PARTICIPATION LITERACY PARTICIPATION ABSTRACT This licentiate thesis is a piece of academic work continuity. Community members learn from each on the theme of Participation Literacy. The the- other and the knowledge base of the community PARTICIPATION LITERACY sis concerns the Web 2.0 concept construction. grows with every interaction. The core values of Web 2.0 is a new mindset on the Internet. The Web 2.0 are democracy and participation. PART 1: CONSTRUCTING THE WEB 2.0 CONCEPT main characteristics include “Web as a Platform”, Collective Intelligence, Folksonomy and interfaces The licentiate thesis is divided into four main parts built with lightweight technologies such as Ajax. and two appendixes. The four parts constitute a Web 2.0 is not only a technique, but also an ideo- foreword, a reading guide, a conceptual and em- logy - an ideology of participation. A Web 2.0 ser- pirical introductory discussion to the Web 2.0 vice is completely web based and generally draws concept, and fi nally a series of constructions ba- on open access. It includes tools for people to in- sed on the Web 2.0 concept and the cyborg fi - teract within areas such as encyclopaedias, book- gure. Appendix I is a short conference paper called marks, photos, books or research articles. All Web Technologically Navigating Cyborgs. Appendix II is 2.0 services are web communities. A web commu- a very short piece of fi ction, written in Swedish. Peter Giger nity is a group of individuals, linked together by a These appendixes comprise a background to my network of social relations with some degree of interest in the Web 2.0 and the Cyborg concept. Peter Giger Peter Blekinge Institute of Technology Licentiate Dissertation Series No. 2006:07 2006:07 ISSN 1650-2140 School of Technoculture, Humanities and Planning 2006:07 ISBN 91-7295-088-9 Participation Literacy Part I: Constructing the Web 2.0 Concept Peter Giger Blekinge Institute of Technology Licentiate Dissertation Series No 2006:07 ISSN 1650-2140 ISBN 91-7295-088-9 Participation Literacy Part I: Constructing the Web 2.0 Concept Peter Giger School of Techoculture, Humanities and Planning Blekinge Institute of Technology SWEDEN © 2006 Peter Giger School of Technoculture, Humanities and Planning Publisher: Blekinge Institute of Technology Printed by Kaserntryckeriet, Karlskrona, Sweden 2006 ISBN 91-7295-088-9 Table of Contents Abstract 7 Acknowledgements 8 Prologue 11 Part I – A Reading Guide 17 The Structure 17 Transdisciplinarity 18 Feminist Technoscience and The Cyborg Figure 20 Approach 20 Some Issues 21 Disclaimer 22 Part II – Building the Concept Web 2.0 23 Starting a Position 23 Main Concepts 29 The Web as a Platform 29 Collective Intelligence 31 Folksonomy 34 Ajaxian Interfaces 37 Version 1 – for readers with no programming knowledge 37 Version 2 – for readers with some programming knowledge 37 Main Actors: Google and Yahoo 39 The Web 2.0 Document Model 41 Web 2.0 in Figures 44 Web 2.0 Off Shots 44 Identity 2.0 44 Dick Hart’s notion of Identity 2.0 46 Rosanne Stone and Multiple Personalities 47 The Identity Bank 47 The Urge for Anonymity 48 Intelligence 2.0 or Hybrid Intelligence 48 What about Law 2.0? 50 Library 2.0 51 Author 2.0 51 Research 2.0, Science 2.0? 52 Open Access 53 Open Peer Review 54 Collective Intelligence in research Environments 56 The Web as Platform 56 4 5 Web 2.0 Services 56 Ebay 57 Amazon.com Becomes a Tagging Community 59 Delicious and other Bookmark Managers 61 Bookmarking and Blogging with The Flock Web Browser 65 Last.fm and Pandora – or What is the Connection between Esjorn Svensson and Goldfrapp? 66 CoComment (Blog Comment Tracker) 68 Writely – Online Word Processor 69 Summary Discussion Web services 70 Part II – Wrapping it all up 71 Part III – Starting The Discussion about Participatory 75 Literacy 75 Getting under The Skin 76 How I became a Native Cyborg 78 But What is a Cyborg, Really? 79 Anatomy 80 Web 2.0 ßà Cyberspace 80 Participating Literacy 82 The sense of Irony and the Principle of Charity 82 Time Loss and the Document Concept 84 Plural Identities 85 Hybridity 86 Participation Literacy and an ideology 86 A few final words 87 Appendix I: Technologically Navigating Cyborgs 89 Image 1: Surfing in the Woods on a Mountain Bike 89 Image 2: Surfing the Waves of the Internet 90 The Cyborgization Process 90 Navigation 91 Flow: The Link between Exisitence and Navigation 91 Appendix II Cyborgistoria (in swedish) 93 Glossary 95 References 99 6 7 Abstract e licentiate thesis is a piece of academic work under the theme of /Participation Liter- acy/. The thesis concerns the Web 2.0 concept construction. Web 2.0 is a new mind- set on the Internet. The main characteristics include ”Web as a Platform”, Collective Intelligence, Folksonomy and interfaces build with lightweight technologies such as Ajax. Web 2.0 is not only a technique, but also an ideology – an ideology of participation. A Web 2.0 service is completely web based and generally draws on open access. It includes tools for people to interact within areas such as encyclopaedias, bookmarks, photos, books or research articles. All Web 2.0 services are web communities. A web community is a group of individuals, linked together by a network of social relations with some degree of continu- ity. Community members learn from each other and the knowledge base of the community grows for every interaction. e core values of Web 2.0 are democracy and participation. e licentiate thesis is divided into four main parts and two appendixes. e four parts constitute a foreword, a reading guide, a conceptual and empirical introduc- tory discussion to the Web 2.0 concept; finally a series of constructions based on the Web 2.0 concept and the cyborg figure. Appendix I is a short conference paper called Technologically Navigating Cyborgs. Appendix II is a very short piece of fiction, written in Swedish. ese appendixes comprise a background to the focus on the Web 2.0 and the cyborg concept. 6 7 Acknowledgements First of all I want to thank my wife Susanne and my supervisor professor Lena Trojer. You have both been a big help to me in different ways. I also want to thank my family, friends and colleagues for all support: All of you at Techno- science Studies because of our invaluable discussions and you at the Library because you create an inspiring environment for new thoughts. But I also want to thank all of you out there on the World Wide Web who participate in the creation of our new world. Among you I especially want to thank the people who work for open source and open access and you who actively produce intellectual material for me and everyone else to experience. 8 9 In twenty years or so, We might have funerals in two worlds Peter Giger 2006 8 9 10 11 Prologue e licentiate thesis is divided into four main parts and two appendixes. e four parts constitute this foreword, a reading guide, a conceptual and empirical introductory discussion to the Web 2.0 concept; finally a series of constructions based on the Web 2.0 concept and the cyborg figure. Appendix I is a short article called Technologically Navigating Cyborgs, presented at the EASST conference 2004 in Paris. Appendix II is a very short piece of fiction, written in Swedish. ese appendixes might be read as a background to my interest in the Web 2.0 and the Cyborg concept. e following story is about me and my way to the concept Web 2.0. In this story there is a thread you could call the history of Social Soware. e thread begins in the 1940’s and ends in the Web 2.0 concept. It is not my goal to give an exhaustive and neutral history. In his article Tracing the Evolution of Social Soware, Christopher Allen traces the start of the evolution of social soware with Vannevar Bush’s vision of the memex machine (2004). Bush wrote: “A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory” (Bush, 1945). Bush’s words sounds like my own effort to store all media in my computer. In 1945 though, media was mostly books, since the music and film industry were just in its infancy and computer games, audiobooks and the Internet-era’s mountain of documents were still far away. It is interesting to note that the hardest thing to store is in fact books. One reason is difficulties in finding an acceptable DRM-model for e-books; another has to do with our endemic habits related to our long love for the book as a thing and not only a channel for information and knowledge. Few of us can imagine curling up in the sofa by the fire with a computer and some sort of a reading device, instead of the good old idea of a book we love so much. Still, media is 10 11 a very important factor in social soware, as much of the socialising is about communicating navigational structures to different kind of media. Books are still the black sheep of digital media. All efforts so far have failed to integrate books - in a large commercial scale - in the family of digital media. But now – in the beginning of 2006 – we might be on the verge of a paradigm shi in the distribution and reading of books (Helm, 2005).