Web2.0 for publishing in development

Part 1: Trends in online communication

Web2.0 is a name for online services. Their

features are interactivity,

user-generated content and

user-friendliness

Webtools and culture go hand in hand: people are now sharing freely on the web

Differences in use of social media:

Generations Internet access (broadband/dial-up) Private/professional use

New ways of communication bring new habits and routines

Use of social media in developing countries

Internet access depends on precondition of electricity infrastructure

Lots of social media depend on high bandwidth (video, maps, etc)

But…80-90% has access to

mobile phonesSouth Africa has 1.1

million Facebook members, Morocco 369,000, Tunisia 279,000, Nigeria 220,000, Kenya 150,000,and Mauritius 60,000.

Various users have discovered Ning and start networks

Part 2:Some tools and

examples

1. RSS en RSS readersRSS gives a

signal when something new gets posted on a site

RSS readers enable you to follow those signals easily

RSS examplesA library assembled

RSS feeds about Darwin

http://www.netvibes.com/betabibliotheek#Darwinjaar

Reuters shows the Ghanaian blogs on their country pages

http://af.reuters.com/news/country/?type=ghanaNews

RSS examplesEUFORIC offers

various thematic information feeds as a service to its members

http://www.euforic.org

2. Weblogs Weblogs are

online diaries

The culture of bloggers- share, read and comment – is called the ‘blogosphere’

Weblog examples

Pro-poor livestock blog

(http://www.ifadlivestock.blogspot.com)

DFID blog tales from the frontline

http://blogs.dfid.gov.uk/

3. Wikis A wiki is the

simplest webpage for collaborative writing

Various people can edit- write, delete, change in a wiki

(voorbeeld birdflu wiki)

Wiki examples

Agropedia for crops (combination with blog and forum)

http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/

CGIAR knowledge sharing toolkit wiki http://www.kstoolkit.org/

Wiki examples

Akvopedia for water and sanitation

http://www.akvo.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Wikipedia in local languages (here: Wolof)

4. Social networks and online communities

Social network is an online space where people can share information with friends and network (eg. Facebook)

Social network/online community examples

Ning on dairy development for professionals or progresonetwork for producer organisations

http://www.apf-dairy.ning.com en http://www.progresonetworkenglish.ning.com

Social network/online community examples

Web2fordev Basic email list via

Dgroups with resource section

http://dgroups.org/groups/web2fordev

Web2fordev LinkedIn group

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=135666&trk=anet_ug_hm

5. Social bookmarking Allows you to

bookmark your favourite weblinks in public

Examples of social bookmarking and customized search engines

Focuss is a customised search engine based on joint social bookmarking by researchers and others

http://www.focuss.info/

npk4dev is the tag of a group searching for knowledge management in development http://www.delicious.com/tag/npk4dev

6. Microblogs/Twitter In 140 karakters

you can share what you are doing or reading

‘Followers’ read this, you read the updates from the people or organisations you follow

Examples of twitter

UNHCR has >900.000 followers on twitter and uses it for interaction with stakeholders, follows >34.000 people back

http://twitter.com/Refugees

9. Multimedia: photo/video/audio sharing

Web2.0 services that allow you to share pictures, video or audio files (also: share powerpoint slides via slideshare.net)

Multimedia examples

UNICEF created podcasts about the earthquake in Pakistan. http://odeo.com/episodes/548321

The Worldbank has its own Youtube video channel (www.youtube.com/worldbank)

10. Mobile phone

No need to explain!

Examples of mobile phone

• Ushahidi allows monitoring of elections by mobile phone

• Powerful combinations of phone- internet - radio

Part 3: How web2.0 changes publishing

The reader becomes a writer

Video Brosdihttp://dotsub.com/view/7a64255a-

02e7-4d70-9d2a-48bef0aeda2d

Publishing process that can be supported by web2.0

• Collaborative development of content

• Online publishing

• Transformation and repackaging of content (online- offline and offline- online)

Will publishing change?

• Web2.0 changes the role of the publisher. People are both creator and consumers of information

• New technologies don’t replace the old technologies but offer new possibilities

• Repacking of information in different forms will be important because of different preferences and levels of access to internet