What can a wiki do for you?

I’d like to thank Jeff Guin for asking me to write a bit about how to get started with wikis and how they can be useful to folks interested in cultural heritage. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to write about a technology I find so useful and flexible.To introduce myself, I’m one of two objects conservators working at Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. You can learn about some of what my colleagues and I do through our slideshows on Flickr. I created two small wiki projects, Pemulen TR-2 and Social Media 4 Collections Care and contribute very occasionally to Wikipedia.

What’s a Wiki?

The term “wiki”, derived from the Hawaiian word for “quick”, refers to a website created with software that allows a group of people to create and edit the site collaboratively. Every change is recorded. If something didn’t go as planned, a wiki page can be reverted to a previous state, if desired. Most wikis have two areas where administrators and members of the wiki can add text: content areas and discussion or comment areas where users can pose questions or make observations about the content. Some wikis are designed such that content areas and discussion areas appear as separate pages while others have discussion areas positioned under the content areas.

MediaWiki is the open source software created for the best known wiki, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. With more than 91 thousand contributors working on over 17 million articles in 270 languages, arguably it has become a first stop for getting information on just about anything. Anyone can improve existing articles or create new ones, as long as the input meets the Wikipedia community’s criteria for notability and neutrality. A help page, “Advice for the cultural sector” includes suggestions for introducing yourself to the community and suggestions for getting started.

Examples in Heritage

The project “Wikipedia Saves Public Art” provides new users with even more help getting started. Project members created a welcoming tutorial for beginners who want to participate in this project to document public art within Wikipedia but need to know the basics of how to use WikiMarkup and get some guidance on the Wikipedia culture. Additionally, a resource page with links to their article template, style guide, and image guide provide new users with helpful tips for creating a successful reasonably respectable first article. I know because I’ve used it myself to create an article about a sculpture on a college campus.

But perhaps you’re looking to share your observations about a particular material or aspects of your original research. While this information could be incredibly useful to others, it does not fit within Wikipedia’s criteria for inclusion. There are wikis that where these kinds of information might be more appropriate. Two, both built using the MediaWiki software, have been funded by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Preservapedia and the American Institute for Conservation’s Conservation Catalogs Collaborative Knowledge Base. Preservapedia is a source of information for those working in historic preservation and is open to anyone with an interest. AIC’s wiki is intended for professional conservators and was based initially on the Specialty Group Catalogs, written compendiums of information on specific topics related to the preservation and conservation treatment practice, though resources beyond the catalogs are now being added as well.The wikis allow the catalogs and other resources for the conservation community to be updated easily by their editors and to link related articles by different specialty groups to enhance collaborations among the disciplines. Placeography, a project by the Minnesota Historical Society where contributors can share information and memories about structures and neighborhoods, also uses MediaWiki for its software.

There are other, simpler options if you’d prefer to collaborate with even smaller groups. PBworks and Wikispaces, are two hosted software options I’ve worked with. Both companies offer users the opportunity to create at least one wiki free of charge and offer a variety of feature upgrades at a monthly rate. There are many other wiki software options. Some are hosted, others would need to be installed on a server.

Getting Started

To get started on a hosted wiki, you need to open an account on one of the sites. The sites have straight-forward, menu driven editing tools. You don’t need to know HTML or WikiMarkup, the code thats used to format Wikipedia, to create something functional quickly. In addition to text and links, most wiki software also permit inclusion of uploaded files and others have modules to include images, video, slide presentations, calendars, audio clips, RSS feeds, instant message discussions, maps, and polls hosted on other sites.

Administrators can control what sort of visibility the wiki has to the general public and what sort of editing rights members of the wiki hold. Administrators may choose to hide their pages from search engines and only allow access to members that they invite. Thus they can be used as internal organizational documents, such as disaster plans or long range planning documents.

Alternatively, wikis can be made available to search engines to allow for public discovery and administrators may allow anyone, even those who choose to remain anonymous, to comment on or edit the contents of the page, if they wish. Some sites also allow more refined control of user privileges. While some wiki members may be allowed to edit the content, others only may be granted privileges to read and not edit or only be allowed to comment in discussion areas, if the administrator desires.

Wikis can be used by multiple authors or content editors to collaborate on writing projects or presentations. The Pemulen TR-2 wiki was initially created to allow me and two Shelburne Museum conservation fellows, Rachel Penniman and Laura Brill, to develop a presentation that we gave at the Wooden Artifacts Specialty Group’s session at the American Institute for Conservation’s 2009 annual meeting. When Rachel had moved to another state for a job, the wiki allowed us to share documents, images, and ideas as we planned our talk. Now that the presentation is over, the wiki is a useful way to share and discuss what we learned with others who weren’t able to attend the meeting and is a place to continue to update what we’re learning about the polymeric emulsifying agent.

Wikis can be platforms for events. The Institute for Museum and Library Services used the Wikispaces site to create UpNext an online discussion that ran over 10 weeks, March-May 2010, exploring the future of museums and libraries. Facilitators framed and posed questions on ten pages and members of the wiki were invited to discuss those questions and raise new ones on the Discussion pages of the wiki.

Although not an exhaustive list by any means, I’ve collected more examples of how wikis are being used by museums and others interested in caring for cultural property and links to articles about creating wikis on Social Media 4 Collections Care. If you’ve got a favorite heritage-related wiki that you’d like others to know about I hope you’ll share it here or on socialmedia4collectionscare.wikispaces.com

Photo teaser composed from the following sources:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbc/2686689745/
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gutza_Wikipedia_logo.png
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/gordontour/2560211231/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/nojhan/3204073130/

For me, appreciating the heritage of a site is being able to understand the context of its location and where it fits in with its history. It makes you want to experience that site and imagine yourself a part of history. A good guidebook strives for this kind of understanding. You can do the same pretty easily online mapping programs like Google Maps, with a lot more functionality. I’ll show you how using a Google Map I recently created for the Cane River region of Louisiana, where I grew up.

Admittedly, this is a lot of fun to create but you’ll get the most out of the product by giving some thought to the goals you are trying to accomplish. What do you want this map to do for you and your heritage resources?

An online map can have a lot of really good uses: to drive heritage tourism, coordinate volunteers, and even illustrate a grant proposal. But each of those reasons require slightly different elements and you do not want to overwhelm your visitors with information they don’t need. Once your goals are set, here’s how you get started with the basics:

Step 1: Creating the Map

1. Go to http://maps.google.com/ and sign in using your login from any Google service (gmail, Picasa, etc). Click “Get Started.”
2. Give your map a title and description. The title should be a simple description of the site or collective area. Provide one or two sentences in the description that briefly state your area’s claim to fame. You’ll want to include a couple of external links that provide current authoritative information about the area you’re promoting.
3. Click the “Save” and “Done” buttons and you have a map!

Where possible, provide a link that includes contact information for touring your sites. If the site is private or otherwise not accessible to the public, note that as well.

Step 2 : Add Your Sites

As soon as your map is named, add several 5-10 placemarks to it right away. This will give you momentum for keeping the project going and spark interest from potential audiences and collaborators. If you have an address, just type it into the search box and click “search maps.” When the location comes up (and do check to make sure it’s correct on the map) click “Save to …” and select your map from the dropdown menu. Press the Save button, and your first item is created!

That’s the easy way. Often heritage sites in remote areas do not have exact titles, addresses or even discernible zip codes (it happens!). If that’s the case, you’re going to have to locate it using the “Satellite” view in Google Maps. You’ve probably already used this function to find your own house. To enter Satellite view, just click on the button in the top right hand corner of your map. It may take a few moments to load.

Once you are in satellite view, it’s time to engage in a spy mission to spot your site.

1. Go to the map you’ve save and click the Edit button. Then simply click and hold on the map to move it in the direction you want to go.
2. When you’re in the general area of where you know your resources is, use the slider bar on the right hand side of your map to zoom in (+) or zoom out (-).
3. Grab the placemarker icon (looks like and upside-down teardrop) at the top and drop it on to your site. This will give your site GPS coordinates and place it on your map.

Step 3: Collaborate!

Increase the effectiveness of your map by adding collaborators, which is as simple as clicking the “Collaborate” link at the top of your maps and entering e-mail address of the best folks for the job. Start with a small group of people you trust and explain why your map is important as well as why you are asking them to collaborate on it. In my case, folks from my group have not only added important sites I didn’t know about, but also alerted me to sensitive sites (such as those with active archaeological excavations) where public attention might interfere.

Step 4: Blogify Your Text

Folks don’t want to read a treatise about your site within the context of an online map. Shoot for brief, descriptive and compelling narrative storytelling. In the short term, a couple of sentences is just fine.

By default the descriptions of your map items are in plain text. The rich text method offers ways to hyperlink text as in a word processing program. With your map still in edit mode, do this:

1. Click the placemark. The info window will pop up.
2. Choose Rich Text to type in your description text and use the “hyperlink” icon to add urls for related sites.
3. After your text is in place, click the Done button. Remember, you can always go back and edit or add more later.

Step 5: Embedding Photos and Videos

With your placemarks and written description of your sites, you’ve done the bulk of the work to accomplish your goals. Now for the polish — those little elements that will captivate your end users. This starts with that bedrock principle of social media: embedding.

Assuming you have photos and videos on sites like YouTube and Flickr, here’s how to embed your media in each placemark description:

1. Open your map and click the Edit button.
2. Choose Edit HTML.
3. Find the video you want on YouTube or Google Video. Copy the snippet of code that lets you embed the video into a website or blog.
4. Paste the snippet of code into the description field of your placemark, line or shape.
5. Click OK to save your changes.

Note: There is a bit of bugginess with Google Maps and embedding videos. Many folks have had the experience of the embed code for YouTube videos mysteriously disappear from their placemark info box.

Next Steps: Optimize with layers

Another way to get your videos into the appropriate spot (besides HTML) is to use the Video layer. The Video Layer uses the geocoding in your video and will show up after you input an item’s coordinates into the video settings. The video will pop up as an icon when someone clicks the “More …” button on the map and selects “Video.” This also works with photos and Wikipedia entries! Be aware that this could take several days to show up on your map.

Make Your Map a Heritage Icon

Instead of using the default placemark, you can use icons to jazz up the look of your map or to differentiate types of resources at-a-glance. I used a plantation home, a church, a gravemarker and an old building icon (among others) in the Cane River Map. Here’s how you do it:

1. Find or make icons that best fits your categories and upload them to a photosharing site like Flickr (what you ultimately need is a url for the image)
2. Go to your map and click the Edit button.
3. Click the placemark you wish to replace with an icon.
4. When the info window opens up, click the placemark icon next to the right of the title.
5. Click “add an icon” and paste the url for the icon you wish to use. The icon will always show up in “My Icons” from now on.

Notable Use:
The U.S. National Trust for Historic Preservation has famously used Google Maps to visually document its Save America’s Treasures, Preserve America and National Heritage Area sites. While maps on this scale can be overwhelming, they do make the case that historic sites are alive and well, and in likely in your neighborhood.

That’s all there is to it! Now you can embed your map into a web page, or share a link to it through e-mail and social media services. Here’s a preview of the Cane River Heritage Map I created. It’s a work in progress, but it’s a great way to help folks experience these heritage resources both virtually and in person.

View Cane River Heritage Sites Virtual Tour in a larger map

It has been said by many that photos say a thousand words. But now, thanks to photo sharing sites, photography has the power to unite people across cultures and throughout time.

There are many different photo sharing sites out there, such as Photobucket, SmugMug, dotPhoto and Webshots. All of which have individual aspects to them that aid in your organization’s ability to share and express ideas. But for the purpose of this post, we are going to focus on the popular site, Flickr.

Flickr is an image-hosting and video-hosting website, web services suite, and online community created by Ludicorp and later acquired by Yahoo!. Hosting more than four billion images, Flickr is ideal for you to begin your photo-based heritage-related conversation.

Flickr enables you to share your photo’s story in many ways such as:

• Title: Your photo’s title is important. It tells readers immediately what your photo is about. Did you host an event or do you want to address an important heritage topic?
• Captions: Titles are wonderful, but this is where you get to begin the conversation. Captions can be as simple as identify who or what is in your photo to asking those difficult questions.
• Add people to your photos: Just like you would “tag” your friends in your Facebook pictures, here you can “add” them. (In Flickr, tag means a little something different that we will address in a minute). Adding your friends to photos lets them know they are in them and helps you organize your photos.
• Tags: This is how people FIND your photos. You can add a title and caption, but the conversation can’t happen if folks can’t find you. Tags can be as specific or as general as you would like, but don’t over tag! You want to make sure everything you tag is relevant.
• Favorites: This helps you remember photos you like throughout Flickr. While you are searching and participating in photo-based conversations, you can “favorite” a photo to save for later. You can access your favorite photos from your photo stream (and other’s can access YOUR photos that they “favorited” from theirs too!!)
• Sets or Collections: This works much like categories in a blog. This is your table of contents and helps you organize your photos in a way you and others can find them. The way it works is sets fit into collections. So let’s say you take photos at three events. Each event would have its own set holding the select photos from that specific event. Then you can put all three sets into a collection. Perhaps the collection is titled “events” and so all of your event sets would go there. This just helps viewers find photos they want to see instead of digging through all of your pictures.

Now adding and sharing your photos can be as simple or complex as you would like. You can upload photos using your phone, through email, from your web browser or from Flickr’s desktop app. You just need to decide what is best for you and your organization.

Now once you have done all this, you can participate with everyone on Flickr through groups and galleries and MORE! It is about finding where you want your heritage organization’s voice to be heard. Perhaps you want to participate in The Commons and explore snapshots through time with organizations like the Smithsonian and Cornell University.

Or perhaps you want to be more place-based. You want to work with individuals around you and share your photos. With Flickr Places, you can look at your photos on Flickr maps and view your area.

Or you want to take it a step farther and take your place-based photos and compare the old with the new like the Flickr group Looking into the Past. Here, folks take old pictures and “merge” them with photos of what the places look like now to show the contrast and growth and history.

Or maybe you want to take it one step farther and add animation to your pictures. Like Flickr user The Surveyor, you want to take the comparison one step farther.

When you are on Flickr, there is a WORLD for you to explore. But before you do it, you need to get your camera out, dig through old photos and get them up there. Because the conversation begins with you!

Have fun and stay tuned to hear how other organizations are using Flickr!

The key is taking your good ideas and intentions with social media and developing them into more defined goals, objectives and tactics that can be measured for results.

Most organizations start with general goal statements that contain a little of all these elements, but are not quite any of them. As a longtime public relations professional and occasional adjunct professor on the topic, I can tell you the PR planning mindset may seem counterintuitive to your good social media intentions.  I’ll start by giving you a very general rundown of how I plan using a fictional “Clementine Hunter Art Museum.” Your mileage may vary.

1. Goals are extremely general and are rooted in the organization’s mission. They are based on changing your organization’s position in either reputation, relationships or the work of “getting things done.” They are your guiding light, Pollyanna statements about your organization’s perfect world, stated in present tense. This sounds stupid at first, and is surprisingly hard to do, but still necessary to the effectiveness of your ultimate plan. You can’t really measure these.

For example: CHAM is the top-of-mind source among publics who require easy online access to information about the life and art of Clementine Hunter.

2. Objectives are specific, measurable, time-based tasks that support your goals. Usually you have three or more.

For example: “To increase weekly traffic to the CHAM website 30% by the end of the current calendar year through an aggressive Facebook campaign targeted to students at art colleges.”

3. Tactics are the tools that you will use with intention to accomplish your objectives–Flickr, YouTube, direct mail, a poster contest, etc., etc. In this case, we’ll continue with the theme above.

For example:

1. CHAM conservator will post weekly updates (augmented with photos and video) to the Facebook page on the “journey” of conserving a work of art.
2. Initiate a Facebook ad campaign with appropriate demographics
3. Post monthly updates to art college Facebook pages
4. Facebook video contest — “How is CHAM’s legacy inspiring you?” Winner–museum membership, free print, small scholarship, etc.
5. Emphasize through semi-weekly updates, photos of the artist and woman as well as trivia about her technique, etc. (Folks want to feel connected to her, and the people  preserving her legacy, not to a “museum.”)
6. Secure and publicize a “shortlink” name for the Facebook page (e.g. facebook.com/clementinehunterart)
7. Produce a direct mail postcard advertising CHAM’s website and unique Facebook content.

The critical leap to success depends on your tactics being rooted in larger goals and objectives for the organization. Your organization may have already done this. If not, the more effective and productive method would be a staff retreat, even if it’s just after hours at the museum. It’s an exhausting, but fruitful process. The Hoshin Method (http://www.siliconfareast.com/hoshin.htm) is effective for this purpose.

Just remember, the principles of social media will often engage naturally when you are using the social tools while intentionally remembering who your audience is and what drives them. This will make participation from the staff and publics much easier as well.

Graphic by by Lograi on Flickr

Sometimes the needs of a heritage group extend beyond the simple need to convey information. Blogs and Facebook fan pages allow limited interactivity. But for groups whose members are intensely passionate about a topic, a free social networking site like Ning could be the way to go.

So what is Ning, and who is using it to talk about heritage?

Essentially, Ning allows you to create your very own Facebook, complete with groups, design customization, forums, RSS capability and individual profile pages that incorporate blogs. There are also multimedia sharing functions whereby members can upload photos and videos.

According to Quantcast.com, an estimated 6.8 million people access Ning a month. Far fewer than Facebook, but you have to consider the quality of communication going on in these sites. Unlike the “drive-by” communication common to Facebook, Ning flourishes when ongoing, intense discussion is needed on a topic.

Compared to other social networking sites, Ning provides the a solid platform for effective, good-looking sites with minimal effort, according to TechCrunch.

There are several general factors to consider before starting a Ning site.

Pros:

• You have an instant social network with a lot of the functionality of Facebook and your own brand
• It’s customizable with colors, graphics and typefaces
• There are a variety of privacy options for the site and for individual users
• Feature set is continually improved.
• Ability to track your web statistics through Google Analytics

Cons:

• Unless your potential membership is highly prolific and motivated, you will have to manage your community intensively to keep the participation level up.
• Once the information is in Ning, you can’t readily export it to another platform (like a blog).
• There are hundreds of social sites out there and many folks are fatigued with signing up for them.
• While Ning is improving, there will still be some instances (like getting a photo to show up in a post) where a rudimentary knowledge of HTML code is helpful.
• It’s also your responsibility to deal with spambots and members behaving badly.

Participation often comes in waves. This may be affected by a major news item, event or recognition by other sites and blogs. Just prepare yourself for it.

Heritage organizations worldwide have joined Ning to share their values. Here are a few examples:

Natchitoches Preservation Network (collaborative small town heritage site)

Natchitoches, La., the first permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory, is home to more than 30 organizations dealing with heritage issues. These organizations have long worked together to preserve the town’s historic legacy. While each has had its own website (often several years out of date) and publicity methods, the duplicate efforts wasted the energy of these organizations.

Ning was used to create the Natchitoches Preservation Network site.

The 151-member site uses groups and blogs to keep the community apprised of various heritage events and informs them of ongoing research and volunteer opportunities. Blog posts include anything from Community Cemetery Cleaning Day to thesis project presentations by Heritage Resources Students at nearby Northwestern State University of Louisiana.

The site also makes use of RSS and embedding of other social media to enhance the experience. It includes a virtual library of links from the social bookmarking service Delicious. It also incorporates a Friendfeed group that allows members to add news stories related to Natchitoches heritage from other sites, embedding them on the front page.

Members post photos and videos about events and places around the parish including the a series of “This Place Matters” videos in which individuals explain the importance of their favorite landmarks around the parish.

The site was also used to communicate intern research hosted at the National Center for Preservation Technology an Training during the summer. The interns blogged to the Natchitoches community weekly about the progress with their projects and how the projects benefit them as a community. They then presented their research at the end of the summer during the event “Preservation in Your Community.”

Heritage is more than just ensuring that a place matters, some heritage individuals find their passion preserving more intangible aspects, such as the art of music.

Paper Music (profession-oriented news and discussion)

Paper Music is an organization that uses Ning to exchange experiences and information to globally connect musicologists, music archivists, librarians and museologists.

The site makes strong use of its blog function to communicate news, events, information and commentary on pieces and newsletters. It also uses forums to share reference information such as how to successfully write academic papers.

Two Rosetos (place-based heritage sharing)

Two Rosetos is a heritage network for Roseto Valforteore-Italy and it’s sister city Roseto-PA. The 267-member network uses blogs, videos and photographs to communicate with their communities.

Blogs vary from inquiring about the path between cities to similarities between individuals and his or her ancestors to forum for people to explain the importance of their Italian experiences.

But with social media, communication is not simply limited to the city or county level.

GenealogyWise (Genealogy Research)

Genealogy is one of humankind’s favorite hobbies. We all want to know what makes us “us.” Not surprisingly, there are numerous genealogy networks on Ning. GenealogyWise is one of the largest. With more than 14,000 members and 3,000 groups, it’s very active. Using its group function, it also includes an interesting method for people to connect: by surname. The groups also tackle specific topics such as dating photos and outdoor genealogy. Nearly 400 videos (many of which are how-tos) have been posted. And to help the large membership connect, the site also holds scheduled live chats.

Museum 3.0 (Discussions on museums in the digital age)

Museum 3.0 poses the question, “What will the museum of the future be like?” More than 1,600 people from all over the world have joined in seeking an answer to this question.

The forums serve as their discussion board for a variety of topics including the future of the audio tour, new virtual tours on different sites, Twitter as a business tool and museum-related surveys.

Museum 3.o also uses the events function of Ning to promote different conferences, seminars and networking opportunities.

Museum 3.0 also uses Ning’s video and image sharing opportunities to post more than 500 images from different museums and about 50 videos ranging from interviews to museum-related speeches to videos depicting the “Reel Texas Cowboys.”

Heritage Hands (Heritage Volunteerism)

Sometimes heritage isn’t about the simplicity of one “concentration” or focus. Sometimes it is a general goal of “preserving the past.”

Heritage Hands is an organization that works to protect, preserve and promote cultural heritage. The site works to collaborate with all heritage professionals from museum professionals to archeologists to educators to everything and anything else out there.

The site shares news, job opportunities and promotes global networking centered on the general idea of promoting heritage values.

But heritage is not something that needs to be simply left to professionals. With social networking sites like Ning, heritage values are now in the hands of the individual.

For some, Ning enables them to research their family heritage and unit individuals globally giving them one centralized place to share aspects of their lives.  The families use their Ning sites to post family photos and videos, discuss family reunions and also research their family trees.

Regardless of the heritage you find important, let it be community heritage or your own family’s history, Ning enables you to share it all globally with folks who share those same values at the click of a button.

The sites we’ve covered are only a sampling of what’s out there. We’d love to hear your thoughts on your favorite heritage-focused Ning sites.

By Bethany Frank

by Dylan Staley

Let’s face it: videos are in. With the advent of social video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Blip.tv, video has become a first class citizen on the web. But one of the major drawbacks to video is the time it takes form when the camera stops rolling to when the video is available online for millions to see.

When live television first came on the scene, it introduced a radical idea: the idea that you can watch news as it is happening, live right from your television. You can watch the Presidential Inauguration, the Macey’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, or the Time’s Square New Year’s Celebration live, right from the comfort of your home.

With internet media, you can now view these events hours after they have happened, and enjoy the moments over and over again. But, sometimes, you wish you could have seen it live.

Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the $1,000+ equipment that make a live television broadcast possible. This is where sites such as Qik and USTREAM come in.

Qik and USTREAM, both live video blogging sites, allow users to connect their internet-enabled devices (be it computers or camera-enabled cellphones) to their servers and upload a live video feed, directly to the website. No longer do you need to wait until the event is over, on until your upload finishes, or until the website host finishes encoding your video. Viewers can watch what is happening right now, right now.

The ability to broadcast live without expensive equipment is incredibly useful to those working in the preservation field. In my last post, I described how preservationists can use the microblogging site Twitter to send out text updates in almost real time to their followers, but nothing beats the feel of actually watching the action unfold. Here are some ideas:

• Museum fans can watch live as conservators work on priceless artifacts, perhaps drawing in new visitors to an exhibit.
• Broadcasting from an archaeological dig as a major discovery is unearthed.
• Livestreaming from your community preservation event (such as a cemetery cleaning day) to ignite interest and get more volunteers involved.
• Raise awareness about the state of cultural resources affected by disaster (see video below)

The only thing you need is an internet-enabled device such as a cellphone, and an internet connection. You will of course need to be aware of the sensitivity and security of these sites when you are broadcasting. You wouldn’t want to attract looters to an archaeological site, for example.

With the websites Qik and USTREAM, users sign up for an account and then follow different instructions on how to set up their various devices to communicate with the internet servers. Users can then subscribe to the live video feed and watch whenever, and wherever, you are broadcasting as if they were right there beside you.

Related Links:

Qik | Frequently Asked Questions

USTREAM.tv Help Center

Mashable | What’s is Mobile Video’s Future?

Mashable | Create Your Own Branded Mobile Video Broadcast with Ustream

“What are you up to?”

It’s how we greet friends and strangers alike everyday. It’s also the question behind one of the web’s most popular social networking sites: Twitter. Voices of the Past posts links to its news, along with other community announcements, at www.twitter.com/votpnews. So what is microblogging, and what can you gain from it?

Microblogging, a term that refers to the plethora of micro-blog posts on the sites of services such as Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk, lets users update their friends (or followers as Twitter calls them) about what’s going on right now. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll be looking at the basic ideas behind microblogging with Twitter. Yes, the first time I heard about it I too wondered who in the world would spend their time on something like this.

Lots of folks, evidently. According to the measurement website Tweetrush, about 2 million “tweets” (a.k.a. posts) are released into cyberspace each day. And in a time when most companies are going to the government for the funds to stay afloat, venture capitalists gave Twitter $35 million it didn’t even necessarily need.

It turns out that most people like the freedom of expression that blogging promises, but aren’t crazy about the commitment. While some of us may enjoy the process of researching and crafting a blog post to stand the test of time, others just want to share their admiration of a helpful Wal-Mart employee or vent their frustration about the long checkout lines. The sentiment is short, sweet and instantly out there for millions to see.

Ease of use is where much of Twitter’s popularity lies. There is no logging into an administrative panel to create headlines, tags and the other components of a blog post. And the interface is immaculate, unlike the chaos of Facebook or MySpace. Type in the homepage box and press send. That’s it. Dozens of Twitter update applications have been built for quick updating via desktop applications and smartphones as well.

Obama on Twitter

More than 250,000 Obama followers on Twitter aided in his presidential victory through spontaneous meet-ups and fundraisers announced through the service. In February 2009, “Twestival” was celebrated for the first time in more than 180 cities all over the world. Twestival essentially began with groups of Twitter users rallying together to support the cause of clean water in developing countries. Hundreds of gatherings were held to raise money for public works projects.

Twitter can be used on a personal level for project management, to-do lists, notetaking, job networking, flash focus groups, and getting all the family together at the same time for dinner. It can also be used to aggregate news in an easily accessible way.

But Twitter is merely the delivery platform. It’s up to the users of the service to determine what the conversation is about. Groups who are on archeological surveys can use these services to update their friends and colleagues about their findings almost immediately after the fact through the use of cellphone integration that many microblogging services offer. These services can allow almost real-time communication: something that is virtually unheard of within the preservation field.

The major microblogging services are:
Twitter
Jaiku
Plurk
Identi.ca
Tumblr
Brightkite

Follow Voices of the Past on Twitter and Tumblr!

RELATED LINKS:

5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good

Newbie’s Guide to Twitter

Squidoo Lenses on Using Twitter

Latest news on Twitter

By Dylan Staley

“Isn’t Genealogy Fun? The answer to one problem leads to two more.” – Anonymous

Genealogy, the study of one’s lines of descent or development, is often a tedious task: one must search through hundreds of documents; find certificates of birth, death, marriage, and divorce; and then compile all this information in something easy to read and understand.

That thing is usually a family tree.

Everyone knows what a family tree is. Think back to kindergarten, when your teacher had you draw a tree with your grandparents as the roots, your parents as the trunk, and you and your siblings as the branches of the tree.. It was fun, because you knew these people, and you knew how they were related (and because in kindergarten, family trees actually resembled their real-life counterparts). That’s because it didn’t seem like these people were in the witness protection program.

Tracing back you lineage farther than your great grandparents can prove difficult. By this point, those who actually know who you’re looking for will, ahem, have been put to pasture. It is then up to you to trace your lineage through the paper trail of certificates of birth and death, marriage and divorce, and even immigration records. It’s often too time consuming for the average hobbyist to research find and record all this information.

This is where using Web 2.0, the idea that the internet should be open and collaborative, comes into play. By using this ideology, building your family tree is as easy as asking someone who their mother was. Using a Web 2.0 service simulates having your family around you, and working together to fill out your family tree. As others are added, they become a part of the conversation, adding their input and helping to fill out their branch of the tree. The more people you add to the tree, the more information you have access to. At some point, you realize that you are not alone, and that your family is there to help you.

Geni is a web based family tree maker that is using the idea of Web 2.0 and collaboration to make finding your long lost relatives easier. Geni, built by some of the people that brought you PayPal, eGroups, eBay, and Tribe, allows you to work with your family members on building your family tree. So, you may not know your second great grandmother’s husband’s name, but your grandmother’s sister may know, and Geni provides the platform to allow this knowledge to travel the great distances that often separate families.

Geni's Family Tree Maker

When you add someone to your tree on Geni, you can also choose to add their email address. Then, they will be able to collaborate on their side of the family tree. Just think, if all of your relatives were to map out their family trees up to their grandparents, your tree would grow exponentially.

When you add someone to your tree, you have the option of adding their email address so they can collaborate on your family tree with you

Geni also allows you to create complete profiles on any of your family members, including dates of birth, death, marriage and divorce, and other important events; locations of birth and current residence; schools attended and more. Geni provides a simple to use interface that makes genealogy fun and simple (not to mention addictive).

Geni's Basic Profile Information

Geni isn’t only about building your family tree with your family. It also provides ample methods to share other things with your relatives, such as important dates in your children’s lives, photos of the family reunion (that only half of them even bothered to R.S.V.P. for), and that video of your daughter taking her first steps. Geni provides the tools to share what’s important to you with your family, and discover just who exactly that is.

Here are a few other services that use Web 2.0 ideas to build family trees:
Genoom
Famiva
Family Mingle
MyHeritage

As you can see, there are numerous services designed to help you bring your family together to build a family tree. Sound off in the comments if you use one of these services and why, and any interesting discoveries you’ve made along the way.

See what others have said about Geni:
Lifehacker: Build your family tree with Geni
TechCrunch: Geni’s Quest Toward One World Family Tree
VentureBeat: Geni aims to build family tree for whole world
AppAppeal: Geni Review
CNET: Geni: Finally, Genealogy made easy

Geni Blog
twitter / geni
delicious / geni

Ever feel like e-mail is your enemy? Oh sure, that first few months after you first logged in was great. The world was at your fingertips. Then, at some indefinable moment in time, sweet freedom became enslavement. Now, all day, everyday–for the foreseeable future–new messages are appearing along with the possibility of one more thing to handle.

There are lots of things you can do with Friendfeed. I’ve seen it used for blogs, wikis, discussion forums, web bookmarks and even instant messaging. Its rising popularity lies in its simplicity. Using a bookmark in your browser toolbar, you can share and comment on web content without ever having to leave the web page you are looking at. Other folks can subscribe to the feed, then jump in, add their responses and share related links too. Since it’s so easy to post and comment, communities tend to build around them quickly. All the posts go to one scannable, searchable page.

You can have content from almost any social service automatically imported into your feed–from blogs to Amazon wish lists–whether it’s your’s or not. So it functions kind of like a public RSS reader as well. Web experts believe this style of open, dynamic communication is the next iteration of the internet. And some prominent bloggers have already abandoned their blogs in favor of lifestreaming sites.

Of course, you control  the privacy settings on your personal Friendfeed. But you can also create “rooms” on specific topics to which anyone can join and contribute content. Voices of the Past has a Friendfeed room. Anyone is welcome to join the room, and the conversation on our shared heritage. You can also see updates from the Friendfeed room anytime by visiting the Voices of the Past Heritage News page.

Elsewhere on the web:

http://www.blahblahtech.com/2009/01/what-is-friendfeed.html

Confused about social media? Don’t know where to start? For the last two years, I’ve been hunting down great projects in and outside of museums that exemplify the themes of visitor participation, user-generated content, and flexible relationships between institutions and visitors. Here are some of my favorite museum projects that represent interesting, thoughtful experiments with Web 2.0:

The Bay Area Discovery Museum: A Lesson in Good Listening

You don’t need a big initiative to get involved with social media—you just need ears and a voice to add to conversations that are already happening. Jennifer Caleshu, head of marketing for a small children’s museum, is an active participant in local Web 2.0 parenting and recreational sites like Yelp!, and developed relationships in those online communities to build strong relationships with current and potential visitors. She recently started a blog for the museum, but her best work is in listening to what others are saying about her institution. She describes her social media strategy here on the excellent Museum Audience Insight blog maintained by Reach Advisors.

MN150: A Visitor-Generated History Exhibition

The Minnesota Historical Society developed an innovative permanent exhibition featuring the 150 most important contributions of Minnesota as nominated by regular people. Read an interview with the lead developer of MN150 here.

The Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum is a leader in innovative social media initiatives, from the creation of Facebook applications to crowd-curated exhibits and a “posse” collection-tagging project. You can read three articles about their initiatives here or visit their community site here.

Library of Congress on Flickr

When the Library of Congress put some of their photo collection on the photo-sharing site Flickr, it opened up whole new conversations and interpretations of their content. Read more about it here.

ExhibitFiles

ExhibitFiles is a social networking website for people who make and visit exhibitions. It is a living database of exhibit case studies and reviews and is useful for anyone looking for best practices in the field.

Museum blog types compared (with examples)

In this post on Museum 2.0, I compare the different types of museum blogs and offer a self-assessment tool to determine what type might be right for you.

Beth’s Blog and the WeAreMedia wiki

Beth Kanter is an extraordinary social media maven with a focus on non-profits. She covers everything from Web 2.0 tools to fundraising strategies on her blog and on the NTEN WeAreMedia project site.

Useum

The North Carolina Museum of Life and Sciences is doing a series of no- to low-cost experiments with Web 2.0 and documenting them here.

Science Buzz and Red Shift Now

The Science Museum of Museum and the Ontario Science Center each maintain impressive community sites that integrate real-time visitor feedback from the Web and the museum floor here and here respectively.