The April issue of the Knowledge Base Editor's Digest is unique because for the first time, each of the new entries is in a non-traditional format: an audio interview, a YouTube video, and two bibliographies in del.icio.us format. To indicate the growing importance of what some call Web 2.0 technologies, we've decided to add a new category to the Digest index called "social publishing."

What is "social publishing?"
Social publishing allows existing forms of communication — print, Web, audio, video — to be collected, shared, and organized in new ways. It's a logical extension of the Web (Version 1), where you could create a network of information through hypertext links and a collection of resources using bookmarks. But since creating a Web site requires time, skill, and technology, relatively few people got into the Web publishing game. Even fewer used the Web to share images, sound recording, and videos, organize their information collections using "tags," or syndicate their content for other people to subscribe to.

Now new technologies not only make it easier for people to publish information without creating a Web site, but also to locate expertise and content that they would not otherwise know about. The four April Digest entries we've selected show how this works.

1. Audio interview
The audio interview with Karen Coyle is like a radio program broadcast over the Internet. The "program" is published by a "station" (or "channel") called Open Source Conversations. You can listen to the interview right on your computer, or you can download it for later listening on a portable player device like the Apple iPod. You can also see who's created a link to the program, save it in a list for downloading, create a permanent link to the program on your own blog or Web site, or get a list of programs through your Web browser's news feed function.

None of this by itself is new, but now it's much easier to:

• download and play audio files on a portable device;
• avoid broken links when you add a program reference to your Web site;
• produce good-enough quality audio using a microphone connected to your computer;
• find programs of interest to you.

Open Source Conversations is one of three "channels" produced by the publisher, GigaVox Media. The other two are IT Conversations (targeted toward a more technical audience) and Podcast Academy (programs to help you become proficient at creating audio programs for distribution on iPods and other portable devices). Some of my technical colleagues report listening to these programs on their iPods while driving or jogging. If you know where to look, this is a great way to hear top quality speakers without the time and money investment necessary to attend conferences.

Gigavox Media is funded by ads that run alongside the programs, sales of podcasting software, and fees from face-to-face instructional programs in conjunction with universities.

2. Video instruction
If Karen's Coyle's audio interview represents Internet radio, then Mike Wesch's video animation represents Internet TV. Wesch, a technically-oriented anthropology professor, used inexpensive hardware and software to create the five-minute program. Then he uploaded it to the YouTube Web site, where it can be viewed free of charge by anyone with a computer.

Again, nothing here is new except that it's easier to:

• create good-enough video using inexpensive hardware and software;
• upload it to a site that will host it free of charge in a user-friendly format;
• subscribe to other videos by the same author;
• embed the video on your own blog or Web page;
• assign a category to the video and view other videos in the same category (e.g. more programs on ethnography).

YouTube was acquired by Google in October of 2006, but it continues to operate independently. YouTube's video content is another venue for Google's advertising, and Google technology may improve YouTube's search function.

Unlike Gigavox, which has editors to select audios to post, YouTube is a free-for-all that lets anyone post a video. The result is a lot of junk, but the technology is a boon to creative people who can become instant stars by simply producing and posting something that is unique, timely, or interesting. This has three effects:

1. Individuals can supplement their income and even launch new freelance careers.

2. Editors, both freelance and employed by established publishers, have a new source of content.

3. Organizations have a new way to spread innovations, disseminate knowledge, and reduce the costs of training, travel, and customer service.

3. Social bookmarks
"Social bookmarks" such as the OCLC Top 1000 and the University of Alberta library climate change links are lists of Internet resources that someone has decided are noteworthy. What makes these lists of links different from traditional bookmarks is that:

1. they are accessible to other people, not just the person who created them;

2. they are "tagged" with user-assigned keywords or categories.

This means that users can find similar resources by clicking on the tags that others have assigned and can get an idea of how valuable a resource is by looking at the number of people who have saved it. Social bookmarks in effect are a library by the people, for the people.

Because there's no editor, there's a lot of irrelevant material on social bookmark sites. Because there's no indexer or cataloger, the classification system is very crude. For example, there are tags for both "economic" and "economics" (each with its own list of links) when common sense says there should be only one. But social bookmarking systems have disproved the myth that users won't tag content and, even if they do, the tags they assign will be worthless.

Social bookmarks are better than tradition bookmarks because they contain more information. That's why librarians, who were among the first to create lists of links even before the World Wide Web, are now creating lists in social bookmark format.

Social publishing in a business context
How this plays out in a business context remains to be seen. Can social publishing cut training, travel, and customer service costs? What effect will it have on marketing budgets? Will it reduce the cost of finding business information or will any gains be offset by additional editing costs? Is it desirable to combine user-generated tagging schemes with formal taxonomies created by information professionals? If so, what's the best way to do it? We know that organizations like IBM, MITRE Corporation, and Elsevier are experimenting with social bookmarks and tags.

Like Version 1 of the Web, social publishing has the potential to change the business landscape. It's a phenomenon that is greater than the sum of its parts. We already know that it can make certain kinds of information more accessible, bring fame and sometimes a measure of fortune to a few creative individuals, and provide another form of advertising. It is sure to make an impact within the corporation, but exactly how is not yet entirely clear.

Created on May 6, 2007 l Updated on May 8, 2007