Thoughts about The Future of the Social Web?

A few days ago I saw a reference on the NewWest.Net Facebook page pointing to a Nieman Reports article titled "An Explosion Prompts Rethinking of Twitter and Facebook" by Courtney Lowery, Editor at NewWest.Net. I wrote a comment that I posted under the article.

This is a summary statement she made at the end of the article:

"Just like every other news organization—online and offline—we’re still assessing just how and when to use social media. There are still a lot of unanswered, even unasked, questions. But it’s here to stay—and it’s here to help us, if we can get past seeing it as a marketing vehicle and learn how to use it to create community by developing a relationship with our readers.

I will post my comment to the article below and also add a link a link to a related article I found at destination CRM..com written by Jessica Tsai, titled "Social Media: The Five-Year Forecast." This article examines in detail the Forester Research Report by Jerimiah K. Owyang titled "The Future of the Social Web" (This link goes to an executive summary of the report which is available for purchase.

Gary O. Grimm says:

September 16, 2009 at 4:09pm

You have provided very good insights Courtney that other government agencies, organizations and businesses could benefit from. The Web started by being a way to push selected information to a wider audience via a web site. Over the past 15 years some organizations have slowly provided more interactive opportunities on their web sites. For years there have also been numerous (probably millions) of small citizen initiated interactive discussion groups and forums. But more recently we are experiencing the growth of big organized social networking systems like FriendFeed, MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter. Now millions of people are participating in the the most popular of these, FaceBook and Twitter. Unfortunately these services often compete to try to dominate one another.

My research indicates that this is just the beginning of this social networking phenomenon. Sooner than we think, I believe, all of these services will become aggregated into something different, where an individual person and their activities, ideas and civic engagement will become the focus. This network won't have a corporate name, but will operate on topics of personal interest. Hopefully many of these interests will be aimed at citizens involvement in important social, civic and environmental issues.

Public-Benefit vs. Private-Benefit

On December 8, David Korten, in YesMagazine.org wrote an article titled, "Only One Reason to Grant a Corporate Charter." He explores the differences between the commonly practiced Private-Benefit Corporation and a logical, more environmentally and socially sensitive alternative, the Public-Benefit Corporation.

"The private-benefit corporation is an institution granted a legally protected right—some would claim obligation—to pursue a narrow private interest without regard to broader social and environmental consequences. If it were a real person, it would fit the clinical profile of a sociopath." Korten also states that this type of institutionalized corporation design benefits "wealthy investors far removed from the social and environmental consequences. That design has ever since proven highly effective in advancing the private interests of the world’s wealthiest people at enormous cost to the rest."

Explaining the public-benefit alternative, Korten states that "The only legitimate reason for a government to issue a corporate charter giving a group of private investors a legally protected right to aggregate and concentrate virtually unlimited economic power under unified management is to serve a well-defined public purpose under strict rules of public accountability. This defines a public-benefit corporation, which can be chartered as either for-profit or not-for-profit.

Please read the Korten article for a more detailed explanation.

Given the wide range of environmental and social justice problems all nations in the world are experiencing, it seems logical to put a huge and immediate individual and societal public effort into a restructuring of our understanding of long range effects that are caused by economic decisions we are making today. Fortunately, in my opinion, the Internet is providing social networking opportunities that "can" make a difference in this effort. We should use these tools to insist that Public-Benefit Corporations are supported by our friends, neighbors and elected leaders, and that Private-Benefit Corporations adopt this different and more responsible design for the good of all citizens of the world.

The Geospatial Web - Place and Time based Knowledge

I have recently spent some time looking at the work being presented at the 2007 GeoWeb 2007 conference held in Vancouver, B.C. on July 23-27. and am highly impressed by the movement toward "geographic or place based" information that is also "temporal or time based." The language being used to describe how place and time based information is generated includes The Semantic Web, Web 2.0 Social Networking concepts, existing and new scientific and expert knowledge, 2-D and 3-D images, video and animation and virtual visualization of future scenarios. An interesting new development is the greatly increased use of mobile smart phone technology for accessing and even producing geospatial information.

I was particularly impressed by the "keynote podcasts" presentations given by Vinton Cerf - one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Jack Dangermond, Founder and President of ESRI, and Michael Jones, CTO, Google Earth.

From GeoWeb conferences and other sources many of the best articles from renowned international experts about the Geospatial Web has been edited into an important new 2007 book with 25 chapters by Arno Scharl and Klaus Tochtermann. "The Geospatial Web" - How Geobrowsers, Social Software and the Web 2.0 are Shaping the Network Society. The book web site which also contains an Introduction, Table of Contents, Bibliography, Contributors and an Acknowledgment. A link to a "Sample Chapter" is also provided.

In this blog I have been attempting to bring together my past experiences with new information that is constantly becoming available about how we can use the Internet effectively to address ecosystem and environmental issues that should concern local and global citizens. Our work with Mountain Visions over the past 28 years and with the University of Oregon Outdoor Program for 12 years before that has almost always incorporated mapping, social networking, and communication elements that now are becoming much easier, interesting and exciting for anyone who learns how to use them.. As I wrote in my last post, "An Unknown and Worldwide - Common Adventure and Environmental and Social Movement" it is becoming clear that there are numerous social environmental projects that have been ongoing for years and many more are emerging now that these new web tools are becoming available.

In our work creating interactive content for the web since 1995, we have tried to anticipate how citizens will become involved in place based issues if they are invited to participate in creating image and reference content and also being involved in open discussion forums. Below are links to a few examples.

One of our first web projects was in the form of a Blog with satellite messages faxed from Tom Whittaker, a disabled climber attempting to summit Mt. Everest in the spring of 1995. That same year we produced the first web site for The Peregrine Fund - World Center for Birds of Prey and another "blog" like project called Notes from the Field. Soon after we also created the first web site for the National Interagency Fire Center. In 1996 we started work on "The Aurora Project" A Virtual Exploration of Community Watershed Partnerships, with the U.S. Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management. This included 6 distinct watersheds spread around the Western States. This led to the Interactive Watersheds project beginning in 2000 and covering 5 large scale community watersheds across the U.S. This National project was supported by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils, Inc. the U.S. Forest Service, and many other state and local groups. More recently we have been working on projects for the Jamaica Protected Area Trust with support from The Nature Conservancy, an Idaho Anadromous Outreach project called River Menders with support from the NOAA Community-based Restoration Program, the Idaho Weed Awareness Campaign supported by the Idaho Resource Advisory Committee, and the Otis Bay - River, Spring and Landscape Restoration web site. For the Otis Bay project we have created a demonstration Google Earth KMZ file using the new information provided by the Google Earth Outreach program.

I am also currently preparing some preliminary concept information for J. Michael Scott at the University of Idaho about how to create a web based project called "America 2076." Using Geospatial Web concepts that are location and time based, and incorporating social networking and Semantic Web concepts, I believe this project would provide a way for people to aggregate knowledge and visuals about specific locations and geographic areas from past and current time periods. It would also allow people to create speculative visual scenarios of what these places will look like in the future, depending on public management decisions, toward the year 2076, the Tricentennial of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 2076.

Web 2.0 and 2008 Presidential Campaigns

People who are following Democratic candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama already know they have launched campaign web sites that use Web 2.0 tools to encourage citizens to participate.

A review of these and other presidential campaign web sites can be found in "Campaigns tread carefully into world of Web 2.0," the title of an online article in Computerworld on February 12, 2007.

The article also mentions that the web sites of Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Sam Brownback and Mitt Romney and suggests that as the campaign progresses these and others will probably adopt more social networking and Web 2.0 tools.

My view is that any social networking groups that organize, even if they are not associated with a specific candidate, should try to make their views known to all of the candidates in the next 21 months. These groups should also strongly encourage every candidate to take a clear stand on important national and global concerns, including ecological and natural resource issues such as Global Warming, before the election.

Standing Ovations for Al Gore and Bethine Church

Former Vice President, Al Gore received several standing ovations in Boise, Idaho last night at the 2007 Frank Church Institute Conference on Public Affairs. Bethine Church also received standing ovations as she introduced Gore and noted that their families had been close friends for many years. For me and many of the "age 50+ crowd" it was a heartwarming and stimulating remembrance of the environmental movement in action 36 years ago.

As early as 1970, at the first Earth Day Idaho's Senator Frank Church warned of the "Green-House effect" and the melting of the polar ice caps. Al Gore has been publicly involved in trying to promote citizen and congressional attention to this issue since the early 1980's.

Gore encouraged a full house of 10,000 enthusiastic people to do everything possible to affect changes in attitudes and behavior related to the negative changes taking place all over the world because of human related "Global Warming" activities. The Keynote presentation was powerful and parts were tailored to an Idaho audience. It was also similar to the recently Academy Award nominated movie "An Inconvenient Truth," that has become one of the best documentary feature films of our times and has been viewed by many millions of people worldwide.

This huge issue and the many subtopics involved illustrates the growing need for Social Networking communication projects I have advocated on this Blog. If all of the 10,000 people who listened to Al Gore last night were to redouble their efforts to be actively involved locally, regionally, nationally and globally I feel it would make a difference. Add the millions of people around the world who have also seen the slide show or the movie and this would be a powerful force to dramatically affect changes in the political will needed to effect changes in Global Warming trends.

I will look for Social Networking Internet opportunities on this issue and report them in this blog as time permits. A few web sites that encourage education and participation include; stopglobalwarming.org, climatecrises.net, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Wikipedia (lots of information and references) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has changed its web page title from Global Warming to Climate Change and also provides interesting information and sections on "What you can do".

Al Gore's active and highly visible involvement in the late 1980's and 90's promoting public computer networks, the Information Highway and the Internet should also be noted in this context. A good condensed source of information about Al Gore's life and work is found on Wikipedia.

David Korten - The Great Turning

In Boise, Idaho January 19, I attended David Korten's talk describing the concepts and ideas presented in his recent book titled, "The Great Turning : From Empire to Earth Community."

I had a chance to talk to Korten briefly and acknowledged that Social Networking and new Internet and communication technologies can help citizens coordinate options for better personal and community choices in the future as people learn how to use tools like Wikis, for example.

It was an eloquent speech accompanied by a very good multimedia slide show with powerful graphic images and charts. A link to a You Tube video produced at the 2006 Green Festival in San Francisco is here.

Advocating a powerful message that "We are the ones we've been waiting for"... Korten believes humans have higher capacities for "compassion, cooperation, responsible self-direction and self-organizing partnerships" than we have been practicing for the past 5000 years. He blames the contemporary manifestation of "Empire" for being "increasingly destructive of children, family, community, and nature, and is leading to environmental and social collapse."

As I have been writing in this Blog, I am certain that Social networking tools will aid people in their efforts to "turn" society in more positive directions. To this end David Korten and his associates produce "Yes Magazine" A Journal of Positive Futures, which is also available as a web site with "Online Only Features." The magazine contains success stories from around the world, a section on What's New, upcoming events and suggested readings. They also promote "The Earth Charter Initiative" and "Earth Community Dialogues."

As an added note I found An interesting critique of Korten's books, including "The Great Turning," in "The Radical Middle Newsletter" Mark Satin, Editor. The August 1, 2006 article is titled, "What can we learn from the antiglobalists?"

Idaho Environmental Summit - Postscript

Summary: 1. My opinion is that Wikis, Blogs and Discussion groups on every topic at this Idaho Environmental Summit should be made available to citizens of Idaho and other bordering states to provide an ongoing dialogue about all of the important topics: (See topics listed on this Blog on Wednesday, November 29, 2006)

The sessions related to Soverign Native American Tribes were especially interesting and naturally they have a hightened sensitivity to public information that is available. Hopefully elder and young Native American people can get involved in this global communication network and help us all understand their views.

Postcript: After contacting the organizers of the Idaho Environmental Summit about attending they asked me if Mountain Visions could produce a "slide show" of Idaho Outdoor images including slides of Summit Partners. In return we could set up an exhibit booth to demonstrate our various ongoing projects and services. The "slide show" was well received and the exhibit booth was visited by many people who gained an appreciation of our involvement with interactive and collaborative natural resource, ecosystem and environmental web site networking projects. We had set up two 23 inch monitors with two laptop computers to show High Definition 360 degree panoramas, video and Google Earth demonstrations.

As is common in many conferences many overlapping sessions held at the same time meant that people had to choose one session at a time or move from one session to another, missing part of each. I also had to be at the Mountain Visions exhibit booth when interested people were visiting and was not able to attend many of the interesting sessions. I, and others, asked the conference organizers if all of the conference presentations would be made available on the Idaho Environmental Summit web site after the conference. Apparently this process was not specifically planned for, but I was assured that they would try to gather and post the papers and power point presentations in the near future. I offered to show them how we had developed similar post conference materials for a Conservation Training Week Conference for the Jamaica Protected Area Trust in March of 2006.

I will continue to monitor the post conference activities of the Idaho Environmental Summit on this Blog as time permits.

Idaho Environmental Summit - Boise December 5-7, 2006

The first annual Idaho Environmental Summit will be held in Boise, Idaho -December 5-7, 2006.

I plan to attend this meeting. It will be interesting to examine if and how this conference may stimulate the use of social networking concepts in the future. New online technologies, some of which I have identified on this Blog, should allow all of the topics that are being highlighted at the Summit to be discussed throughout the year and in the future by interested citizens.

The web site notes that "The mission of the Idaho Environmental Summit is to provide an annual event for the people of Idaho to work together to achieve a healthy environment through communication, education and action. "

Over thirty partner organizations are working together to provide an agenda full of sensational and nationally recognized speakers in six keynote events and over fifty breakout sessions. Environmental subject areas include:

Energy
Land Use
Sustainability
Water Resources
Air Quality
Regulatory Compliance
Fire
Treaty Rights and Trust Responsibilities
Fish and Wildlife
Community Building and Environmental Science
Recreation
Cleanup and Remediation
...and much more.

I will write a report here after the meeting is concluded.

Two new Social Networking opportunities

Two recent announcements about new social networking opportunities are worthy of note. I believe it is very evident that we, as users of the internet, are being enabled to build specialized networks for local social and environmental topics. As we learn how to use these new opportunities citizens should have a much more active involvement in deciding future natural resource and ecosystem issues.

Google is developing a wide variety of useful internet applications that qualify as social networking opportunities. Google Earth, by itself, is just an amazing way for people to share photos and web site information about geographic locations people care about. Combined with all of the other Google Services and Tools Internet users are gaining new options that they have never had available to them before.

As explained in the Ning article below, Google is not alone in developing amazing new options and opportunities for individual and group networking opportunties we can learn how to use in the near future. This is an exciting time for internet users who want help change how we participate in our democracy.

October 31, 2006 - Ben Ames, IDG News Service, wrote an article in Macworld.com titled Google buys JotSpot, offers free wiki pages. "In a bid to grow beyond its roots as a search engine, Google has acquired JotSpot, a developer of wiki technology for collaborative Web sites. Earlier this month, Google announced it would offer online word processing and spreadsheet applications to its millions of Web searchers. The company also has a blogging service, but hasn’t yet introduced a tool for Web-based collaboration."

The Jotspot web site notes that is not accepting ..."new account registrations while we focus on migrating to Google's systems." They will notify you when registration is open if you provide an email address. On a Frequently asked questions JotSpot page "Why is Google acquiring JotSpot?" The answer is "Google shares JotSpot's vision for helping people collaborate, share and work together online. JotSpot's team and technology are a strong fit with existing Google products like Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Apps for Your Domain and Google Groups.

November 8, 2006 - Martin LaMonica, wrote a article for CNet News.com titled Ning brings social networking to the masses. "Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit here Wednesday to publicly launch Ning.com, which lets people build Web sites for online socializing." He quotes Gina Bianchini CEO of Ning, ""What's different about Ning from other services is that we give you your own video site like YouTube, or social-networking site like MySpace," she said. "But unlike being a page in somebody else's service, it's yours. You get to choose what it's about."

Lamonica also quotes Mark Andreessen, best known as a Netscape co-founder, "Our basic theory is that as people get more sophisticated and used to social networks, they are going to want a lot more flexibility and a lot more customization," Andreessen said. "We're making a big bet that there will be a lot more social networks over the next couple of years."

Social Networking & The Environment, etc.

Today I read an article titled "Gather.com: Social Networking Grows Up," written by Sarah Lacy on October 26, in the Technology section of Business Week.com.

"Name for me one other social-networking site that's having an intelligent debate about health care or Iraq or about the environment," she quotes Tom Gerace, key investor and supporter of Gather.com.

Lacy notes that "The year-old site is trying to create an online space for the NPR crowd." She quotes Bill Kling who is president of American Public Media Group, one of the largest producers and distributors of public radio programming. ' "We discovered there is someone—usually many people—who know more about any subject we broadcast than we do," he says. What's more, they seemed to be yearning for a way to interact with the stations, not just passively listen to the radio.'

My assumption is that new applications for Social Networking, especially on natural resource and environmental topics is just beginning. Blogs, Wikis, and discussion groups are growing in number and, I believe, will provide a much needed public dialogue which should influence future management, political and scientific decisions. I also assume that interactive web sites that provide a lot of visual information about natural resource and ecological issues, and at the same time invite people to participate (interact) in these discussions, can be an important stimulus for this dialogue.

Social Networking tools are "also" being used by Business

Community Groups and organizations are learning how to use Social Networking tools but they are also becoming popular with big business organizations. Martin LaMonica, in an article on C/Net News.com, titled "IBM warms to social networking." quotes Michael Rhodin, the general manager of IBM's Lotus division.

"The guiding idea behind the effort is to help people tap into the collective knowledge of their co-workers, in much the way consumer social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook connect people online.

"The real phenomenon of Web 2.0 is the concept of community," Rhodin said. "What if you could create tools that allow you to tap into the collaborative wisdom of a community?"

I believe this is what is beginning to happen with individuals and groups interested in natural resources and environmental ecosystems. The more we can encourage people to learn about this new phenomenon, and the more people are involved, the possibilities for creating better decisions for the future are limitless.

C/Net News publishes Media 2.0 and a Web 2.0 Blog

c/net News.com publishes daily reports on Media 2.0 including information about Social Networking applications. It also publishes a News.blog Web 2.

A recent article on September 26, profiled "Wallop," another social networking site that will compete with Friendster and MySpace.com. Another similar site is Facebook.com.

In the article Karl Jacob, Wallop's chief executive, said in a statement. "It’s about the trend of self-expression moving online."

My own review of these and similar social networking sites seems to indicate that individuals are encouraged to express their interests in popular culture, but not much emphasis is placed on interest in natural resources, the environment or other important activist issues. For example, global warming is a multifaceted issue that has the potential to dramatically change the lives of the many millions of people participating in the Social Networks mentioned above. Searches on the Internet reveal many discussion groups, blogs and web sites that do have a lot of participants on natural resource issues. I am interested in knowing more about how, or if, individuals include these interests in their social network profiles.

Our own efforts with Mountain Visions to work with natural resource projects to develop interactive web sites with community networking centers does include the invitation for people to participate in the projects. Some of these people may also decide to include their personal natural resource interests into one of the major social networking sites mentioned above. For example, we are creating projects now using Wiki and other applications. I will write more about these in the near future.

CivicEvolution - Wiki like program for civic projects

I read a short article published September 8, 2006 in CNET News.com/ Web 2.0 Blog describing a new type of Wiki. "CivicEvolution, still in development, is designed for political committees, nonprofits, and small collectives like neighborhood groups and teams. Fundamentally it's a wiki, but unlike most first-generation wikis, it offers a great deal of structure."

The CivicEvolution web site (Beta) notes that the program "provides online tools and resources to help groups achieve their goals through deliberation and collaboration." Several "Example Projects" are provided including a "Private discussion group," "Brainstorming," "Study an issue," "Focus Group," and "Create a Proposal."

In a Beta stage "CivicEvolution is now accepting new pilot projects." I tried to fill out the form provided but it was not working today. Instead I sent an e-mail to get more information about how to start a project. This looks like an excellent program for Social Networking projects. I will try to write more as I learn about it.

Net Neutrality & Social Networking

The current dialogue and future congressional action on the issue of "Net Neutrality" may affect the functionality of Social Networking and Web 2. applications in the future. At stake is the possibility that public access to web sites and applications may be dramatically altered in the future compared to the past up to now. Please study this issue and let your views be known to your elected representatives now.

Proponents of Net Neutrality and good descriptions of their views include, Save The Internet.com, and It'sOurNet. Google Help Center also has a "Guide to Net Neutrality for Google Users."

Critics of Net Neutrality, including an article published in Knowledge@Wharton titled "Getting a Fix on Network Neutrality" argue that legislation is not necessary yet, because it is uncertain what the future will be regarding this issue. Even though major corporations like AT&T, Verizon, etc., argue that they need to be able to charge a "toll" for the required development of future Internet resources, and this toll will be a fair charge, some people are uncertain about the true outcomes of an upcoming congressional vote which could go against the concept of Net Neutrality.

Google Earth Community and Social Networking

The Google Earth Community is an amazing example of Social Networking. Google Earth users from all around the world have submitted KMZ files to special places that anyone can visit using the free Google Earth Browser.

Moving around the geography of the world is really exciting for users. Being able to share points of interest adds to the interactive possibilities. Going further by adding pictures, web sites or other kinds of information opens up the opportunities for people to understand the possibilities of creating and publishing interesting content about places they care about.

In the Environment and Conservation section, on July 23, 2006 I created one experimentl KMZ file for locations in Jamaica were we have taken fifty five 360 degree panoramas. In the near future I plan to update this project. At this time 18 of these locations are linked to web pages where people can see full screen panorama views. The Google Earth Community pages change with new entries every day so I will not link to the KMZ file. However, On the Mountain Visions "What's New" web page you can download this file. (Jamaica360PanoramaTour3.KMZ) Look for the entry date 7/24/06.

I also purchased the license to use Google Earth Pro with the Movie Maker, GIS, and Printing programs. I have now created several experimental QuickTime movies that do not require the Google Earth Browser. These can be found on the Mountain Visions Digital Video/Terrain Animations page.

Comments are welcome.

Web 2 Applications & Social Networking

Information about the very interesting concept of Social Networking and community building is exploding on the Internet.

The organization of personal blogs, community wikis, and dicussion groups has been enabled by what is being called Web 2. Applications. On Matt Mackenzie's blog he comments that "Web 2.0 is about community building."

These applications can perform the same function as an old analogue or cork "Bulletin Board" where individuals can post a notice about a trip, idea, or community project and invite others to join in a "Common Adventure" to attempt to organize and actualize a proposed project.

I am doing research on how these expanding Web 2. opportunities can be used by people who are visiting the web sites Mountain Visions is producing. This Blog is my attempt to produce ideas and links to relevant articles about Social Networking, Web 2. and Wikis.

In August, 2002 I wrote a short blogspot outline of my thoughts about the "Common Adventure on the Internet."

In 2003 I started one "Common Adventure Blog" and I will either expand this or create a new one, possibly as an adjunct to this Gary O. Grimm blog.

In 2004 I presented a topic titled "InterActive InterNetworking for Ecological Commons" at the PlaNetwork Interactive Conference in San Francisco.

I also plan to start experimental Wiki groups for new web site projects Mountain Visions is producing, including those "under construction" for the Jamaica Protected Areas, Idaho Weed Awareness and River Menders. I may also start experimental wiki projects for the 5 Interactive Watersheds projects, we produced between 2000 and 2003. All of these web interactive web sites contain 360 degree panorama Virtual Tours to help people learn about the natural resource issues and Community or "Social" Networking sections to invite web users to participate in the projects.

Comments are welcome.