enterprise. In addition to encouraging wikis are informal gatherings of thoughts its employees to use social networking software, and information. DrKW decided nothing such as Facebook and MySpace, the company more than pointing the employees in the encourages its employees to use wikis for col- direction of the wiki was necessary. It did laboration among engineers, systems architects, this through letting a few groups start us- and marketing people (Cane, 2007). Utilizing a ing the new tools and allowing them to post wiki, Cisco has implemented a company-wide non-work-related materials, as well. forum called I-Zone. This wiki was developed by 4. Managerial Support: DrKW’s management the company’s Emerging Technologies Group and showed its support by being one of the first has produced 600 ideas from 10,000 of Cisco’s users of the wiki and encouraging employees 61,000 employees (Martin, 2008). According to to log in and provide updates and additions. Microsoft, it has over 300,000 blogs and wikis In fact, the company’s managing director (Hoover, 2007), and Motorola claims 92% of its refused to communicate on some issues staff utilizes its intranet Web 2.0 tools, which other than through a wiki he had started. includes 4,500 internal wikis (“Twenty Great Likewise, the small engineering company’s Ideas: Web 2.0,” 2007). management showed its support through the One nontechnology company that has success- CEO’s personal wiki and blog. fully deployed Web 2.0 technologies, including wikis, is a European bank, Dresdner Kleinwort It is clear that large technology companies Wasserstein (DrKW). In an article on Enterprise have made extensive use of Web 2.0 technologies 2.0, McAfee (2006) outlines four keys to a suc- and that wikis can be successfully deployed as a

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means of collaboration in the workplace. Manag- writing in a public forum with an audience that ers of smaller companies, for the most part, do includes parents, classmates, and professors, not seem to know that these technologies exist. they may be more inclined to work harder, write However, any business that relies on knowledge and revise more carefully, and achieve greater workers can reap great benefits from collabora- academic competencies. tion through wikis. The process of using a wiki in the classroom setting could potentially replace other collabora- Educational Applications tion software or network (server) storage systems. Since students would be allowed to use the wiki, The use of wikis in education has become in- and thereby make changes without uploading new creasing popular among students, teachers, and documents, the wiki may be a more productive professors worldwide. Many educators choose to and efficient way to tackle large assignments with use wikis for multiple purposes such as group proj- lengthy documents. ects, homework, and research writing assignments So how can a wiki be applied to education? rather than a conventional classroom-assignment Wikis have many uses in education, with some of approach. Mader (2006) published information the most common uses discussed below from the about wikis and education on the Web site Using electronic book published on the Web site “Using Wiki in Education. According to Mader: a Wiki in Education” (Mader, 2006). the Wiki is gaining traction in education, as an 1. Web Site Creation: Wikis can be used as ideal tool for the increasing amount of collabora- an easy way to create a personalized Web tive work done by both students and teachers. site, a process that has become part of many Students might use a wiki to collaborate on a courses in secondary and higher education. group report, compile data or share the results Some professors require their students to of their research, while faculty might use the wiki create a Web site as part of the course syl- to collaboratively author the structure and cur- labus, or suggest they create a Web site to riculum of a course and the wiki can then serve showcase their resumes and accomplish- as part of each person’s course web site. ments. Students now use free wiki devel- opment software as an easy way to fulfill In this context, the wiki serves as an ideal their educational course requirements, and online host for assisting students in completing they can make the link to the wiki readily assignments and collaborating with classmates available to other students, professors, and using their existing Web browsers. The wiki is corporate recruiters. Using a wiki also makes also useful for teachers and faculty members. Its Web site creation easier for all students, not use allows them to easily edit wiki entries and just those who have had previous training on keep track of recent edits by others. They are also technical Web site development. The wiki able to document the history of an assignment or experience, similar to the blog, can be used project as it is revised. in higher education and professional careers, Wikis have recently become the latest method thereby giving anyone with Web proficiency of online writing, which can be used in conjunction the chance to create, invite friends, and host with education for writing-related assignments. a page on the Internet. With the ease of editing and peer or teacher review, 2. Project Development and Review: Stu- a wiki is a user-friendly choice for completing dents can develop their writing assignments assignments. Additionally, when students are directly on a wiki. The wiki platform allows

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the user to write and revise class work within may also help teachers and professors con- the wiki (with a track-back feature), thus struct and monitor group assignments. The making it an ideal way to complete assign- group (or class) wiki, which can be set up to ments. The tracking feature allows teach- allow access by only group members and an ers and professors to follow the students’ administrator, gives students an opportunity progress and view edits and previous drafts to comment on the project and review group in the wiki history. Peers may also view the work in one convenient online location. wiki and make suggestions, which can be an 5. Research Collection Center: Wikis allow easier way to assign peer-review homework. posting, editing, and sharing of research Students may benefit from teacher and peer collected by students. Having this ease of comments that can be made directly on the access can help facilitate the sharing of data wiki. A wiki also serves as an online location, in group projects and provides a central loca- or Web site, to host the students’ final work, tion to collect students’ data and research available for public viewing. This feature on rather than storing data on each individual a wiki may also entice students to perform computer and sharing through a chain of at a higher level, knowing their work may e-mails. A wiki could also replace existing be viewed and critiqued by others. methods of online research collection such as 3. Group Work: Students are frequently as- a college or university server. Data collection signed projects that require group collabora- tools specific for wikis are readily available, tion. By using a wiki, group members can with JotSpot (http://www.jot.com) being an post their contributions to the group project, innovative solution for this concept. easily edit other group members’ work, and 6. Sharing of Classroom Experiences: Web immediately retrieve documents related to sites such as Rate My Professors and Rate the project. A wiki may eliminate confusion My Teachers allow students to review college caused by multiple document storing loca- professors and high school teachers. The use tions, or the common problem of overlap- of a wiki may replace these Web sites as a ping ideas and additions to a project section. place where students can post comments Students can also use the wiki as an online on their course experiences and rate the home page, where the sharing of documents perceived quality of instruction they have and ideas brings the group closer together experienced. Students will then be able to academically. Teachers and professors then add comments and reply to these posts with track the progress of group work by using ease on the wiki. Educators may find that the track-back function and history feature sharing classroom teaching strategies and on the wiki. In fact, this manuscript was techniques may be more efficient and may developed by a group of graduate students reach a larger audience through a wiki fo- with the use of a wiki for group collabora- cused on classroom experience. In addition, tion. teachers and professors could post syllabus 4. Group Work Review: A wiki is an efficient updates, take-home exams, and final course solution for tracking group progress online evaluations on a wiki. and from remote locations. Students can 7. Group Presentations: Students now have save time by reviewing their team members’ the ability to give a presentation through use posts to the wiki and edit the entire project of a wiki. Many classrooms are equipped or paper from anywhere they have Internet with hardware to display computer presen- access. Online collaboration through a wiki tations, thus making it easy for a student

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to project the wiki from the Internet onto by posting assignments and individual parts on a whiteboard or screen. In these wiki pre- the wiki for peer and professor review. sentations, the wiki can be used in place of Many other uses of a wiki have yet to be conventional presentation software such as implemented; however, educators should consider Microsoft PowerPoint. creating and using a wiki if they are looking for a safe way to increase student engagement in Previous education issues that were prohibi- classroom assignments, promote accountability tive to adult learning can also be reconciled by and collaborative editing during group projects, using a wiki. Adult education uses include lit- and finally, showcase students’ work in a single eracy campaigns, distance learning for commuter online location. These are just a few of the many students, and secure collaboration for graduate examples of the potential for educational wikis education. The campaign for adult literacy is a to be used around the world. perfect example of how individual adults may have some experience with a computer but lack Conclusion and Future Trends sufficient reading skills. Or, in some cases, they may not have both a computer and reading skills, Whether it is to collaborate on a class project, in which case using a wiki could be an opportunity brainstorm ideas with people around the world, for adults to become both literate and proficient or record family history, wikis will continue to at using a computer. manifest themselves in educational, business, and In addition to the multiple uses of wikis in personal settings. For now, Wikis have found a general education, there are also specific examples permanent place in online communities and, as of wikis currently in use in the classroom or in popularity continues to grow, there is little stop- undergraduate and graduate course work. Profes- ping the wiki from overtaking blogs and current sors can create a course syllabus, course schedule, online collaboration software. and course Web site through the use of a wiki. This Wikis will continue to develop as a personal concept may be especially beneficial for profes- and organizational online tool. Social wikis and sors who frequently update course information or wiki innovations continue to develop at an over- the course syllabus, and may reduce the need to whelming rate. Wiki innovations such as Swicki, physically print new handouts for each update. a collaborative search engine offering impressive There has been a rapid increase in recorded uses detailed searches, and WikiHow, a social wiki of educational wikis in colleges and universities offering thousands of how-to answers to its users, around the United States. Psychology students at make the possibilities for wiki usage seem end- Brown University used a wiki to track and collect less. Other wiki developments like WikiDocs and data for certain human behaviors, which were then WikiTrails help users navigate around wiki pages. recorded as journal entries on the wiki (Mader, Wiki Widgets provides small objects such as cal- 2006). Students at Pennsylvania State University endars, video clips, and audio that can be added use wikis to post class notes and blog about class- to an existing wiki page. The usage patterns and room experiences (Mader). Similarly, students at trends among users attract increasing innovation the State University of New York used a wiki for and attention to the capabilities of wikis. exchanging feedback on classroom assignments, Another future trend of wiki use will most and completed collaborative writing projects on certainly include e-commerce and e-business in the wiki (Mader). An information technology Web 2.0. Already visible in the wiki community, class at the University of Richmond had students advertising will continue to play a vital role in create a wiki and collaborate on a group project marketing to wiki users and to support keeping

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new wiki accounts free to users of hosted wikis. Barr, S. (2008, January 28). Agencies share Collaborative wiki technology is also spreading information taking a page from Wikipedia. The to small and medium-sized businesses as a way to Washington Post. market, advertise, and interact with the public. One Brodkin, J. (2008). Microsoft SharePoint will company, Des Moines, Iowa-based CustomerVi- “steamroll” Web 2.0 market, plus eight more sion, released RapidWiki, which is designed to get predictions from Forrester. Network World, Inc. small to medium businesses up and running with Retrieved March 10, 2008, from http://www. dynamic Web sites that look and feel more like networkworld.com/news/2008/013008-forrester- forums than brochures (Cohen, 2007). Business predictions.html owners know they need to keep up with emerg- ing online trends, wikis included. “It’s time to go Bush, V. (1945, July). As we may think. The At- beyond static Web sites,” said Cindy Rockwell, lantic Monthly. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from president and CEO of CustomerVision, one of http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush the most innovative wiki marketing companies Cane, A. (2007). Doing what comes naturally. (Cohen). Market penetration has certainly taken Financial Times, 4. Retrieved on March 10, 2008, place in online social communities like MySpace from http://search.ft.com/ftArticle?queryText=% and Facebook, and there is plenty of evidence 22doing+what+ comes+naturally%22&aje=false that wikis are next on the horizon for companies &id=071120000504&ct=0&nclick_check=1 involved in e-commerce. Before long, there will even be applications Cohen, N. (2007). Wiki engines begin to drive where wiki and video come together to make TV small business. eCommerce Times. Retrieved IV, an online compendium of television knowledge March 10, 2008, from http://www.linuxinsider. that anyone can edit. The world of wikis has a lot com/story/59049.html to offer and many other variations of the wiki are Cunningham, W. (2008). Cunningham & Cun- going online every day. ningham, Inc. Retrieved March 3, 2008, from Wikis are sure to play a significant role in http://www.c2.com the emergence of Web 2.0, and their applications will continue to develop in business, education, Drakos, N., & Andrews, W. (2007). Hype cycle and government, and in online communities. for the high performance workplace: Wikis. The explosion in popularity of wikis has led to Gartner Research. multiple variations, and the number of ways wi- Hong, S. (2008). For-profit Wikia eyes IPO in kis are being offered has grown at an explosive longer term. Dow Jones Newswires. rate. Wikis are a great tool that can help people learn and communicate in a safe, collaborative Hoover, J. (2007, September 24). Social network- setting, and the future for wikis is very bright. ing: A time waster or the next big thing in col- The time and place is now for wikis, and it will laboration? Information Week, p. 40. be interesting to watch carefully as the future for wikis unveils itself in the coming years. Insurer takes a bold leap into Web 2.0. (2007, November 2). Life Insurance International. Knox, R., et al. (2007). Hype cycle for the high References performance workplace. Gartner Research. Mader, S. (2006). Ways to use wiki in education. Abrams, M. (Ed.). (1998). World Wide Web: In S. Mader (Ed.), Using wiki in education: A wiki Beyond the basics. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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based book. Retrieved April 21, 2008, from http:// Virtual Worlds www.wikiineducation.com/display/ikiw/home David Esposito, Martin, R. (2008, January 28). Cisco’s emerging Brian Hoade, Cuyler Lovett collaboration strategy. InformationWeek, p. 30. McAfee, A. (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The dawn History of Virtual Worlds of emergent collaboration. Sloan Management Review, 26. Since their introduction in 1974, virtual worlds have moved from being solely used for enter- McDougall, P. (2007). 5 tips to make wikis sticky. tainment purposes to being innovative tools in InformationWeek, p. 26. business and education. Currently, virtual worlds Nussenbaum, E. (2008). Tech to boost teamwork. are used for everything from training business Fortune Small Business, 18(1). employees and virtual classrooms, to reaching new audiences through advertising. Analysts Twenty great ideas: Web 2.0. (2007, September believe that virtual worlds will become even 17). InformationWeek 500, p. 97. more important in the near future through the Woods, D., & Thoeny, P. (2007). Wikis for dum- world of communication. Understanding how to mies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. use virtual worlds will be an important step, not only for individuals, but also for businesses and other organizations. Additional Resources Virtual worlds began with Steve Colley’s Maze War in 1974 (Terdiman, 2006). The original Huettner, B., & James-Tanny, C. (2007, January). program was a three-dimensional depiction of a Using wikis. Intercom, 54(1), 20-24. maze through which the player tried to navigate. Notari, M. (2006). How to use a wiki in educa- The game design was improved by using serial tion: Wiki based effective constructive learning. ports to put multiple players in the game. These Proceedings of the International Symposium on other players were depicted as eyeballs. Finally, Wikis (pp. 131-132). the programmers added the ability to shoot at other players to score points (Colley, 2008). Parker, R., & Cho, J. (2007). Wiki as a teaching Today’s online virtual world’s most recogniz- tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and able ancestor is the multiuser dungeon or dimen- Learning Object, 3. sion (MUD; Nguyen, 2008). These were text-based Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, multiuser role-playing games. The earliest code and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. was written in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw, a University Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. of Essex student, and resulted in a game with a set of interconnected rooms in which users could Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. (2008). Wikinomics: move through and chat with other users. Similar How mass collaboration changes everything. New to the virtual worlds of today, this MUD had no York: Penguin Group. objective and no score. A landmark came in 1980 Woods, D., & Thoeny, P. (2007). Wikis for dum- when the English MUD developers were able to mies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. use an experimental packet-switching system to link up with ArpaNet in the United States and get the first American players to log on. This took off and is still running today as British Legends

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under a license to CompuServe (Bartle, 1990). try has come a long way in recent years, seeing MUDs have since included graphics and real-time many advances that have transformed the nature action instead of text. of virtual worlds. The next progression from Massive multiplayer online role-playing games VZones was the virtual world There. There takes (MMOGs) developed from these original MUDs the social aspect of programs like VZones and (Terdiman, 2008) include persistent, virtual- incorporates them into a more realistic, three- world games like Ultima Online and EverQuest dimensional world. First tested in 2001, There is a (Patrizio, 2001). EverQuest, launched by Sony three-dimensional virtual world that was launched in 1999, became the most popular MMOG game in 2003 (“History Timeline,” 2008). There mar- between 2000 and 2004 (Woodcock, 2008), but kets itself as an online hangout that allows users this position has since been ceded to World of to explore the virtual world, interact with other Warcraft (“Top 10 Most Popular MMO Games,” users, and play games (“What is There? Makena 2007). Technologies, Inc.,” 2008). As the MMOGs developed, another kind of Moove Online is an online virtual world re- interactive online program for multiple users leased by the German company Moove in 2001. was being developed by Lucasfilm. The result, The focus of this virtual world is social networking Habitat, is arguably the first online social virtual and chatting (“3D Avatar Chat in Virtual Worlds,” world (Farmer, 2008). A pilot of the program was 2008). The program is supported through peer- developed in 1988 by Chip Morningstar, Douglas to-peer connections, and interaction is conducted Crockford, and F. Randall Farmer named Quantum by visiting other users’ houses, which are also Link for the Commodore 64 computer system. customizable. On average, Moove users tend to The program consisted of regions through which be older than those of other virtual worlds, with players could move their avatars, or online repre- many users over the age of 40 (“Moove,” 2008). sentations of themselves. The game also featured The Sims Online debuted on December 17, “ghosts,” which could move around the regions and 2003 (Becker, 2003). This was an online version become avatars. The program was released in 1988 of the all-time best-selling computer game The as Club Caribe in the United States and Fujitsu Sims, created by video game developer Electronic Habitat in Japan, both of which were somewhat Arts (EA). The online version allowed players to popular. A refined version of this program was play against each other. The Sims Online required released by CompuServe in 1995 as WorldsAway. players to buy packaged software and then pay WorldsAway later became VZones, taking on the US$10 per month to participate online. Upon its name and format it carries to this day. release, The Sims Online’s reception was dis- VZones essentially resembles a series of online appointing. Much of this was attributed to the chat rooms where avatars, all facing forward, required monthly fee and a mismatch with its speak to one another in dialogue boxes (VZones target customers (Ratan, 2003). Website, 2008). The game features two separate First developed in 1994, Active Worlds has online communities: NewHorizone and Dream- existed in various forms and under various names, scape. NewHorizone utilizes realistic cartoon with its most recent version in 2002. While it al- people as avatars and real-world settings, including lows users to chat, the emphasis in Active Worlds various cities around the world. Dreamscape has is on building and creating worlds and visiting a fantasy element, and avatars can look gothic or those built and created by others (“Home of the 3D fairy-like. Chat, Virtual Worlds Building Platform,” 2008). From the relatively simple worlds used as Consistent with this emphasis, users have even es- games and chat rooms, the virtual-world indus- tablished a builders’ academy to teach other users

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how to build structures and accomplish a variety namics of Second Life are radically different from of technical effects (SW City Builders Academy, MUDs, MMOGs, and even more recent virtual 2008). Active Worlds likely has the most realistic worlds aimed at social networking and exploring and visually impressive three-dimensional graph- a virtual environment. Interestingly, as Second ics of any of the virtual worlds. Life has become the premier online virtual world, Released in its current form in the summer others have been developed to cater to particular of 2003, Second Life won a place among Time niches of various segments of society. Magazine’s best inventions of 2002 (“2002 Best First launched in 2004, Kaneva offers users a Inventions, Robots & Tech, 3-D Online Envi- more conservative version of Second Life. Kane- ronment,” 2002). The site has grown to become va’s emphasis is on business and social networking the most popular, widely used, and cutting-edge (Jana & McConnon, 2007). The environment in virtual world. It is widely considered the bench- Kaneva is much more controlled. Users are lim- mark, reflecting both the potential of virtual ited in their options for self-expression and the worlds and signaling a possible demise in their extent to which they can affect their surroundings. popularity (Ward, 2007). Second Life is the most While Second Life offers users entrance to another realistic and comprehensive virtual world avail- world, Kaneva promotes itself as an extension of able. The breadth of activity and the expanse of this world. Avatars are limited to human forms its user base make Second Life truly unique. It and there are none of the unrealistic or fantasy shows the potential of virtual worlds that was elements that are available in Second Life. Kaneva only suggested by earlier programs. Some have strives to deliver a virtual world experience to argued that Second Life allows users who face the suburban user, offering a world more suited impediments in real life to more easily connect to that user’s needs and tastes. with others, thereby allowing them to develop social skills for real life (Terdiman, 2005). While Current Trends many virtual worlds allow and encourage com- merce with virtual versions of currency, Second In recent years, virtual worlds have become Life has taken this idea to a new level by utilizing increasingly relevant to recreational, business, its currency, the Linden Dollar (Dubner, 2007). and educational users. These new worlds have The Linden Dollar is exchangeable for real cur- made interaction with people in different areas rencies through a resident-to-resident exchange of the world possible over the Internet through facilitated by Linden Labs (“Terms of Service,” the use of each user’s avatar. However, much has 2008). This means that people and companies are changed since the introduction of Second Life in able to make real money in Second Life. Companies 1991 (Tuft, 2007). Seventeen years later, virtual have flocked to Second Life in search of a new worlds are far less clumsy and capable of much channel for marketing (Siklos, 2006). The abil- more than just avatar interaction. The current ity to buy, sell, and develop land attracts online trends existing in virtual worlds exemplify a investors (Craig, 2006). Until early 2008, Second world of promise, but these do not come without Life even featured banks where users could invest problems (Dredge, 2007). Linden Dollars (Cavalli, 2008). The virtual world now has a myriad of ap- A little over a year since a Gartner analyst plications ranging from gaming to in-world suggested that Second Life had reached the peak entrepreneurship. The business world has seen of inflated expectations, Second Life’s potential opportunity for brand recognition and marketing, remains uncertain (Reuters, 2007). The history of not just in worlds like Second Life, but also in virtual worlds provides little guidance as the dy- regular gaming (“Youniversal Branding: Part 1,”

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2006). Also, companies have found ways to cut ferent resources for learning can be accessed from costs of training and other activities through use a computer. Some of the educational applications of virtual worlds (“It’s Not All Fun and Games,” are as follows: 2006). The educational arena has found uses in virtual worlds from training to the creation of • Virtual classrooms (Nesson, Nesson, & Koo, online classrooms accessible to people around 2006) the world. A quick visit to Second Life reveals • In-world language lessons and classes (Suf- educational tools, such as access to books and even fern Middle School in Second Life, 2008) language lessons. Of course, the social network • Access to resources in a 3-D environment aspect of virtual worlds still remains the focus (Levine, 2008) of these sites. Even social networking, however, • Creation of real-world experiences for a has led to financial opportunity as people create relatively low price through marketing and commerce in these parallel worlds, creating real branding experience, creation of engineering value (Tuft, 2007). Second Life and other sites have projects, and practice running a business created a lucrative professional world for those (Beller, 2007; Dartmouth College, 2005; who have taken advantage of these opportuni- Idaho State, 2007; BBC News, 2007) ties to earn a very comfortable real-world living (MacMillan, 2007). There is also the social aspect where people Many current trends look promising for the can interact through their avatars (Tuft, 2007). future of virtual worlds. Perhaps the most im- Younger generations seem to be leading the way portant is the proposed introduction of numerous in virtual worlds because of their familiarity with new virtual worlds in the upcoming year (Dredge, the Internet. All these new and savvy users will 2007). This will mean increased competition be looking for the best platform that will drive and improved interfaces as companies will be innovation in all virtual worlds. Business and forced to consistently advance and adapt to stay educational applications of virtual worlds will be relevant in the virtual-world market. In the busi- discussed in more depth in following sections. ness world, companies are using virtual worlds While virtual worlds have created many trends for many things. that are positive, there are still many problems that exist. Problems with the capability of the worlds • As a training ground for employees to cut to support the number of users that are visiting costs and improve productivity (Dredge, the sites cause slowdowns and other hindrances 2007) that make it more difficult to use these worlds. • To send mock-ups and drawings to other Other problems also exist, such as the difficulty in offices and companies in other locations making communication between tech-savvy and (“It’s Not All Fun and Games,” 2006) regular people less “geeky,” difficulty in getting • To view proposed marketing and branding around, and “griefers” who cause problems for ideas in a three-dimensional space (Carr, users in the world (Dredge, 2007). It is increas- 2007) ingly difficult to police these sites internally as • To have virtual premieres for clothing, mov- they grow larger and grow in value. A June 2007 ies, television, and so forth (Carr) estimate indicated that the market was already worth more than US$1 billion (Tuft, 2007). Ad- Education has also found a niche in the virtual ditionally, there are safety issues for the population world by utilizing the ability to connect people at large. The government has taken an interest in from across the world and set up areas where dif- whether or not these communities might become

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or already are a breeding and meeting ground for parallel the real world. Companies utilize this terrorists (Nickson, 2008). The answer to these platform to get their name out to new customers current problems will drive future trends in (especially teens) and to reach markets that are virtual worlds and help to shape virtual worlds’ more dependent on computers than on television capabilities and limitations. for entertainment (“It’s Not All Fun and Games,” It is still early in the development of virtual 2006). Companies have also realized that operat- worlds and the technology is still in its relative ing in a virtual world is similar to operating in the infancy. However, many expect it to take shape real world (“Youniversal Branding: Part 1,” 2006). as quickly as the Internet did. Companies such as Creating a store in a virtual world and leaving IBM, Coca-Cola, Toyota, and other heavyweights it has not proven successful, and companies are are putting money into creating better applica- realizing they need to run these stores in similar tions and opportunities within virtual worlds ways to the real world (Carr, 2007). An advantage (LaMonica, 2007). With technology advancing is that the cost of creating campaigns, store space, faster than ever before, and many new virtual and other types of advertising in virtual worlds is worlds on the horizon, the explosion could ar- exceedingly less expensive than in the real world. rive very quickly. Looking at current trends and It also allows service industries such as hotels identifying the problems facing these virtual and architects to show clients or potential clients worlds will help companies and individuals to what structures will look like (Carr). Even though be prepared for what is to come. a company may be reaching only a niche market for now, it is doing so for a much lower cost. Business Applications of Virtual Companies with multiple offices can also cut Worlds costs by displaying real-time information and modeling products in virtual worlds. Meetings can The increasing numbers of users have led to be held online, helping to eliminate travel costs for greater opportunities for businesses in the virtual clients and customers. Being able to post designs world. There are opportunities for companies in a virtual world and allowing clients or other to increase their brand recognition, cut costs in offices to view them can cut down on the costs training and real-time information transfer, and associated with sending items, while allowing for facilitate employee communication. Companies better representations of products (“It’s Not All need to be careful, however, understanding the Fun and Games,” 2006). While the meeting func- landscape and what opportunities are present to tions may not be as advanced as teleconferencing make the leap into virtual worlds profitable. While and its brethren, the ability to display objects in many believe that virtual worlds will become 3-D can be a huge advantage. increasingly business friendly (LaMonica, 2007), Training has become a much bigger part of many still heed caution for businesses ready to the business use of virtual worlds. Any company enter the market (Broersma, 2007). The pitfalls can take advantage of the cheap costs associated range from security issues to investment risks. with virtual worlds and supplement its business Analyzing these pitfalls is imperative before a online. This allows employees to interact with company enters the virtual world. equipment and processes that are costly to provide The most used and obvious business applica- in real life. It also allows employees to see exactly tion of virtual worlds is branding and marketing. how processes work and are created (“It’s Not All Just as in the real world, marketing opportunities Fun and Games,” 2006). Travel costs associated are everywhere in virtual worlds because they with training may also be substantially reduced

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or almost eliminated through the use of virtual Educational Applications worlds. Keeping costs down while providing the best possible training is a definite bonus for Education is one sector that has gotten remarkable companies that maintain a presence in a virtual use out of virtual worlds. Educational institutions world. at all different levels have found the value in utiliz- Most companies face the questions of whether ing the ability to connect people from across the they should enter a virtual world and whether entry world and interact with various resources. The is worth the costs. While the amount of potential advantages and uses that virtual worlds offer to profit from a virtual world is low, the cost of en- educational institutions have only been touched try is almost nonexistent. Gartner predicts that, upon, but have already been used across the world. by 2011, 80% of individual Internet users and Second Life alone has been used by institutions of Fortune 500 companies will be in virtual worlds higher education all across the globe, including (“Gartner says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Penn State, Columbia University, Duke Univer- will have a ‘Second Life,’” 2007). This presents a sity, the University of Sydney, and the University large opportunity for companies looking to enter of Edinburgh, among others (Harris, Lowendahl, now and be forerunners in this technology. There & Zastrocky, 2007). is much speculation that Google’s entry into the Virtual worlds are being used for all differ- virtual world is imminent (Pasick, 2007). Many ent types of educational purposes, not just by believe that Google’s entrance and the combina- elite educational institutions. Some educational tion of a virtual world with its Google Earth institutions have utilized virtual worlds in order function could be a boon to businesses looking to create virtual classrooms. For example, one for more profitability and opportunity in virtual middle school has used Second Life as a venue worlds. Some useful applications in MyWorld to practice foreign language skills by having an (the proposed name of Google’s virtual world) Italian class meet in a virtual café to practice are real-time information on city buildings and ordering from a menu. Simply by using headsets, residents of buildings, among many others. People Second Life enables students to practice their for- also expect the usability of MyWorld to be much eign language skills in a virtual café environment better than that of existing worlds such as Second while, in reality, these students could be on the Life since Google plans to build off of its already other side of the world (Suffern Middle School existing technologies (Smith, 2007). in Second Life, 2008). Another example of us- The business applications of virtual worlds are ing Second Life as a classroom is Harvard Law growing daily and companies need to look at the School, which actually holds all course lectures risk and reward of entering the market. Based on in a virtual classroom in Second Life (Nesson estimates, it appears that sometime in the future, et al., 2006). Other universities such as Emory almost everyone will be involved in virtual worlds, University have also used Second Life to hold and companies need to prepare for that. Judging by conferences (Levine, 2008). the explosion of past technologies, the time when The Otis College of Art and Design features virtual worlds become more profitable could come a class where students actually create art projects sooner than expected. However, companies need in Second Life using the proprietary software to to weigh the cost savings of being present in a generate different art scenes. The class was split virtual world now with the money to be invested into teams who met in Second Life at a scheduled while waiting for a truly integrated and easily time, developed their themes by communicating, navigable virtual world. and then started to build their art projects.

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In addition to classroom uses, a number of The educational sector has found tremendous researchers have used virtual worlds to model uses for virtual worlds today, from hosting classes, human behavior. For example, following the out- conferences, and training programs to using vir- break of a virtual disease in the MMOG World of tual worlds as venues to test economic and human Warcraft, scientists now point to virtual worlds as behavioral models. Educational institutions are environments to carry out experiments on human finding all sorts of uses for virtual worlds that were behavior in epidemic situations. When an outbreak never before possible. The possibilities seem end- occurred in this virtual world, epidemiologists less in an environment that makes communication were surprised by how closely the behavior of broader and more interactive than ever. online avatars paralleled that of humans in real life. Some players altruistically helped infected How to Participate in Virtual Worlds players, while some players, once inflicted, tried to pass the disease on deliberately. Running Getting started is similar in all virtual worlds. Life such a disease simulation in a virtual world may begins with an e-mail address. Users generally use provide insight that is otherwise unavailable. e-mail addresses or other names as user names. Epidemics are usually available for study only Users then enter information and may take steps to after the fact and many simulated scenarios limit customize their avatars, connect with a particular human behavior to a mathematical model or ig- community, or add money to their accounts. Nearly nore it completely (“Virtual Game is a ‘Disease all sites offer basic membership for free, but also Model,’” 2007). offer premium services for a monthly charge, Another educational aspect of educational usually around US$10. The registration process virtual worlds is their similarity to real-world of Second Life serves as a good example because institutions. Second Life’s economy, for example, it is similar to that of other virtual worlds, is very is so large that it can reasonably be compared to user friendly, and is the most popular. that of a small country dependent on tourism. A good place to start is to use a search engine Economists have found that studying the growing to enter the name of the virtual world, in this economies of these virtual worlds can be a useful case, Second Life. Upon arriving at the site, a learning tool and a realistic model of a real-world user is first presented with the option of joining economy (Beller, 2007). a community, such as Ben & Jerry’s, Dublin in In addition to classroom applications and SL, and Scion. This step may be skipped and the behavioral models, virtual worlds have also user may go straight to Linden Lab’s Orientation proven to be useful as training tools. For example, Island. This walks the user through the process Dartmouth College has used Second Life to cre- of picking out a name and entering his or her ate an immersive multiuser environment to train birth date and e-mail address. For those wary of emergency responders. This is a virtual proto- unsolicited spam or simply wishing to maintain typing experiment used for emergency response their total anonymity, the process can be started simulation that is funded by the U.S. Department by creating a false e-mail address for their Second of Homeland Security (Dartmouth College, 2005). Life personality. Another interesting educational use for virtual After this step, the user chooses from among worlds is run by the Institute of Rural Health at 12 default avatars to represent them in virtual Idaho State University, which is using a multiuser space. Next, the user is prompted to enter his or her immersive environment to host virtual tabletop real name. Interestingly, the terms and conditions exercises in bioterrorism and preparedness (Idaho specify that users must agree to provide “true, State University, 2007). accurate, current and complete information,”

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and to maintain and update this information as experiences, improve business processes, drive it changes (“Terms of Service,” 2008). The user collaboration, enrich commerce and transac- must then enter a password. Following these tions, and enable 3-D modeling and simulations steps, the user must then check his or her e-mail so that they can better understand their markets for a link to Second Life, which will be sent after (Parris, 2007). With all of the advantages that the registration is complete. The user must then virtual worlds offer modern companies, it seems install the software, which will download to the advantageous for companies to at least test the Programs folder on the computer and automati- waters. Whether organizations find themselves cally install a Second Life shortcut on the desktop in industries that are using virtual worlds or not, if the user wishes. it is relatively cheap to enter one such as Second After everything downloads, the user is ready Life to explore the possibilities (Abrams). to log in. At this point, the user may make certain Companies that are considering entering vir- modifications, including setting up the VoIP (voice tual worlds must consider how they want to do over Internet protocol) option, and is now free to so. While many companies have unsuccessfully explore Second Life. entered them for advertising purposes (Dredge, 2007), there are other options for using virtual worlds internally that appear to be productive. Conclusion and Future Trends While virtual worlds such as Second Life and There have created a thriving public environ- One thing that is for certain is that virtual worlds ment, there is an increasing demand for that will continue to grow in the future. It appears same type of virtual world on a more secure and that they will multiply at an incredible rate in private level (Fenn, Harmo, Prentice, Raskino, 2008, with many new worlds launching then. & Cearley, 2008). Some companies have found Additionally, users around the world appear to that meetings in Second Life (or their own private be multiplying. Entire markets like China seem virtual worlds) have increased productivity and to be opening up to the idea of virtual worlds saved money (Dredge). Research indicates that (Dredge, 2007). However, while virtual worlds by 2012, 70% of organizations will use private do expect to continue growth in the future, there virtual worlds to support internal collaboration are a few questions surrounding their future. Who and social interaction. Some even expect that, as will be using them? How will they be using them? organizations make the move to private worlds, Which virtual worlds will be the major players their presence in public virtual worlds will de- of the future? cline, decreasing demand for the public worlds Corporate users are expected to grow as more (Fenn et al.). than 80% of the Global 1000 are expected to have Another consideration for the future of virtual a presence in at least one virtual world by the end worlds is who the major players will be. While of 2011 (Abrams, 2007). However, the question to Second Life may have been the first big virtual consider is how corporations will decide to use world, it may not be the leader in the years to virtual worlds in the future. As virtual-world tech- come. In fact, in April 2007, Second Life was not nology progresses and access improves, virtual even listed as a top-10 most popular virtual world, worlds will become an increasingly pervasive part as measured by percentage of traffic or market of the Web. As this advancement continues, the share of visits. One of the reasons for Second Life’s potential for businesses to take advantage of this decline is that newer virtual worlds are coming new marketplace will only grow. Businesses will out that are easier to use and, accordingly, have be able to use virtual worlds to transform customer a larger potential customer base (Kharif, 2007).

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Some of the major virtual worlds that seem to 22, 2008, from http://www.time.com/time/2002/ be taking over, such as Club Penguin, Webkinz, inventions/rob_environment.html and Habbo Hotel, have targeted teenage users 3D avatar chat in virtual worlds. (2008). Moove (Dredge, 2007). Second Life currently offers Online. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http:// a richer creative environment than most other www.moove.com sites, but, if organizations are looking to reach a younger demographic, virtual worlds such as Abrams, C. (2007). Three ways that Second Life There, Kaneva, and Laguna Beach are also op- can add real benefits for Web businesses, despite tions (Abrams, 2007). the negative hype. Gartner Media. Another threat to Second Life and other cur- Bartle, R. (1990). Early MUD history. Retrieved rent virtual worlds will be incoming competition February 13, 2008, from http://www.mud.co.uk/ from already existing technology companies. richard/mudhist.htm Many of these companies are trying to offer a virtual world in combination with their current Becker, D. (2003). “Sims Online” off to a slow services. For example, a company like MySpace start. CNET News.com. Retrieved February 17, may incorporate a virtual world so that its users 2008, from http://www.news.com/Sims-Online- can create avatars and virtual houses instead of off-to-slow-start/2100-1040_3-982673.html standard profiles. Google may be looking to incor- Beller, M. (2007). The coming Second Life busi- porate a virtual world with functions like Google ness cycle. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from Earth, building a virtual world based on a real http://www.mises.org/story/2640 one. A startup company, Weblo, has already been successful with a similar project (Kharif, 2007). Broersma, M. (2007). Virtual worlds pose business Big names like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! risk says Gartner. TechWorld. Retrieved February may be looking to get a piece of the virtual-world 12, 2008, from http://www.techworld.com/secu- pie, and it seems likely that they will take these rity/news/index.cfm?newsID=9765&pagtype=sa virtual worlds to a whole new level. mechan%20-%2056k%20%E2%80%93 Overall, virtual worlds are a new phenomenon Carr, D. F. (2007). Second Life: Is business ready that will only continue to spread across the globe. for virtual worlds? Baseline Magazine. Retrieved As new users continue to enter these worlds and February 11, 2008, from http://www.baselinemag. new applications are developed, it seems impos- com/c/a/Projects-Management/Second-Life-Is- sible to predict the potential impact that virtual Business-Ready-For-Virtual-Worlds/1 worlds will have on businesses, consumers, and industry in the future. It appears that we are only Cavalli, E. (2008). Second Life bans traditional scraping the surface at this point and that improved banking. Wired Blog Network. Retrieved February technology in the future is likely to create virtual 12, 2008, from http://blog.wired.com worlds that will, in one way or another, become a part of everyday life. Colley, S. (2008). Stories from the maze war 30 year retrospective: Steve Colley’s story of the original maze. Digibarn Computer Museum. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http://www. References digibarn.com/history/04-VCF7-MazeWar/sto- ries/colley.html 2002 best inventions, robots & tech, 3-D online environment. (2002). Time. Retrieved February Craig, K. (2006). Second Life land deal goes sour. Wired News. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from http://www.wired.com

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Dartmouth College. (2005). Synthetic environ- Idaho State University. (2007). Training in a large ments for emergency response simulation. Re- scale massive virtual environment. Retrieved trieved February 20, 2008, from http://www.ists. February 20, 2008, from http://www.isu.edu/irh/ dartmouth.edu/projects/seers/misc.php IBAPP/simulations.shtml Dredge, S. (2007). 20 trends defining virtual It’s not all fun and games. (2006). Business Week. worlds in 2007. Tech Digest. Retrieved February Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http://www. 22, 2008, from http://techdigest.tv/2007/10/20_ businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/ trends_defin.html b3982007.htm Dubner, S. J. (2007). Philip Rosedale answers Jana, R., & McConnon, A. (2007). Digital subur- your Second Life questions. New York Times: bia: Kaneva aims to bring social networking to a Freakonomics Blog. Retrieved March 10, relatively cautious, upscale crowd. BusinessWeek. 2008, from http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from http://www. com/2007/12/13/philip-rosedale-answers-your- businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/ second-life-questions/?scp=1-b&sq=Philip+Ro tc20070416 _936979.htm sedale+answers+your+Second+Life+questions Kharif, O. (2007). Virtual world gold rush? Busi- &st=nyt ness Week. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from Farmer, F. R. (2008). Social dimensions of habi- http://www.businessweek.com/technology/con- tat citizenry. Electric Communities. Retrieved tent/may2007/tc20070522 _380944.htm February 12, 2008, from http://www.crockford. LaMonica, M. (2007). Wanted: Applications for com/ec/citizenry.html virtual worlds. CNET News.com. Retrieved Febru- Fenn, J., Harmo, T., Prentice, S., Raskino, M., & ary 12, 2008, from http://www.news.com/8301- Cearley, D. (2008). Predicts 2008: Emerging trends 10784_3-9730918-7.html expand collaboration and human performance. Levine, A. (2008). NMC teachers buzz: Check out Gartner Media. student art projects at Otis Island. NMC Campus Gartner says 80 percent of active Internet users Observer. Retrieved February 18, 2008, from will have a “Second Life” in the virtual world by http://sl.nmc.org/2008/02/17/otis-student-art the end of 2011. (2007). Gartner Media. Retrieved MacMillan, D. (2007). Virtual world rich list. February 12, 2008, from http://www.gartner. Business Week. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from com/it/page.jsp?id=503861 http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/04/0416_ Harris, M., Lowendahl, J. M., & Zastrocky, M. richlist/index_01.htm?chan =technology_ (2007). Second Life: Expanding higher education special+report+--+virtual+life_virtual+life e-learning into 3D. Gartner Media. Retrieved Moove. (2008). Virtual Worlds Review. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://www.gartner. February 12, 2008, from http://www.virtualworld- com/resources/149800/149847/second_life_ex- sreview.com/moove panding_higher_149847.pdf Nesson, C., Nesson, R., & Koo, G. (2006). History timeline. (2008). There.com. Retrieved CyberOne: Law in the court of public opinion. February 12, 2008, from http://therehistory.wet- Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://blogs. paint.com/page/00+Early+History law.harvard.edu/cyberone Home of the 3D chat, virtual worlds building plat- Nguyen, B. (2008). Linux dictionary. Matisse/ form. (2008). Active Worlds. Retrieved February Linux Dictionary V. 0.16. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http://www.activeworlds.com

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12, 2008, from http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux- http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/ar- Dictionary/html/index.html chives/2007/09/googles_virtual.html Nickson, C. (2008). Terrorists using virtual Suffern Middle School in Second Life. (2008). worlds to plan? Digital Trends. Retrieved Feb- Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://rama- ruary 17, 2008, from http://news.digitaltrends. poislands.edublogs.org com/news/story/15686/terrorists_ using_vir- SW City Builders Academy. (2008). Retrieved tual_worlds_to_plan February 12, 2008, from http://www.swcity. Parris, C. (2007). Do better business in 3D. net/academy/index.php Business Week Online. Retrieved February 22, Terdiman, D. (2005). Second Life teaches life 2008, from http://www.businessweek.com/tech- lessons. Wired News. nology/content/may2007/tc20070501 _526224. htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technol- Terdiman, D. (2006). Newsmaker: A brief history ogy of the virtual world. Interview of Bruce Damer. CNET News.com. Retrieved February 12, 2008, Pasick, A. (2007). Doors open on Google virtual from http://business2-cnet.com.com/A-brief-his- world(s)? Reuters Online. Retrieved February tory-of-the-virtual-world/2008-1043_3-6134110. 18, 2008, from http://blogs.reuters.com/media- html file/2007/10/24/doors-to-open-on-google-virtual- worlds Terdiman, D. (2007). The future is here: Google Earth meets virtual worlds. CNET News.com. Patrizio, A. (2001). Gamers jump on online Retrieved February 14, 2008, from http://www. bandwagon. Wired. Retrieved February 22, 2008, news.com/8301-13772_3-9793643-52.html from http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/ news/2001/10/47181 Terdiman, D. (2008). “Hello Kitty” MMO goes into beta. CNET News.com. Retrieved February Ratan, S. (2003). Sims flop dogs game develop- 12, 2008, from http://www.news.com/8301- ers. Wired. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from 13772_3-9871891-52.html http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/ multimedia/2003/05/58749 Terms of service. (2008). Second Life. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from http://secondlife.com/ Reuters, A. (2007). Gartner says Second Life hype corporate/tos.php near peak. Reuters Second Life News Center. Re- trieved February 22, 2008, from http://secondlife. Top 10 most popular MMO games. (2007). Video- reuters.com/stories/2007/01/04/gartner-says-sec- gamesblogger. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from ond-life-hype-near-peak http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2007/06/14/ top-10-most-popular-mmo-games-list.htm Siklos, R. (2006). A virtual world, but real money. New York Times. Retrieved February 22, Tuft, M. (2007). Virtual world, real millions. BBC 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/ News. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http:// technology/19virtual.html? ex=1318910400&en news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6708417.stm =75ee308b86b461aa&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt Virtual game is a “disease model.” (2007). BBC &emc=rss News. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http:// Smith, T. (2007). Google’s virtual world could news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6951918.stm be business answer to Second Life. Informa- tion Week. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from

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VZones Website. (2008). Retrieved February 12, Robbins, S., & Bell, M. (2008). Second Life for 2008, from http://www.vzones.com/about.htm. dummies. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. Ward, M. (2007). A very real future for vir- tual worlds. BBC News. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technol- ogy/7144511.stm Social Networks What is there? Makena Technologies, Inc. (2008). Kim Baker, Iryna Butler There.com. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://www.there.com History of Social Networking Woodcock, B. (2008). MMOG chart post by SirBruce. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from Electronic social networks have become a part of http://www.mmogchart.com everyday life. Online communities help millions of people instantly connect with former classmates, Youniversal branding: Part 1. (2006). Trend- communicate, find friends or people with the watching.com. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from same interests, exchange information, establish http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/youniver- business networks, and even share views. Social salbranding.htm networking has integrated with day-to-day activi- ties to the point that we now live in a real-time global society. Additional Resources The first online social network, SixDegrees. com, was established in1997 (Boyd & Ellison, Cheng, J. (2007). Google testing “My World” 2007). This Web site combined the ability to for launch later this year. Retrieved February create a profile, send an instant message, and 22, 2008, from http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/ create a circle of friends on one Web site. The post/20070924-google-testing-my-world-for- concept that all things are within “six degrees launch-later-this-year.html of separation” was behind this innovative idea. The site attracted many users. A number of sites Donath, J. (2008). Giving avatars emote control. similar to SixDegrees.com were introduced to the Harvard Business Review, 86(2), 31. public in the late 1990s to early 2000s, including Graves, L. (2008). A second life for higher ed. LiveJournal, Asian Avenue, BlackPlanet, and U.S. News & World Report, 144(2), 49-50. LunaStorm. Most of these Web sites targeted certain demographic groups. Levine, A. (2006). Our movie “NMC Campus: MySpace was launched in 2003 by the com- Seriously Engaging.” NMC Campus Observer. pany eUniverse. Its user base grew exponentially Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://sl.nmc. within just a couple of years, transforming the Web org/2006/06/12/seriously-engaging-movie site into the most popular online social networking Muve Forward. (2007). Educationally relevant community in the United States. Most teenagers virtual trends for 2008. Retrieved February opened profiles on MySpace because of the site’s 22, 2008, from http://muveforward.blogspot. lenient age policy. By 2006, MySpace had more com/2007/12/educationally-relevant-virtual- than 20 million users. It was acquired by News world.html Corporation for US$580 million in July of 2005 (Rosebush, 2005).

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Facebook, another popular social networking Facebook became part of OpenSocial a few Web site, was founded by a former Harvard student months prior to MySpace. You can now mash who used it as a tool to reconnect with former Facebook with other applications. As a result of classmates. It was launched in February of 2004 launching a developer platform, the Web site drew (Yadav, 2006). Soon Facebook became a popular many new users. Facebook recently introduced a social network for college students in the United Spanish version of its site. The new user-friendly States. Initially, to join the network, a person was Extended Profile application allows members to required to have an active college e-mail address. clean up their cluttered pages and move seldom- In 2006, the network extended to high school stu- used profiles and applications to the extended dents and some larger companies. Now, anyone profile. age 13 or older can join the network. LinkedIn is used by professionals across vari- LinkedIn is a professionally oriented social ous industries. It enables professionals to network, networking site. It was founded in 2003 by Reid stay connected, and tap into one another’s list of Hoffman and Konstantin Guericke. The site ap- contacts. The site takes advantage of word-of- plied the concept of social networking, initially mouth and personal references to foster career used primarily by youths in a casual context, and growth and enables users to stay in touch with made it relevant to adults seeking career growth. other professionals that they may have worked LinkedIn tries to help people connect with others with in the past. The site is more than a job search who might help their careers (“How LinkedIn Web site like Monster.com (“How LinkedIn Broke Broke Through,” 2006). Through,” 2006). Rather than focusing on indi- Other popular social networking sites include vidual jobs, it focuses on people. The site does, Furl, Spurl.net, Shadows, Scuttle, Yahoo! My Web however, provide expanded tools for job hunters 2.0, Ma.gnolia, Digg, StumbleUpon, and reddit. and employment recruiters for a fee (Fitzgerald, 2007). LinkedIn has recently begun adding more Current Trends features to enable users to customize their profiles with a personal touch. In 2007, LinkedIn doubled Recently, MySpace went international and its membership from 9 to 18 million users and launched its Web sites in Europe, Asia Pacific, and continues to add 25 new members every minute South America. Last year, the Web site added the (Dye, 2007). ImageShack application, which simplified the way videos are compressed and uploaded. MySpace Business Applications also elected to become part of OpenSocial, a network that enables third-party programmers to As previously stated, MySpace is a member of build platforms to take advantage of the Web site’s OpenSocial. By integrating new applications into user base. The site is now in the process of adding MySpace, businesses will gain instant exposure new products to its portfolio to make users’ com- to million of customers (Olsen, 2008). If the munication more dynamic. Photobucket is going application becomes popular, the programmer to be integrated with the MySpace platform at the or business can sell advertisements and collect beginning of 2008 (“Photobucket to Launch New profits. For example, MySpace will let developers Applications on MySpace,” 2008). With the help sell advertisements, products, and sponsorships of Photobucket, users will be able to change their on the specially assigned pages and collect 100% photo images and customize and personalize their of the revenue generated from the ads. digital identity more easily than before. Since Facebook became open, more than 168,000 developers joined its platform to evaluate

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and create new applications. Such applications as and MySpace members are either high school or Top Friends, Fun Wall, Super Wall, and others college students. Students currently use technol- became widely used on the Web site, generating ogy to create and customize their profile pages, profits for the creators. For example, Top Friends, identify new trends, and apply existing knowl- used by over 2 million members, is currently edge. The main purpose of social networking is valued at over US$29 million. Companies like communication and collaboration. Students are iLike.com, a music-sharing start-up, and Slide. socially engaged through virtual communities and com, a photo-sharing service, helped Facebook learn how to build social networks. Students are attract more users and market their services at also able to access, convert, and retrieve digital the same time. data, helping them learn to organize and evaluate Facebook also allows businesses to create information. profiles. In addition, third parties can now sell Facebook developers are now developing advertisements directly on the Facebook member’s educational applications for Facebook. In the fall page using “hypertargeting.” This system analyzes of 2007, Stanford’s computer science department users’ tastes and preferences and automatically introduced a new course called Create Engaging advertises products that might be interesting to Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on the user. By attaching advertisements to news feed Facebook (Eldon, 2007). In this course, students stories and social ads, businesses can promote develop new applications for Facebook and ana- their services (Morin, 2007). Companies can lyze how such applications are used by users. also run surveys targeting specific demographics, LinkedIn offers academic institutions a way which is very helpful when conducting market- to stay connected with alumni, build recruitment ing research. efforts, and increase marketing profiles. College Many employers use social networking sites students may be encouraged by the career services such as Facebook and MySpace to research poten- center to use the tool to build networks for their tial candidates. Likewise, some interviewees are careers and learn from people in various fields researching employers and interviewers, which about areas of interest to help guide them in their creates some controversy but is becoming a tactic professional job search. with widening popularity. LinkedIn’s user base has grown considerably. How to Use Social Networking The company expects 2008 revenue from its fee-based subscriptions and advertising to reach Anyone 14 years or older can become a member between US$50 million and US$100 million. The of MySpace. By providing general information, more users are on the site, the more useful it is age, name, and a valid e-mail address, one can to its members as networks deepen and extend create his or her own MySpace account. MySpace farther. The site has been continuing to grow in members can customize their profiles, upload pic- popularity and new features have been added to tures, write blogs and comments, send e-mails and enrich the experience (Ricadela, 2007). instant messages, download music, and interact with friends and acquaintances. As a member you Educational Applications can also invite friends to join the network, view profiles of your friends, and much more. Many From the standpoint of education, both Facebook users have public pages, but you can also make and MySpace help students to create and inno- your page private. The service is free. vate. Even though Facebook opened its network Facebook enables anyone 13 years or older to to virtually anyone, the majority of Facebook open an account. Similar to MySpace, Facebook

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members provide information about themselves will be instrumental in keeping networks alive. prior to joining the Web site. Currently, users can Professional associations, boards of directors, store up to 1 GB of information for free. Some and other advisory committees may be sourced Facebook applications are targeted for specific age more heavily from social networking sites, and groups. For example, calendar applications can be headhunters and recruiters are likely to rely on used to organize everyday activities. With the help sites such as LinkedIn more to source job can- of the Courses application, users can create study didates. groups by knowing who is signed up for a specific academic course. The Skype application allows phoning service for free over the Internet. References LinkedIn membership is free for professionals. Registration is easy and takes just a few minutes. Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Once members, users can personalize their set- network sites: Definition, history and scholarship. tings to facilitate different kinds of exchange with Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, other users such as those regarding job referrals, 13(1), article 11. Retrieved from http://jcmc.indi- questions about their place of employment, or ana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html industry experience. The site is professionally Dye, J. (2007). LinkedIn Corporation. EContent, based, and the information posted is career focused 30(10), 42-43. in nature. This is the primary difference between LinkedIn and other social networking sites. Re- Eldon, E. (2007). Facebook to take over Stanford sumes can be uploaded and users create a network classroom. Retrieved February 19, 2008, from with other members to build their reach into the http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/10/facebook-to- corporate world. Members are invited to join take-over-stanford-classroom other members’ lists of contacts, and may accept Fitzgerald, M. (2007). Let’s get together making or decline. The site offers job search information contacts with social nets. Inc., 29(8), 54-55. and enables people to stay connected. How LinkedIn broke through. (2006, April, 10). Conclusion and Future Trends BusinessWeek Online, p. 12. Retrieved February 19, 2008, from http://www.businessweek.com/ With a huge variety of online communities and technology/content/apr2006/tc20060410_185842. the rise of Second Life as a virtual alternative to htm?chan=search social networking, it is difficult to predict how Morin, D. (2007). Introducing Facebook ads. Re- the world of social networking will unfold. There trieved February 19, 2008, from http://developers. will likely be more collaboration and integration facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=52 of various applications within communities and Web sites. In the future, Web sites like MySpace Olsen, S. (2008). MySpace gets social with devel- and Facebook may become wholesale retailers of opers. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http:// various applications and features, providing users www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9865741-7.html with multiple options with just a single click. Photobucket to launch new applications on Sites geared toward professionals and career MySpace. (2008). Business Wire. Retrieved networking are also likely to grow in popularity. February 19, 2008, from http://www.forbes.com/ As people continue to work at more corporations businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2008/02/07/ throughout their lifetime, sites such as LinkedIn businesswire20080207006073r1.html

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Ricadela, A. (2007). LinkedIn reaches out. Busi- Social Networks: BOOKMARKS nessWeek Online, 20. Rosebush, S. (2005). MySpace growing even faster History of since acquisition. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/ Social bookmarking is an easy way to tag, orga- dealflow/archives/2005/11/myspace_growing. nize, and manage electronic information with the html help of metadata (keywords). Bookmarks provide an alternative way of searching the Web based on Yadav, S. (2006). Facebook: The complete biog- popularity rather than algorithm-based systems raphy. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http:// such as Google. Sites of interest are bookmarked, mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile which is the equivalent of adding it to a favorites list that is organized by category. Once a book- mark is created, it is tagged with descriptions and keywords for future retrieval and can be shared Additional Recourses with friends or other members of the network interested in the topic. Abba, J. (2007). I’m on LinkedIn: Now what??? A ITList was a pioneer in electronic bookmark- guide to getting the most out of LinkedIn. Silicon ing. Launched in 1996, it rapidly became popular Valley, CA: ebook. among users, who could store and share a collec- Allen, S. (2008). LinkedIn for dummies. India- tion of favorite Web sites and selected information napolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the assigned folders. Bookmarking Web sites like Backflip, Blink, and Clip2 appeared over the Facebook. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www. next couple of years but did not attract enough facebook.com users to continue to compete. Facebook factsheet. (n.d.). Retrieved from In 2003, the social bookmarking phenomenon http://richmond.facebook.com/press/info. was introduced to the mainstream public by php?factsheet del.icio.us, an open-ended system where users choose what information to save. With the help MySpace. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www. of tags, members of del.icio.us could assign a myspace.com name to a bookmark, store it, create categories, Social Networking Developers. (n.d.). Retrieved and share information with other users. Like prior from http://developers.facebook.com/get_started. bookmarking programs, del.icio.us is free. The php bookmarks can be instantly accessed anywhere in the world by accessing the Internet. Tylock, J. (2007). LinkedIn personal trainer. In 2005, Yahoo! acquired del.icio.us for ap- Tylock and Company. proximately US$30 million (Norton, 2006). While Veer, E. A. Vander, & Veer, E. Vander. (2008). del.icio.us is arguably the most popular, other Facebook: The missing manual. Pogue Press. widely used social bookmarking sites include Furl, Spurl.net, Yahoo! My Web 2.0, Ma.gnolia, Digg, StumbleUpon, and reddit.

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Current Trends Marketers can also bookmark their company’s Web site to create interest in and awareness of their Originally created to help users organize informa- products and services. Bookmarking a corporate tion on the Web, social bookmarks have recently Web site and tagging it with keywords enables the been integrated with social networking sites such site to be more easily found by others interested as Facebook, enabling multiple Web sites to be in the category. easily accessible from one place and shared with Sites such as YouTube also have links where friends. When researching a specific topic, Word video clips can be automatically added to vari- and Excel files can be uploaded to del.icio.us and ous bookmarking sites to foster viral marketing. tagged accordingly to keep information centrally As new media outlets continue to appear on the located and not tied to a hard drive or personal Web, bookmarking will continue to become a server. By creating a shortcut on a computer more popular feature. desktop, individuals can also view all the saved bookmarks through a browser. Bookmarks can be Educational Applications made public, semiprivate (allowing access only to specific users), or completely private. The del. Students typically work on several computers icio.us homepage also provides members with a to conduct their research including in libraries, list of the most popular and recently posted items. homes, dorms, classrooms, and so forth. With These additional features make del.icio.us more the help of del.icio.us, students can tag and save attractive for users and businesses. information to easily retrieve it from any location. Groups can be formed for classes and information Business Applications can be saved in a single location for both professors and students to access. Both the professor and the Businesses can use del.icio.us by creating an students can enrich the collected information by account with shared information on particular posting updated research findings in one place. topics. If a team is working on a project involving research, each team member can bookmark pages How to set up a Del.icio.us Account that he or she finds interesting and the entire team can access them. Users can also collect publicly Del.icio.us is very user friendly. To set up an available information on their competitors by account with del.icio.us, follow these simple tagging articles in del.icio.us. steps: Del.icio.us is highly beneficial to online pub- lications, journalists, and media professionals 1. Go to http://www.del.icio.us and click “Get who access and source from popular information. started.” Because this group of professionals deals with an 2. Create a user name and password. overwhelming amount of information on a regular 3. Del.icio.us requires e-mail verification: basis, social bookmarks can organize articles and You will be notified via e-mail to confirm press releases in a preferred order with just a few registration. clicks (Angelotti, 2008). For example, in August 4. A customized Web page, for example, http:// 2007, the BBC News Web site started tagging del.icio.us/student, will be automatically its news links and sports overviews using del. created in your account. icio.us. 5. To post a link, click the “post” link on your del.icio.us page, tag it, and save it.

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Conclusion and Future Trends Additional Resources

Social bookmarking organizes and customizes Social Bookmarking Creation Tools information on the Web. It has been success- fully integrated with numerous businesses and del.icio.us: http://www.del.icio.us scholastic applications. Some consider social Digg: http://digg.com bookmarking the next stage in Web searches (“Top 10 Ways to Use del.icio.us,” 2008). With Furl: http://www.furl.net so much information available on the Web, social Ma.gnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com bookmarks create a meaningful way to both locate information and share it with others. In the near reddit: http://reddit.com future, social bookmarking sites are likely to offer Spurl.net: http://www.spurl.net more personalized and customizable features and become more heavily integrated with electronic StumbleUpon: http://stumbleupon.com devices and other technology applications (Mac- Manus, 2007). Yahoo! My Web 2.0: http://myweb2.search.yahoo. com

References Social Networks: Tagging About del.icio.us. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://del.icio.us/about History of Tagging Angelotti, E. (2008). Del.icio.us/pointer. Re- trieved February 20, 2008, from http://www. Tagging evolved as a method of organizing the vast poynter.org/column.asp?id=122 quantity of information on the Web. Its origins are highly interrelated with social bookmarking and MacManus, R. (2007). 10 more future Web trends. collaborative Web sites. Tagging uses keywords Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://www. to categorize information. Blog posts, Web sites, readwriteweb.com/archives/10_more_future_ articles, and photographs are given keywords, web_trends.php which are assigned by the users themselves rather Norton, Q. (2006). I want to build something than through a hierarchical system. This enables that grows. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from users to retrieve information more easily and http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jan/26/ share information with other users interested in newmedia.technology1 the same category. Sites such as Flickr and del. icio.us were among the first to popularize this Top 10 ways to use del.icio.us. (n.d.). Retrieved feature (Gordon-Murnane, 2006). February 20, 2008, from http://www.lifehack. org/articles/technology/top-10-ways-to-use-deli- Current Trends cious.html Over the last several years, tagging has become a critical component in collaborative Web 2.0 applications, and its usage spans widely across the Internet. Bookmarking sites, which are gain-

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ing in popularity, and tagging go hand in hand the information. This helps users easily find the (Conley, 2005). As online media has become more information at a later date and enables others prevalent, sites such as Technorati have come interested in that category to find it with keyword to rely on tags to filter the information (Roush, searches. Any number of tags can be used on a 2005). Debates about the quality of the tags have single image or piece of information. Users can increased as their use has grown. However, many use their discretion about what keywords to list agree that tags provide a critical step in organiz- as their tags. There are no official guidelines on ing the information on the Web that mirrors the what is appropriate. Tags on information posted on rapid changes in content that is available (Ojala, many Web sites can also be updated to maintain 2007). relevancy (Roush, 2005).

Business Applications Conclusion and Future Trends

A business with an online presence can benefit Tagging is an extremely useful method of organiz- from tags to help drive awareness and interest ing various forms of information. It is expected within its category by directing those interested that new applications for the technology will be in its product or service toward its URL (uni- developed as the information age continues to form resource locator). Tags can also facilitate drive the need for users to filter the noise. Tag- e-commerce by directing people interested in ging might be applied within the workplace to the keyword categories to the right place (Koep- increase productivity and efficiency. For example, pel, 2007). tags may be applied to e-mail messages to en- Social networking sites, bookmarking sites, able easy retrieval. Advertisers will also likely and online media sites use tags to manage the vast use tagging to specifically direct their messages quantity of information within their platforms and to target audiences with a high interest in their connect people with common interests. Tags are products or services. Tagging is a broadly appli- invaluable and inextricably linked to prevailing cable technology that will continue to be utilized Web 2.0 technologies. more as a larger volume of information is shared and referenced. Educational Applications

Because tags organize large quantities of informa- References tion, academic institutions can apply the technol- ogy to their services. Libraries can tag information Conley, L. (2005). Web graffiti2 . Fast Company, for easy retrieval and, as mentioned previously, 100. classes can use tags to facilitate exchange and class Gordon-Murnane, L. (2006). Social bookmark- discussion on bookmarking sites such as del.icio. ing, , and Web 2.0 tools. Searcher, us by tagging content and information. 14(6), 26-38.

How to Create Tags Koeppel, P. (2007). Technically speaking. Retail Merchandiser, 47(6), 30-31. Social bookmarking, social networking, and Ojala, M (2007). Web 2.0 and value-added index- photo-sharing sites prompt users to tag the images ing. Online, 3, 31. or content that they have uploaded or linked. The Roush, W. (2005). Tagging is it. Technology keywords should be simple phrases that describe Review, 108(6), 21-22.

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Additional Resources Business Applications

125 social bookmarking sites: Importance of user Photo sharing is a way for people to visually stay generated tags, vites, and links. (n.d.). Retrieved connected and learn from one another. While from http://www.searchenginejournal.com/125- initially a consumer technology, there are several social-bookmarking-sites-importance-of-user- applications and benefits within an enterprise. generated-tags-votes-and-links/6066 In a business setting, photo sharing is a useful tool for sharing information and learning from Smith, G. (2008). Tagging: People powered meta- external sources. Photo sharing can also help to data for the social Web. New Riders Press. develop relationships within the workplace, which is particularly important as businesses become more global and employees are scattered around Social Networks: Photo various offices with few ways to feel connected. Sharing Photo sharing can be limited to private commu- nities, so employees can post photographs from History of Photo Sharing local events to share with colleagues firm-wide and facilitate exchange without broadcasting The first photo-sharing sites originated during the images publicly. Posting images also of- the mid to late 1990s, primarily from online fers glimpses of personality and coworkers can services that offered finished prints from digital learn about each other in ways they might not photographs. Services have evolved to include otherwise be able to within the confines of their more advanced features like photo editing, pur- cubicle walls. Photo sharing can be a useful tool chasing image-based products, public and private for collaboration, communication, and cultural file sharing, and community-oriented Web sites initiatives, especially in large organizations. In with broad networking opportunities. Some ser- addition, photo-sharing Web sites can also be help- vices are subscription based and some are free ful research tools because images can be sorted (Beardi, 2000). based on various geographies and categories. For Flickr, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005 example, a professional could learn about a new for US$35 million, is one of the most popular venue for meetings by surfing images posted by photo-sharing Web sites. The company was other participants without actually visiting the founded in 2002 by two entrepreneurs attempt- locations. These images could be shared with ing to build Game Neverending, a game based other decision makers within the firm to help on social interactions. In 2003, struggling as discussion. a start-up to raise money and stay in business, From a technical point of view, there are also the team decided to turn the original site into a benefits to using photo-sharing sites such as photo-sharing portal by revamping the gaming Flickr within an enterprise. Many corporations interface to incorporate photos. Today, Flickr is house headshots and other photographic records considered one of the best photo-sharing sites on that take up server space. Rather than maintain- the Web (Fitzgerald, 2006). ing photo files on company servers, they can be Flickr is an international site that is available in posted to photo-sharing sites to free up bandwidth eight languages, so photos can be shared globally. and also provide a common place for retrieval Every hour, upward of 4,000 photos are added to that is easy to access for employees within the the site, creating an incredible wealth of visual organization. information and connectivity.

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Educational Applications 1. E-mail photos from a mobile phone. 2. Upload directly to the Flickr Web site. Learning institutions can use photo-sharing Web 3. Export large volumes of photos from pro- sites to share visual knowledge about cities of grams such as iPhoto. interest, news, events, people, and organizations 4. Use a dedicated program called Flickr Up- (Sinclair, 2006). Photographs facilitate learning loadr. and, in today’s changing society where youth 5. Link from third-party programs, such as may learn best through active engagement, photo Shutterfly and Snapfish. sharing can be an instrumental tool in bringing information to life and drawing students into the The site offers various features that facilitate subject at hand. Educators, teachers, and students community. There are groups that can be joined can share information with each other and with based on common interests. The site includes other schools across the globe by posting photo- a blog with photography-related news, such as graphs and sharing experiences. Researchers at Polaroid’s recent decision to stop producing instant the University of Washington have even tapped film. Your account can be customized to create into Flickr to create three-dimensional models of a personality profile, and you can create a buddy famous landmarks (Greene, 2007). list to instantly be connected to photographs from Libraries are becoming increasing supporters friends and family. Products and reprints can also of photo-sharing sites such as Flickr that enable be ordered using posted images. users to share knowledge and experience with Once photos are posted, they can be organized one another. By tagging photos accurately, the into various libraries and tagged with keywords to images can be catalogued for users to make ac- help make them easier to locate. Tags are keywords cessing information simple. Recently, the Library that help organize and identify photos of interest. of Congress decided to share archived images on Descriptions of the photos can be added to provide the site (Gordon & Stephens, 2006). context to the image for others that view the images. The site provides specific guidelines and photos How to Share Photos can only be posted for personal use. Any commer- cial-based photos result in account termination. If you already have a Yahoo! account, you will just The site is facilitated by tagging photos. These need to create a Flickr user name and password. keywords help organize and identify photos of If you are not yet registered with Yahoo!, you interest. must set up an account, which is free of charge and requires some basic registration information. Conclusion and Future Trends This service provides 100 MB of photo storage monthly. If you need additional space, you can Peer-to-peer photo sharing has taken basic photo upgrade to a paid subscription that costs approxi- storage and finishing to an interactive level that mately US$24.95 per year. facilitates learning and social interaction. Future You can participate in Flickr in a number of programs will likely have additional features ways. Photos can be private or shared publicly that make the experience richer, more engaging, with the broad Flickr user base. It is easy and and more collaborative. Features such as photo fast to upload photos, and it can be done in nu- retouching or playful Photoshop elements might merous ways. be added to the functionality. Users may be able to add more in-depth stories to their photos to help bring them to life with words. Schools, busi-

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nesses, and institutions are likely to continue to dotPhoto: http://www.dotphoto.com use photo-sharing sites to build relationships and faces.com: http://www.faces.com share information. Fotki: http://www.fotki.com MyPhotoAlbum: http://www.myphotoalbum. References com Beardi, C. (2000). Photo sites bulk up amid surge Pixagogo: http://www.pixagogo.com in interest. Advertising Age, 71(8), 40-50. SmugMug: http://www.smugmug.com Fitzgerald, M. (2006). How we did it. Inc., 28(12), TopTenREVIEWS: http://photo-sharing-services- 116-118. review.toptenreviews.com Gordon, R. S., & Stephens, M. (2006). Priceless Webshots: http://www.webshots.com images: Getting started with Flickr. Computers in Libraries, 26(10), 44-45. Zoto: http://www.zoto.com Greene, J. (2007). Building a 3D world one snap- shot at a time. BusinessWeek, 4060, 74. Sinclair, M. (2006). What is Flickr? Creative Social Networks: Mashups Review, 26(6), 39-41. Tim Davis

History of Mashups Additional Resources Mashups came into prominence with the advent Bausch, P., & Bumgardner, J. (2006). Flickr of Web 2.0 and the increasing collaboration on hacks: Tips and tools for sharing photos online. the Internet. Mashups are essentially a content ag- O’Reilly Media, Inc. gregation technology that combines and draws on the functionality of diverse applications into one Giles, R. (2006). How to use Flickr: The digital integrated tool that is browser compatible. Typi- photography revolution. Course Technology cally, mashups rely on information from public PTR. Web sites as well as private applications. Howard, D. M. (2003). Sharing digital photos: Mashups began with programmers using The future of memories. Redmond, WA: Micro- a technique called “screen scraping,” where a soft Press. computer program parses the program from an application or a Web site and tries to discover the King, J. A. (2007). Digital photo projects for dum- advanced programming interface (API), which is mies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing Inc. the interface that programmers use to modify an Story, D. (2007). Great Flickr add-ons. Macworld, application. This was a tedious and often ineffec- 24(11), 80-81. tive process, yet it was the only way that program- mers could create mashups since no companies Wilkinson, D. (2007). Flickr mashups (program- had their APIs open for programmers to tinker mer to programmer). Indianapolis, IN: Wiley with. Google was one of the first big companies to Publishing, Inc. open its API when it opened Google Maps. This

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was a momentous occasion for mashups since the utilized at the moment than business-to-consumer programmers finally had access to the API. Prior and consumer-to-consumer mashups, business- to this, many programmers did not want to take to-business mashups will increasingly be used to the time to attempt screen scraping, so they did allow businesses to compare products and have a not create mashups. Other mapping applications, more interactive experience, much like businesses such as MapQuest, followed suit and opened up provide the service to their customers. Enterprise their APIs as well (Fagan, 2007). use of mashups will increase significantly as some Currently, mashups have entered into a new of the enterprise mashups mature and companies era of use for nonprogrammers with the advent of get a better idea of how they can leverage the technology such as Microsoft Popfly and Yahoo! technology to meet their needs. Pipes, which allow nonprogrammers to create mashups (Fagan, 2007). Before these, mashups Business Applications were largely the domain of programmers who knew enough about the code of the applications Both businesses and government agencies have to be able to write the transition codes to create been utilizing mashups as a way to integrate the mashups. diverse applications into a single collaborative, user-friendly application. Mashups can be cre- Current Trends ated for nearly anything by combining two or more existing applications, so businesses have a Mashups were at the peak of inflated expectations wide variety of possibilities in utilizing mashups in the Gartner “Hype Cycle for E-Commerce” in (Brodkin, 2007). A few of the examples below 2007, which means that they are likely in the trough demonstrate innovative ways that companies have of disillusionment right now. Yet, Gartner places been using mashups. mashups as a technology that will be adopted in Government agencies are increasingly using the mainstream in less than 2 years. It is listed as mashups as they learn to harness the mass col- a technology with a high benefit in a short time laboration that Web 2.0 offers. For example, the frame, making it ideally suited for tactical uses Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created by businesses to solve discrete problems. It does a mashup known as the Environmental Land-Use not have the same strategic benefit as some of the Control Web Ring. The EPA uses the mashup to transformational technologies, but it certainly can track contaminated sites by combining various solve any number of tactical problems. state and federal environmental databases that Although mashups began primarily as a con- track contaminated sites. Also, the military is sumer tool in mashing various applications at a using a business intelligence mashup to track user’s whim, especially with the advent of Micro- defective Humvee batteries that might cause the soft Popfly and Yahoo! Pipes, the current trend is vehicle to explode. Once a defective battery is shifting toward enterprise and commercial use of found, all of the contracts and orders are consoli- the mashups. Businesses are adopting mashups to dated so that all of the Humvees from the same solve discrete, tactical problems in an increasingly batch can be fixed quickly (Havenstein, 2007). diverse number of ways. Companies are using The Air Force also used mashups to streamline mashups to give a more interactive and easy user their decision-making process for construction on experience on their Web sites, as well as to improve their bases, allowing it to view the posts centrally their Web store offerings. This increased use of with live video footage and access many years of business-to-consumer mashups is a trend that construction information. This led to US$5 million will likely continue into the future. Though less a year in savings in decision-making costs for a one-time cost of less than US$1 million.

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Businesses have been using mashups to com- done on its own. All of the programmers who bine internal data with external applications in a tinker with Google’s technology create new in- number of innovative ways. The most common novations in a shorter amount of time. They are business use of mashups is to leverage mapping leveraging all of the minds on the Web to improve technologies (Dearstyne, 2007). One excellent an application and to create innovations that drive example is a real estate company that combined future change within the company. Yet, many its data application with VoIP to make what is companies are afraid to release their APIs due to known as a VoIP-data mashup (Reed, 2007). This the fact that they cannot control the direction of mashup recognized the house that people were the applications once they do. However, releasing calling to inquire about and gave the callers the the API to their applications may allow certain option to take a virtual tour of the house on a companies to leverage the innovation on the Web cell phone and to examine the particulars (price, into new and innovative ideas. square footage) of the house as well. The real estate agent also received an e-mail notification Educational Applications of the interested buyer and could call and arrange a live tour (Reed). With applications like Microsoft Popfly and Ya- Although most mashups now combine ex- hoo! Pipes available for free, there are numerous ternal and internal applications, there is also educational opportunities to learn about mashups. the possibility of integrating legacy applications Both Microsoft and Yahoo! offer this free service with new applications in a mashup. This allows along with tutorials and frequently asked questions all of the information from the legacy system to (FAQs) about creating your own diverse types of be combined with the new system into one ap- mashups. In addition, the user community offers plication. Although there are numerous problems feedback and support as well as showcasing their with writing translation code to combine the two diverse mashups. This creates a user-friendly, applications, businesses have been doing this, collaborative environment for students to learn particularly when the legacy systems contain a about mashups. large amount of important data. There are many diverse data mashups that For a business, mashups provide a way to students can use or create to assist in their projects quickly aggregate multiple sources of content and other schoolwork. A few intriguing ones will and present it in an easily understandable way be described briefly. A particularly useful ability (Trombly, 2007). This can lead to quicker time to of mashups for students is the ability to mash up market and reduced development costs as public all of their favorite RSS feeds into one RSS feed. applications are leveraged instead of needing to This would allow students to keep track of topics be developed. However, this approach can reduce of interest from diverse sources without having the thoroughness and longevity of the application. to constantly keep visiting the other resources. Therefore, businesses need to examine what their If they failed to visit the news Web site, it would needs are with regard to the application before download automatically into their mashup RSS attempting to do a mashup. feed. This provides a valuable tool for keeping In addition to creating mashups for their own up with current events. tactical use, companies such as Google have Additionally, many data mashups provide opened up their APIs for various proprietary an integrated way to do research. For example, applications in the hopes of getting new ideas. a mashup combining MapQuest with an image Opening up its API allows Google to leverage search would enable students to look up their its technology in a way that it never could have school or other schools on the map and also see

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any pictures that came up. They could likewise Conclusion and Future Trends look up other places in the world and see the cor- responding images alongside a map of where the A key trend in mashups is in the increasing use location is. This represents an interactive way of of mapping technologies. Ever since Google learning that places heavy emphasis on visuals. released the API to Google Maps, huge num- This can be a more effective way of learning. bers of mashups have been created. Due to the An interesting anthropological project for popularity of the mapping mashup and the ease students would be to create what is known as of creating one now that Google’s API is open, an “autobiogeography.” An autobiogeography more and more people are requesting that better combines one’s autobiography with mapping public data be released, which has largely been software to show an interactive map of your life. the domain of geographical information systems You can pick discrete events, like places you have (GISs) in the past. The demand for GIS has gone traveled to, or any other combination of events. up significantly as more and more businesses Students could also create an autobiogeographical and consumers have demanded more accurate resume, where it shows everywhere they worked data. In the future, the demand for readily avail- in the past. able geographical information will drive a spike in GIS data, provide more useful and accurate How to Create Mashups mashups, and provide consumers with much more accurate information to help their decision mak- 1. To begin, create a Windows Live ID account ing. Businesses will begin using this data to get (http://get.live.com). more accurate geographical views of their share 2. Sign into Microsoft Popfly (http://www. of the market and potential customers. popfly.com). Some companies are opening up their APIs 3. Download Microsoft Silverlight. like Google did with Google Maps. Immediately 4. Click “Create Stuff,” then select “Mashup” after Google opened up its API, AOL’s MapQuest, from the drop-down menu. Yahoo! Maps, and Microsoft Virtual Earth all 5. Click “Images and Video,” then select “Live quickly opened theirs as well. Since Google was Image Search” from the drop-down menu the first one to open its API, it has much more and drag it onto the screen. visibility on the Web through these mashups than 6. Click “Display,” then select “Carousel” and its competitors. It is likely that other Web applica- drag it onto the screen. tions will open up their APIs so that people can 7. Click the wrench on the “Live Search” box create mashups for them. Just as with the map- and type “Vincent Van Gogh” into the query ping technology, many innovative mashups will box. spawn from the opening up of APIs. Yet, this is 8. Click on the wrench again to zoom back often proprietary information for the companies, out. and they lose control over how their products are 9. Click on the blue circle on “Live Image implemented once they release the APIs (Gerber, Search” and connect it to “Carousel.” 2006). Therefore, the potential of their products 10. Click “Preview” to see what the mashup being used in ways they did not imagine may looks like. have a chilling effect on the release of APIs. Yet, 11. Click “Save” to save the mashup. it is likely that the trend of opening the API will continue, especially as competitors begin to do it. This presents an interesting conflict between the desire for innovation and the free flow of

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information, and the desire of companies to own Havenstein, H. (2007). Military, oil firm use BI to their intellectual property (Johnson & Wilcox, avoid disaster. Computerworld, 41(40), 8. 2007). However, it seems like many companies Hype cycle for e-commerce (2007). Gartner. are realizing that by giving up some of their intel- lectual property, they can leverage the innovation Johnson, M. J., & Wilcox, P. A. (2007). The world of millions of users and create even more useful of connected things. The Journal of Government intellectual property as a result (Tapscott & Wil- Financial Management, 56(4), 48-53. liams, 2006). Reed, B. (2007). VoIP applications seem to be Additionally, mashups will likely be used branching out. Network World, 24(43), 14. increasingly in wireless applications. As the emphasis shifts from wired technology to wire- Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinom- less technology, mashups will increasingly be ics. New York: The Penguin Group. used in all kinds of consumer products, such as Trombly, M. (2007). Mashups bring added dimen- cell phones and GPS (Global Positioning System) sion to Web services. Securities Industry News, devices (“The World on Your Desktop,” 2007). 19(11), 1-16. Users often have innovative ideas about what ap- plications would be most useful for their devices, The world on your desktop. (2007). The Economist, and companies that can leverage their users’ in- 384(8545), 15-20. novation to create useful applications and mashups will likely do well. The problem now is that most of the technology is locked, so it cannot be modi- fied at all. In the future, applications might open Additional Resources up their technology for tinkering and create new mashups for many types of wireless devices. Blogger’s Guide to Mashups: http://blog.sherif- mansour.com?p=187 Chicago Crime Block: http://chicago.everyblock. References com/crime Google Mashups: http://editor.googlemashups. Brodkin, J. (2007). Strategic technologies for com 2008. Network World, 24(40), 3-4. Housing Maps: http://www.housingmaps.com Dearstyne, B. (2007). Blogs, mashups, & wikis oh my! Information Management Journal, 41(4), IBM’s Guide: http://www.ibm.com/developer- 24-33. works/views/xml/libraryview.jsp?search_by=T he+ultimate+mashup+semantic+Web Fagan, J. (2007). Mashing up multiple Web feeds using Yahoo!Pipes. Computers in Libraries, Labnotes: http://blog.labnotes.org/2006/07/11/ 27(10), 10-17. scraping-with-style-scrapi-toolkit-for-ruby/ Gerber, R. S. (2006). Mixing it up on the Web: Microsoft Popfly: http://www.popfly.com Legal issues arising from Internet “mashups.” Programmable Web: http://www.programma- Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, bleweb.com/mashups 18(8), 11-14. Yahoo! Pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com

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Web Conferencing AND ment of Group Notes, which was an extension Electronic Meetings of the original Notes. Group Notes users could now create their own private Notes files with no Kostadin Bisharov, set limit. In addition, users were able to organize Meghan Blake, Melanie Riera notes by category. PLATO’s community started off small with History of Web Conferencing academics, but later grew to include business, government, and military, in which PLATO was Web conferencing can trace its roots back before marketed as a training tool (Wooley, 1994). With the Internet and World Wide Web to a computer- the increased number of users, PLATO experi- based education system called PLATO. Wooley enced many of the well-known problems that (1994, ¶ 1) states that “the PLATO system pio- plague our online communities today, for example, neered online forums and message boards, emails, a person pretending to be a woman when the user chat rooms, instant messaging, remote screen is actually a man, or posting inappropriate com- sharing, and multiplayer games, leading to the ments in Note files. No one had ever experienced emergence of what was perhaps the world’s first this before and there was some uncertainty until online community.” social norms could be established (Wooley). In the 1960s, Professor Don Bitzer created The PLATO system has had a huge impact on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois. the development of software and programs that we PLATO gained more popularity throughout have today. Some of the descendants of PLATO the 1970s as new features were added. PLATO include Lotus Notes, DEC Notes, NetNotes, and Notes, released in 1973, is the equivalent of what WebNotes. After the World Wide Web became we know today as online message boards. That a viable option for collaboration, companies at- same year, the PLATO system added Talkomatic, tempted to use conferencing software that was which “transmitted characters instantly as they originally designed to run on internal company were typed instead of waiting for a complete line software by modifying it for the Web. However, of text” (Wooley, 1994, ¶ 25). Talkomatic allowed the results were not perfect, and it was not until for multiple users to chat as a group and was the the mid-90s that Web conferencing software was equivalent of today’s chat rooms. This was a big available (Roberts, 2004). The software devel- success and led to the development of TERM-talk, oped (based on a centralized structure) included a program that allowed two people to converse Backtalk, Web Crossing, Podium, TALKaway, and one person to page another person while not and PlaceWare. having to stop whatever he or she was doing. This Another form of conferencing software called can be seen as today’s instant messaging. In addi- groupware, which was not based on a centralized tion, there was a feature that allowed for a user to structure, allowed for additional options such switch to monitor mode, whereby one person could as document sharing and scheduling (Roberts, view another’s screen (the equivalent of today’s 2004). Some of groupware’s products included remote screen sharing). PLATO Personal Notes Lotus Domino, Oracle InterOffice, WebShare, came soon after, which is the same as e-mail. and Livelink. Of special note is GroupSystems, As a result of overcrowding, trying to sort formerly known as Ventana, which was influen- through Notes became more difficult because tial in the development of group software and of the amount of information and the limited recognized by Gartner Inc. “as the world leader number of Notes files. This led to the develop- in Group Intelligence and Innovation” (GroupSys- tems, 2008). In 1989, it created the group decision

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support system (GDSS) category. GroupSystems Using VoIP allows for on-screen control of the released GSI WorkGroup and Meeting Room speaker as well as eliminating the need to pass in 1992. These software programs “are still the out bridge numbers and PIN codes (Mann, 2007). most full featured team collaboration products In terms of the visual component of Web confer- for face-to-face meetings on the market today” encing, with increasing bandwidth capabilities (GroupSystems). it is becoming more feasible to use webcams to Interestingly, as the price of personal computers enhance the experience of participants. went down, more and more file sharing occurred There are three deployment options for on a peer-to-peer basis and this culminated in the Web conferencing applications: the software- Napster phenomenon. Peer-to-peer “began to be as-a-service (SaaS) model, on-premise model, seen as the way to host Web conferencing, rather and blended model. The SaaS model means the than through a single server” (Roberts, 2004, ¶ 23). user accesses the software through the Internet Some of the groups that offered the peer-to-peer from the vendor’s system. The on-premise model concept to Web conferencing included Groove, means that the user has bought the license to use WiredRed, and NextPage. the software and installs it on his or her system. Web conferencing has been evolving for The blended model is a combination of the SaaS decades and can be defined today as a collabora- and on-premise model (Mann, 2007). The major- tive way to interact over a network in real time ity of companies are using the SaaS deployment and can take place in peer-to-peer meetings or model; however, it is likely that more companies one-to-many presentations (Mann, 2007). At a will turn to the on-premise deployment model minimum, a Web conferencing product should because of cost and security concerns. Microsoft offer presentation delivery, desktop or application will be coming up with a new on-premise version sharing, text chat, shared whiteboard, and basic of Live Meeting, which is expected to boost the security. However, additional features are avail- transition to on-premise models (Mann). able and can greatly enhance the Web conferenc- Another important development in Web ing experience. These include integrated public conferencing is the transformation to a standard switched telephone network audio, integrated (used by all employees) rather than a specific point VoIP, audio, videoconferencing, file sharing, ap- solution for select users. Mann (2007) believes plication and document sharing, remote control, that by “2010, web conferencing will be available archiving, feedback, polling, e-learning facilities, to 75% of corporate users as a standard facility, and advanced security (Mann). alongside e-mail, presence, calendaring, IM and other collaborative facilities” (p. 5). Current Trends Other factors supporting the trend toward Web conferencing as a standard are cost savings and Currently, some of the developing trends in Web environmental concerns. Companies can measure conferencing include the increased use of VoIP hard ROI (return on investment) by reducing the and video, the incorporation of features to sup- amount of travel employees take. Meetings can port e-learning, the movement toward document- take place anywhere and include participants from centric conferencing, and changes in deployment all over the world. In addition, with the current models (Smith, 2008). concerns about the environment, some companies Most companies use telephone bridges for are citing “green” reasons for the increased use of the audio part of the Web conference. However, Web conferencing in reducing carbon emissions there is an increasing demand for VoIP because due to travel (Smith, 2008). it is controlled by the Web conferencing product.

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Business Applications to train customers and help them troubleshoot the PRM and EHR software issues much more Numerous business applications exist in which quickly than before having Web conferencing electronic meetings are being used as a part of ability. Through Web conferencing, Pulse is able Web conferencing. Through electronic meetings, to better train customers using the application corporations are able to increase collaboration at and desktop-sharing feature, and troubleshoot all levels, which is becoming crucial to attain- PRM and EHR software issues as they arise in a ing high performance. Mann (2007) states that swift and efficient manner (“E/pop Web & Video this technology can increase shared information Conferencing Simplifies Training and Company among colleagues and business partners, provide Communications at Pulse, Inc.,” 2007). the ability to work on more projects simultane- Tindall Corporation, headquartered in Spar- ously, and increase overall impact. Polls, testing, tanburg, South Carolina, designs, manufactures, and chat features can also offer advantages beyond and erects concrete systems for various types physical meetings (Mann). In the near future, of construction projects, ranging from parking electronic meetings will become a customary decks at universities to prison cells throughout the tool for all employees (Smith, 2008). United States. The company has held numerous A Chicago-based check-cashing company, electronic meetings where employees are able Barr Management, uses Web conferencing to to share Outlook calendar functions and Power- train affiliates, customers, and vendors located Point presentations dynamically. The engineer- throughout the country. Specifically, Web confer- ing team is able to share drawings with others encing enables remote vendors, such as Western who may not even have the software installed Union, to train Barr Management employees on on their own desktops. The company expects to things such as new wire procedures. Barr Man- save US$200,000 in travel costs per year since agement believes that Web conferencing provides installing Web conferencing. As a result, Tindall additional functionality that was not included in Corporation has received a very quick return on instant messaging, a tool it were using prior to their investment (“Tindall Invests in e/pop Web implementation. Web conferencing allows Barr Conferencing to Cut Business Travel Expenses Management to communicate in real time with in Half,” 2005). other companies that are not on its LAN (local area network) and provides a remote-control capabil- Educational Applications ity to increase efficiency in the software training process (“Barr Management Deploys WiredRed’s Web conferencing has many educational applica- e/pop Web Conferencing,” 2004). tions. However, it is mainly used in online distance Pulse Inc. is a company that supplies healthcare education, which has evolved into an extremely providers with a complete solution to automate convenient way for working people to continue the record-keeping process. Headquartered in their education. Some people may be hesitant to Wichita, Kansas, Pulse Inc. utilizes Web con- engage in this style of education because they ferencing to enable employees to communicate fear it may not be interactive enough. However, with each other in real time between four offices. advancements made in video or Web conferencing Physicians nationwide use its Patient Relation- applications have made online distance education ship Management (PRM) System and Electronic much more engaging. With a Web conferencing Health Records (EHR) software to improve format, students can ask questions in real time, patient care, while at the same time improving build relationships, meet with professors, and be their bottom line. Pulse uses Web conferencing mentored online directly, much as they would

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through face-to-face meetings on campus in order Home and Hospital Center in Bare Hills has eight to gain a better understanding of the material. full-time teachers who interact with students using One very good example of Web conferencing Web conferencing to teach classes such as his- being used for educational purposes is the incor- tory, algebra, geometry, and physics. It provides poration of Macromedia Breeze in the Academy education for Baltimore County students who are of Art University. It has integrated different mul- unable to attend school for at least 4 weeks due to timedia applications to enhance the interaction physical or emotional crisis, medical condition, among the students, making the e-learning more expulsion, or administrative transfer from their similar to real life at schools. However, there was home schools (Dawson, 2007). an issue to be resolved: “how to duplicate the rite Web conferencing is also used in Kent Col- of passage all graduate school students must go lege Preparatory School. The college adopted through when presenting thesis proposals and WiredRed’s e/pop Web conferencing software. It completing projects in front of their professors” enhanced relations in both education and business (Shaeffer, 2005). The university’s reputation de- to easily communicate complex topics and elimi- pended on finding a solution to this problem. nate unnecessary travel. Web conferencing allows Within only 6 months of being used, Web the boarding students to communicate securely conferencing was proving effective. Scheduled with their parents and friends, as well as improve Web-based meetings helped students experience the learning experience and collaboration for the the process and pressure of presenting in front students by enabling off-site teachers and speakers of a live faculty audience. The online students to lead a lesson without being physically in the present their work via a Breeze videoconference classroom. It allows arranging virtual classrooms before a panel of professors seated in a specially with other schools and colleges both in the United equipped conference room. Video images of the Kingdom and the rest of the world. This can be very students and their work appeared on a big screen beneficial: “Imagine having a French lesson with for discussion, and a final review decision greatly students in a Paris classroom helping the students enhanced the experience (Shaeffer, 2005). in Kent” (“E/pop® Web & Video Conferencing After the success of online reviews, the acad- Brings Kent College Pembury’s Staff, Students emy is finding new ways to use Web conferencing. and Parents Together,” 2006). For example, a blog-like journal allows graduate students to conduct weekly videoconferences and Conclusion and Future Trends chat sessions with advisors. Students and their mentors also use the Breeze whiteboard feature The market for Web conferencing is still crowded to regularly critique work in progress. Another by numerous vendors, resulting in increased use is an online multimedia presentation designed mergers and acquisitions to capture market share. for the orientation of new faculty hires. Video- However, there will only be a handful of lead- enabled online marketing events are utilized for ers and as of now they include Microsoft, IBM, recruiting new students. Recruiters are set up Cisco, and Adobe. We will see differentiation with microphones and cameras to display art strategies from these vendors, such as pricing or samples and answer prospective student questions ease of use. Nevertheless, companies will first (Shaeffer, 2005). look to the vendor that supports their e-mail Web conferencing provides a solution for infrastructures—demonstrating favorability for students who cannot leave their homes with an collaboration platforms—for enhancing Web educational experience comparable to what they conferencing capabilities (Mann, 2007). In fact, might have in a classroom. Baltimore County’s Mann states that “by 2010, 60% of companies us-

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ing web conferencing will acquire this capability Dawson, C. (2007). With Web conferencing, as part of a larger suite of applications, rather than homebound students are keeping up. ZDNet from a specialist vendor” (p. 2). Editor. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http:// An important ongoing trend to acknowledge education.zdnet.com/?p=787 is the mixture of unified communications and E/pop® Web & video conferencing brings Kent collaboration technology and its impact on Web College Pembury’s staff, students and parents conferencing. For example, many Web confer- together. (2006). WiredRed Software. Retrieved encing programs and audio products have been February 17, 2008, from http://www.wiredred. merged into one offering. In addition, “instant com/downloads/appstory_kentcollege.pdf messaging clients can launch conferences, and presence engines are ‘surfacing’ availability E/pop Web & video conferencing simplifies train- information within web conferencing products” ing and company communications at Pulse, Inc. (Smith, 2008, p. 3). Storage and discussion (2007). WiredRed Software. Retrieved February features are being added to Web conferencing 16, 2008, from http://www.wiredred.com/ap- products, which are muddying the distinction pstory_pulse.html between “team workspaces and group decision GroupSystems. (2008). History: Group col- tools” (Smith, p. 3). laboration and Web meetings software. Retrieved Gartner estimates that in 2007, the Web confer- March 1, 2008, from http://www.groupsystems. encing market was worth US$1.13 billion and will com/history increase to US$1.37 billion by 2008. Revenues are forecasted to grow at a 19.5% compound annual Mann, J. (2007, February 17). Magic quadrant for rate (Smith, 2008). There is no doubt that Web Web conferencing. Gartner, Inc. conferencing will become an integral part of a Roberts, L. (2004). History of Web conferenc- company’s collaborative environment. According ing: Multi-function conferencing comes of age. to Gartner’s hype cycle, it is only about 2 years Web Conferencing Zone. Retrieved February 17, from mainstream adoption. With globalization, 2008, from http://www.web-conferencing-zone. Web conferencing has and will open the door for com/history-of-web-conferencing.htm many to interact with others throughout the world who may not have been able to before in both Shaeffer, J. R. (2005). Using Macromedia Breeze, a business and educational sense. As Tapscott we’ve elevated our program to a whole new level. and Williams (2006) state, Web conferencing is Academy of Art University. Retrieved February another way in which the collaborative spirit will 17, 2008, from http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/ increasingly grow. showcase/index.cfm?event=casestudyprint&cas estudyid=92699&loc=en_us Smith, D. M. (2008). Key issues for Web con- References ferencing. Gartner Inc. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.gartner.com/resourc- Barr Management deploys WiredRed’s e/pop es/154100/154170/key_issues_for_web_confer- Web conferencing to support corporate training enc_154170.pdf initiatives. (2004). WiredRed Software. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http://www.wiredred. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinom- com/appstory_barrmgmt.html ics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Portfolio (member of Penguin Group Inc).

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Tindall invests in e/pop Web conferencing to cut business travel expenses in half. (2005). WiredRed Software. Retrieved February 16, 2008, http:// www.wiredred.com/appstory_tindall.html Wooley, D. (1994). Plato: The emergence of online community. Retrieved February 16, 2008, from http://thinkofit.com/plato/dwplato.htm

Additional Resources http://thinkofit.com/webconf/index.htm http://www.web-conferencing-zone.com

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