And here I am live blogging at CIL 2007. We’ll see how it goes. Lee Rainie is the Director of Pew Internet, which has done research on use of the Internet and its various demographics since 2000. Lee confessed that he hadn’t outlined librarians as key stakeholders for Pew data in the beginning and of course we are now his most enthusiastic users. (Disclaimer: all data shared is US based!)

Showed a You Tube video “Ask a Ninja” about podcasting. Very amusing. Summarising Web 2.0 (to lots of laughs).

Starting point was with Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle in September 2005. It was the web as platform (ie. Netscape vs Google, Akami vs Bit Torrent), it was harnessing collective intelligence, data was the important part, software was not device dependent (perpetual beta, like life) and it was all about a rich and free user experience.

Presented their map of utilities, showing the various utilities and their Web 1.0 and 2.0 examples. ie. personal websites to blogging, publishing to participation, content management to wikis, directories to tagging, Britannica to Wikipedia and more. Showed their Web 2.0 Meme Map (will link later).

6 hallmarks of Web 2.0 that matter to libraries:

  • Internet has become the computer - number of people using computers is nearly indistinguishable from those using the internet (in US, 75% to 73%), bandwith adoption is increasing (142 mill access, with 96 mill on broadband), as a result people go online from more places - home, school, friends, 50% have gone online from libraries (doubled in 4 years). Broadband has turned web into a destination - 43% spend some time just hanging out on the net and it has intensified use (just under 50% use it daily). Now a hybrid experience, not just text based, with 90% having watched video online and broadband making internet use more social - online gaming, photo sharing, file sharing and more.
  • Millions are creating and sharing content online - 55% of teens and 20% of adults have profiles on social networking sites. Young people are using these social networks as switchboards for their social life - private messages, bulletin or groups messages, blog comments etc. 51% of young adults and 37% of all users have posted photos and commented on online photos. Lee says that his daughters never leave home without their phones and cameras so that they can chronicle their entire evening. 39% have posted their creation online (double of adults), 33% to 13% are tech support for their families and friends. 28% have blogs (33% college students, 40% teen girls) compared to 12% of online adults. Majority of teen bloggers blog their personal situations, for their friends only - haven’t realised the implications of this public medium - ie parents, teachers and potential employers can see them too. Twice as many teens as adults have personal webpages. (27% - 14%). 26% remix content into their own creations, 9% of adults - sounds, images, photos and more. 19% of young adults have an avatar - 9% of adults. More than half of teens are involved in online games. Content creation correlates with internet use by age, the younger you are, the more likely you are to be doing both.
  • More internet users are accessing the content created by others - 46% of young internet users read blogs, 44% seek info on Wikipedia (many users being young or well educated), will also ping their friends for advice on where to search.
  • Many are sharing what they know and what they feel online - building conversations. About a third have rated a person, product or service online. 32% have tagged content online, 25% have commented on video.
  • Thousands are contributing know-how to the online experience. 40% participate in per to peer exchanges, there is the global open source movement and grid computing where people offer their free PC processing time to process data on things like climate change, genome project, starcluster processing and more.
  • Customising content with Web 2.0 tools. 40% of teens customise news and info pages, 1/2 are on speciality listservs. 25 to 33% get RSS feeds (although many don’t know that is what it is)

5 issues we must address: (from Pam Berger - infosearcher.com)

  1. Navigation - from linear to non-linear - links are Net currency
  2. Context - learning to see the connections - the Net is very disintegrated
  3. Focus - practicing reflection and deep reflection where most of our creativity arises, instead of continuous partial attention
  4. Skepticism - learning to evaluate information - librarians critical in getting this out
  5. Ethical behaviour - understanding the rules of cyberspace - privacy and disclosure

Lee concluded with Michael Wesch’s excellent You Tube videon on Web 2.0 - The Machine is us!

Great start to the conference and now that I have a power source, I won’t freak out half way through when my battery dies! Next session starting soon!