14 May 2009, "Blogs, Wikis, & Flickr: Oh My!: Sharing and Collaborating on the Modern Web," NGS Family History Conference, Raleigh, NC, session T-249

1. Blogs, Wikis, & Flickr, Oh My!: Sharing & Collaborating on the Modern Web NGS FAMILY HISTORY CONFERENCE, 2009 Raleigh, NC JORDAN JONES E-mail: jordan@genealogymedia.com Web: genealogymedia.com Blog: genealogymedia.com/blog/

2. Roadmap Concepts (Social Networking, Tagging, Collaborative Authoring, Syndication) Value for Genealogists (How Genealogists Use Social Networking?) Facebook Wikis (Wikipedia and Genealogy-Specific Wikis) Interactive Maps (Google, Yahoo and Map-Image Integration) Social Networking with Images (Flickr and Footnote) Book and Library Lists … And the Rest Privacy and Copyright 2 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 2

3. Social Networking On the modern web, people are sharing information and collaborating in new ways …

4. Social Networking Social networking is the creation of User-defined online communities Websites containing shared content contributed by the users Social connections among users Key social networking sites include: MySpace Facebook Flickr YouTube 4 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 4

5. Concept: Tagging Tagging means categorizing content, especially images and video, with user-defined category names, called tags Tags allow me, or anyone I share this image with, to find it using any one of the tags, as well as to find any shared content that someone has described with those tags Collaborative tagging across an online community leads to the creation of what has been called folksonomies 5 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 5

6. Tagging Example I have tagged a death certificate on Flickr as follows: genealogy birthcertificate delayedbirthcertificate helenjohnson johnson hill 6 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 6

7. Concept: Collaborative Authoring Weblogs (Blogs) – Simple, powerful publishing tools Wikis or Forums – Content developed and shared by the users Wikipedia Threaded conversations 7 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 7

8. Concept: Syndication On the web, content can be syndicated similar to the model in periodical publishing Real Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom– Notification of website or blog changes using content feeds Blog Readers and Aggregators– GoogleReader, Bloglines 8 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 8

9. How Can Genealogists Use Social Networking? The tools are there; we can determine how we use them

10. As Genealogists, Why Should We Care? Archive, organize, and retain your documents, information, and images Share your interests, research, and documents with others, as you choose Contribute to knowledge and dissemination of genealogical information Make and retain contacts among genealogists 10 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 10

11. Facebook The Uber Social Networking Site or Simply a Time Suck?

12. Controlling Privacy Settings in Facebook 12 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 12

13. Footnote’s “I Remember” Facebook Integration 13 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 13

14. That Same Page on Footnote 14

15. Wikis Wikipedia and Genealogy-Specific Wikis

16. Wikis Wikis are named after the Hawaiian Pidgin word “wiki” or “quick”; their goal is to provide collaborative authoring portals that are: Quick Easy Scalable Version-managed Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ is the most complete encyclopedia available, with more than 2.8 million articles 16 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 16

17. Wikipedia for Genealogists Wikipedia is an excellent source of: Accurate and complete information and links to other sources Wikipedia has been shown to be as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. (Both have approx. 2 errors per article.) Wikipedia contains a much wider range of articles than standard print encyclopedias New and revised articles are subject to peer review Public access maps and images, with clear Creative Commons copyright notices 17 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 17

18. Caveat Emptor Critically evaluate the source and its producer for bias and relevance Trust only sourced materials; use others for ideas and leads, but not to establish facts There have been noted cases of authors maliciously inserting incorrect information 18 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 18

19. Collaboration in Wikipedia Anyone can correct or complete articles about people, places, and events about which you have become an expert Anyone can share images, documents, or documentation with an audience of over 600 million annual visitors 19 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 19

20. A Wikipedia Example Battle of Guilford Court House

21. Wikipedia: Article Tab 21 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 21

22. Wikipedia: Article Tab 22 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 22

23. Wikipedia: Article Tab 23 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 23

24. Wikipedia: Talk Tab Wikipedia entries often contain a Talk Tab to encourage collaboration across whole categories of content, or discuss issues with the entry 24 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 24

25. Wikipedia: Editing Tab Wikipedia markup can be daunting, but most of the writing is in plain language © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 25

26. Wikipedia: History Tab Wikipedia entries contain detailed editorial history, allowing for roll-backs if content is deprecated © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 26

27. Wikipedia: Documentation Wikipedia pages often contain detailed sourcing 27 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 27

28. Wikipedia: Image Wikipedia images often contain detailed licensing information 28 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 28

29. Genealogy Wikis Geni, FamilyPedia, WeRelate and WikiTree

30. Genealogy Wikis WeRelate.org – Developed by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy (http://www.folg.org/) and hosted in collaboration with the Allen Co. Library. FamilyPedia: http://genealogy.wikia.com/ wikitree.org – An attempt to create a tree of everyone Geni: http://www.geni.com/ 30 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 30

31. WeRelate – Family Page 31 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 31

32. WeRelate – Place Page 32 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 32

33. FamilyPedia – Surnames Page 33 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 33

34. Interactive Maps Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and Map-Image Integration

35. Interactive Mapping – maps.google.com 35 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 35

36. Google Maps – Picasa Integration 36

37. Yahoo Maps – Flickr Integration 37 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 37

38. Yahoo Maps – Flickr Integration 38 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 38

39. Social Networking with Images Flickr and Footnote

40. Image and Document Sharing Genealogists often have many photographs and document images that they would like to share Flickr.com– A very popular photography site owned by Yahoo Footnote.com– Records and photos site that allows uploads and annotations DeadFred.com– For known and unknown photos taken before 1960 of persons since deceased. They bill themselves as a “genealogy photo archive” FindAGrave.com – Site for tombstone transcriptions and photos 40 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 40

41. Flickr Free photo storage and sharing, additional features for an annual fee The most used photo sharing site on the web Similar sites include: Picasa (Google) –picasa.google.com Shutterfly –shutterfly.com Snapfish (HP) –snapfish.com Aside from Google Maps integration, which is easier with Google’s Picasa, I prefer Flickr to all the other choices. It’s easier to use, more powerful, and provides Creative Commons licensing 41 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 41

42. Flickr – Photo Collections (Groups of Sets) 42

43. Flickr – Set 43

44. Flickr – Tagging Tagging is part of the folksonomies (classification systems designed by amateurs) movement Users define the taxonomy The taxonomy changes over time Tags can help you organize your images, but also help you find work by others 44 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 44

45. Flickr – Tagging Example 45 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 45

46. Flickr – Tags and Clusters 46 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 46

47. Flickr – Photostream (Tag-Based Sharing) Different photos tagged “genealogy” show up on my website each time the page is loaded 47 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 47

48. DeadFred – Unknown Subject 48 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 48

49. DeadFred – Known Subject 49 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 49

50. Footnote – Annotation of Documents 50 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 50

51. Footnote – Sharing Your Documents 51 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 51

52. Book and Library Lists … And the Rest LibraryThing and Others

53. Book Lists Share lists of books you own, are reading or would like to own, swap books in real life BookCrossing.com – A sort of catch-and-release program for books BookMooch.com– Share a book, receive a book LibraryThing.com, GoodReads.com andShelfari.com– Share your library, find others with similar books, review books © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 53

54. LibraryThing – List © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 54

55. LibraryThing – Shelf © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 55

56. LibraryThing – Tag Cloud © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 56

57. And the rest … Contact Sharing, Link Sharing, Print-on-DemandPlus … Contact Sharing, Link Sharing and Print-on-Demand

58. Contacts Especially handy to keep in touch with or find distant family members or other researchers Plaxo.com– Address book management LinkedIn.com– Address book management, especially used in business Facebook.com– Often a college-age crowd. Becoming more “social” all the time, recently added a family tree plug-in Twitter.com– Site for sharing of brief statements. Becoming a place where people get quick answers. 58 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 58

59. Link Sharing Sites for link sharing can be set up to focus solely on your genealogy links digg.com delicious.com 59 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 59

60. Delicious.com – genealogy Tag 60 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 60

61. Print-on-Demand (PoD) Books Websites and desktop publishing software have come together to make small print-run and virtual (electronic) publishing widely available and easy Genealogy titles often have long-term interest but slow sales, which is perfect for PoD and e-publishing Limitations with “going-it-alone” in PoD include the lack of marketing and distribution, but this might be the way to go with a project intended only for family or research use © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 61

62. Print-on-Demand (PoD) 62 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 62

63. Privacy and Copyright Do your homework

64. Privacy Policy – Read your site’s privacy policy Awareness – Be aware of what you are sharing and what you are not sharing Hi-res vs. low-res images Specific images Content Persistence– Investigate your ability to delete content 64 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 64

65. Copyright Follow the RulesDo not violate the copyrights of others Share and Share AlikeTo learn how to share content appropriately, see creativecommons.org. Respect the Wishes of OthersFollow the attribution and re-use limits set by others on their content. 65 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 65

66. CreativeCommons Licenses Attribution Attribution Share Alike Attribution No Derivatives Attribution Non-Commercial Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 66 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 66

67. Contact Jordan Jones jordan@genealogymedia.com These slides, and the handout, are available at: http://www.genealogymedia.com/talks/

68. GoogleReader 68 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 68

69. 69

70. Web 1.0 “Web 1.0”: The web from 1993 to 2003 Simple mainly one-way delivery of information Posting and sharing by contributors was limited Minimal collective volunteer efforts to build sites Where collective efforts did exist, they were not real-time, but required approvals for posts and changes 70 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 70

71. Collaborative Tagging & Collections Folksonomies – Collaborative tagging, classification, and indexing Taxonomies (classification systems) designed by members of the community Often displayed in tag clouds (for example: LibraryThing, Flickr, Footnote) Mash-ups – Merging content from more than one source or website (for example: images on GoogleMaps) 71 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 71

72. Link and Blog Sharing Sites for link sharing can be set up to focus solely on your genealogy links digg.com delicious.com You can also create blog and web searches for yourself or others at: google.com/reader bloglines.com 72 © 2009 GenealogyMedia.com 72