Chapter 7 - Knowledge Structures

Chapter Notes:

How do we collate, process, evaluate, combine, and synthesize the diverse range of content not available to us?

Metadata – has become the defining feature of Web 2.0.

Metadata in a produsage context operates through the three core practices of tagging, linking, and browsing

There are sites that aggregate data from blogs: Technorati, TextMap, TechMeme, and Findory. Google extracts metadata from client and server side tools. 2+ billion Google searches/month.

Commercial harnessing of metadata. Best example is Amazon. Mines search and purchase patterns and generates listings and recommendations for other related products. Amazon’s catalog is basically prodused by customers.

We are approaching a cosmopedia. Raises the crucial question of how the knowledge structures are going to be determined and curated. Knowledge is equated with power, and the structures of knowledge in the cosmopedia will substantially affect the ability of participants (to form opinions, hold discussions, etc.)

Cheap Metadata (ad hoc metadata) – metadata that is prodused through randomness, as opposed to the active formations of tags. It is produsage-basead – broad range of equipotential contributors; highly fluid; loose heterarchy.

Folksonomy – new fluid dialogic, pluralistic form of user-driven, user-generated, prodused content taxonomies. (Name comes from the broad range of users.)

Metadata may be skewed by the generation of tags created from web use and from personal use – such as people tagging their personal photos on Flickr.

Ad hoc nature of folksonomy more responsive to rapid changes in the range, depth, and topical make-up of available knowledge.

Problems with folksonomies: exposure to deliberate disruptions by spammers, broad range of users with different vocabularies and terms. Still, may be the best available method.

Return to taxonomies highly unlikely.

There are still people involved in the process (even though its user prodused). However, they are more guides of the process as opposed to creators of it.