Jess’ E-Learning Blog

It’s kind of ironic; social software is as much about disseminating information as it is about consolidating it. An individual site can act as both spreader and combiner, such as del.icio.us. For the individual user, delicious acts as a consolidation tool to organize and have in one place all the websites which the user may need now or in the future. However, at the same time, the user is broadcasting their pages to other users and thus is spreading information around. Users can subscribe to other users’ pages and therefore be privy to their listings. In the same way, Netvibes acts both as a consolidator and a disseminator with it’s new feature “netvibes ginger”. While the old version of Netvibes acted as an aggregator which only the user could  see (unless they allowed another user to see it) Netvibes Ginger gives each user both a private and a public page. So while the aggregator is, by nature, a consolidator of information from several websites, it is now also a disseminator in that other users can access your information as well and use it on their own aggregators.

While reading ‘Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation and Teaching and Learning?’ (Alexander, 2006), I realised one really prominent aspect of social software which has never really occurred to me. When I was first introduced to concepts such as aggregators, social bookmarking, educational blogs and wikis, I was overwhelmed by the multitude and sharing of information, the interaction between people and the presence of identity broadcasting. But I completely overlooked one thing: How time plays a part in social software.

 One thing this reading has pointed out to me is that social software is different from other internet applications not only because it is highly user-generated, interactive and largely informal, but also because it is created over time and as such, the passage of time is evident in the end products of social software (not that there is technically any end product, as it is continually being built, but you know what I mean ^_^). For instance, blogging is highly time oriented in that each post is dated and ordered according to when it was made. Wiki’s evolve over time and often include a function whereby users can access the history of changes made to the wiki.

These sections of the Web break away from the page metaphor. Rather than following the notion of the Web as book, they are predicated on microcontent. Blogs are about posts, not pages. Wikis are streams of conversation, revision, amendment, and truncation. Podcasts are shuttled between Web sites, RSS feeds, and diverse players. These content blocks can be saved, summarized, addressed, copied, quoted, and built into new projects.

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/Web20ANewWaveofInnovation/40615