Hi Mike,
Thanks for the expanded comments. This is closer to what I meant to appear
to be saying :-)
You can check if your site is "valid Web2.0" btw. at:
http://web2.0validator.com/
The Science Museum gets 5 out of 52 but at least one of those is that it
appears already to be a Web 3.1 site :-) We'll know we're in trouble when
people start taking these scores seriously.
Regards,
James
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, Ellis Mike wrote:
> Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:06:12 -0000
> From: Ellis Mike <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [MCG] Quick Introduction to Web 2.0
>
> I should probably expand on my slightly cryptic, early Sunday morning email...
>
> There seem to me to be two diametrically-opposed dangers with the whole Web 2.0 thing..
>
> 1. We get caught up in the hype, drop everything we do and begin blogging and wiki-ing instead
>
> 2. We fail to take notice of what the hype says about the new expereriences these technologies can offer, and just carry on trying to develop stuff where the *overarching* focus is on standards compliance, rather than on user experience.
>
> I do agree with James (and you'll see more of this in the paper that Brian and I have done for Museums and the Web 2007, if you're coming to SF) that there is danger of us being whisked up into a Gartner Hype Curve Of Hell. I'm sure I'm not alone in having endless requests to "do a blog" without any concrete ideas about what or why...
>
> At the same time, I think we should look very closely at what Museums are trying to do, both on the web and off. If a key part of this is to take a bunch of museum objects and make them relevant to **real** people (and sorry, I don't include museum specialists in this, rude though that may be..) - then we absolutely *should* be taking heed of what YouTube or Flickr have managed to do. Where relevant (underlined several times), UGC can be an incredibly powerful tool in helping us with new audiences.
>
> To clarify my second point, before my P45 comes whisking through the post: chasing standards is really, REALLY important. But I genuinely believe that engaging users and improving their experience is the single most important thing we should be doing.
>
> BUT - what is exciting about the "new" ways of working is that these two things don't battle against each other - genuine XML data sharing techniques back-end can REALLY be rendered out into beautiful CSS designs which degrade gracefully and comply with any standard you care to throw at it. Which is why, incidentally, I have such a problem with Mr. Nielsen's site www.useit.com - it **LOOKS AWFUL** and is a terrible exemplar of what can be achieved if you put your mind to it...
>
> So - let's not go assuming that new stuff = bad stuff. Yes, there are some questions about how AJAX accessibility can be improved, for example, but let's engage with those debates rather than running away from them.
>
> At the end of the day (neck on line..), does your average user really care that MySpace has no API, terrible non-compliant code, no data release, HORRIBLE design?? Apparantly the 100 million people with accounts don't think so. It's sad, but undeniably true.
>
> ta
>
> Mike
>
> _________________
> Web Site Manager
> Science Museum
> Exhibition Road
> London, SW7 2DD
>
> 07970 846 059
>
> http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk <http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk>
> http://www.danacentre.org.uk <http://www.danacentre.org.uk>
> http://www.ingenious.org.uk <http://www.ingenious.org.uk>
> http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk <http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Museums Computer Group on behalf of Brian Kelly
> Sent: Mon 19/02/2007 08:31
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Quick Introduction to Web 2.0
>
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Tim Berners-Lee's thoughts are also interesting.
>> Good summary at
>> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060901-7650.html
>>
>> I'm with Tim on this one. I cringe every time I hear the
>> phrase "Web 2.0"
>
> Actually. I'm not sure you're with Tim, at all. Tim was arguing that the
> read/write Web's approach, based on technologies such as blogs and wikis and
> user-generated content, is an implementation of his original vision of the
> Web. So if you're with Tim, you will welcome the opportunity which Web 2.0
> technologies provide. Tim is, understandably, annoyed that his vision for
> the Web has hijacked by the software development community and large
> organisations which resulted in primarily a read-only Web.
>
> You'll also notice that "has nothing but good things to say about AJAX" - so
> those nice, easy to use Web 2.0 services which are based on AJAX can also
> be a good think, with W3C working of guidelines to maximise the
> accessibility os such interfaces - see
> http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-roadmap/
>>
>> Meanwhile, Internet Explorer 7 still comes nowhere near close
>> to rendering CSS properly
>
> I agree - encourage organisations to move to a browser with better support
> for standards.
>
>> Accessibility is more than just presenting information in a
>> way that's accessible to people with impairments. It's also
>> about presenting information in a manner that's accessible to
>> machines (e.g., Google's indexing bot - almost certainly your
>> most important user).
>
> I agree. BTW Technorati is a great search engine for the blogosphere (which
> is much more integrated with search engines than Google, as pingbacks will
> notify services automatically when new content is created). As an example,
> see:
> http://www.technorati.com/search/mcg
>
>> A better option would be to continue to work on getting the
>> basics right - campaign for better browsers (and / or use
>> alternatives), create, support and stick to standards and use
>> validators as well as manual checks to maximise content
>> accessibility for people and machines.
>
> I would agree with all of this, if you replace "A better option ... " with
> "A complementary approach ...".
>
> Brian
>
> --------------------------------
> Brian Kelly
> UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: +44 1225 383943
>
>> as it seems to be nothing more than a marketing buzzword if
>> anyone can actually define what it means. We've had SGML
>> since 1980, XML since 1998 and of course all the effort
>> (arguably in the face of some market
>> resistance) the W3C / IETF and others have put into the DOM,
>> SVG, SMIL, XML and friends, Atom etc. specifications has
>> always been aimed at creating a semantic web that's write as
>> well as read.
>>
>> Meanwhile, Internet Explorer 7 still comes nowhere near close
>> to rendering CSS properly (try the Acid2 test - Opera passes,
>> Firefox comes close), ECMAScript doesn't have an officially
>> registered MIME-type and websites are littered with basic
>> coding errors such as, e.g., Birmingham Stories (which I
>> mention as it's previously been the subject of an MCG
>> presentation) having 607 validation errors on the home-page.
>> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.birminghams
> tories.co.uk%2F
>>
>> Accessibility is more than just presenting information in a
>> way that's accessible to people with impairments. It's also
>> about presenting information in a manner that's accessible to
>> machines (e.g., Google's indexing bot - almost certainly your
>> most important user).
>>
>> I fear that if we get caught up in the hype, we risk an
>> expensive and inefficient waste of resources and may get
>> side-tracked into a "blog everything" mentality that will
>> nicely line the pockets of former "Flash monkeys" but do
>> little else to improve the fundamental quality of the web.
>
>> Regards,
>>
>> James
>>
>> On Fri, 16 Feb 2007, Kostas Arvanitis wrote:
>>
>>> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:26:31 +0000
>>> From: Kostas Arvanitis <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Reply-To: Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [MCG] Quick Introduction to Web 2.0
>>>
>>> This response is also very interesting!
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAVmB5dKZZ8&eurl=
>>>
>>> Kostas.
>>>
>>>
>>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>> Dr. Konstantinos Arvanitis
>>> Lecturer in Museology
>>> Centre for Museology
>>> School of Arts Histories and Cultures
>>> Humanities Bridgeford Street
>>> The University of Manchester
>>> Oxford Road
>>> Manchester M13 9PL
>>> Tel.: +44 161 2753018
>>> http://www.manchester.ac.uk/museology/
>>> http://digitalheritage.wordpress.com/
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of
>>> Tony Gill
>>> Sent: 14 February 2007 21:41
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Quick Introduction to Web 2.0
>>>
>>> This is one of the best quick introductions to Web 2.0 that
>> I've seen:
>>>
>>>
>> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE>http://www.youtube.com/wat
>>> ch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
>>>
>>> (apart from the music, which is terrible).
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> T.
>>>
>>> **************************************************
>>> For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the
>> list, visit
>>> the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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>>>
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>>> the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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>>>
>>
>> --
>>
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