Two days with a power blogger: learning the art of expression, connection and influence
By Bethany Frank
Last week, power blogger Lorelle VanFossen came to the National Park Service office where I intern and taught a day-and-a-half workshop on the art of blogging and its uses in the heritage field. Lorelle stood in front of us and asked, “what do you say when someone says they have a blog?” Without missing a beat, one participant responded, “ask if there is a cure.”
That sudden burst of laughter broke the ice as we all discussed our thoughts on how blogging could potentially help the organization. Some responded with, “I don’t know; I am here to learn the answer” or “Because my boss told me to.”
But then we started discussing how blogging could help us reach a wider audience.
Livestream to bring awareness of heritage resources to the world
by Dylan Staley
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.
Twitter and microblogging: Instant communication with your community
“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/ptnews. So what is microblogging, and what can you gain from it?
Maggie Struckmeier of Past Horizons on volunteer archaeology and online media
Maggie Struckmeier of Past Horizons talks about inspiring regular people to volunteer with archaeological excavations using a variety of online media.
Friendfeed and Lifestreaming: Your total web experience all on one page
Voices of the Past has added a feature that makes communicating on the internet fun again. The tool is called Friendfeed, and it is just one of a growing number of “lifestreaming” tools that allow you to instantly pull all your web activities onto one page, and have conversations about them with your friends.
Armchair tour of museums and Web 2.0
By Nina Simon
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:
What is social media?
For the last couple of years, the terms “web 2.0″ and “social media” have been used for nearly anything new and interactive on the internet. Since Voices of the Past and sites like it integrate many basic social media tools, let’s take the time to consider the concept of social media and its potential to advance heritage preservation.
RSS & Aggregation: The web you want, where you want it
We’re all hearing stories about how newspapers are obsolete and print is dead. But what’s taking their place? After, all the big attraction of newspapers is their scannability. We humans have become accustomed to absorbing a world of timely knowledge, at a glance. The answer lies in RSS, or really simple syndication.