Compare and contrast the works of Ward Cunningham and Adam Curry

Who is the person responsible for introducing the world to the first wiki? Howard G. “Ward” Cunningham that’s who! Born in 1949 this American computer programmer installed the first version of a wiki onto his own website in 1994. Ward himself describes a wiki as “The simplest online database that could possibly work” (What is Wiki). Since 1995 Ward’s site hosts over tens of thousands of pages.
In a conversation with John Gage, Ward states that “he was developing a data base that was “ragged and irregular” to track all the ideas that had floated through the company!” (An evening with Wiki Inventor Ward Cunningham) Ward had to let this idea which he developed using “HyperCard” form into what it wanted to be! (An evening with Wiki Inventor Ward Cunningham) Ward’s idea was “if a person can read a page then they can modify the page with the same tools they read the page with” (Wikipedia). As a designer he was aware of this.
Is Ward an architect or a designer? Ward says, “I move between both!” (An evening with Wiki Inventor Ward Cunningham) At WikiSym2006, Ward gave a keynote speech on the Principles of Wiki: “How can so little do so much? Simplicity is the key says Ward!”
Makice (2006) states that, “the structure of a wiki needs to be able to grow and evolve with the community that use it”. Ward himself describes Wikis as a work of public art! It takes a community to sustain it argues Cutter Summit (2006). I have used Wikipedia and am dubious about some of the information presented on it as it appears anyone can edit it once they have set up an account and received a password. I inform my students to look for supporting information elsewhere and not depend solely on Wikipedia. I haven’t contributed to a Wiki and I’m not sure I would even know how to set up an account! With that in mind, I would have to say I have never had a shared experience with a Wiki.
Adam Curry who is he? Born in 1964 he was known as a video jockey on MTV, during the late 1980’s and the early 90’s. He helped develop podcasting and according to Wikipedia is known as the “podfather”.
Podcasting arose from Curry’s experimentation with “audio blogging”. Curry started off with a tiny application which was a combination of a blog and an Apple MP3 player, referred to as the iPlodder (wired 2005) .He changed his mind and direction as a result of a conversation with David Winer who convinced Curry that people wanted to “take the Internet way with (them) and listen to it on headphones” (wired 2005). Because of his celebrity status; Chen (2004) suggests that Curry took the role as pioneer for David Winer’s invention.
Currently Curry is involved in the development and promotion of podcasting. His own podcast “Daily Source Code” has according to Wikipedia 500, 000 subscribers and is a mixture of, according to Chen (2004) a “Curry’s ramblings about everyday life with his favourite indie tunes and mashups of pop music”.
In 2005 Curry stated on Apple that, “With the release of iTunes 4.9, listeners are voting with their ears.....and I predict over the coming months tens of millions of new listeners will be introduced to the world of podcasting”.
In 2008 Curry used podcasting to endorse and support Congressman and Republican Presidential hopeful Ron Paul
What is Curry currently working on? As at the 4th September, 2009 he was working for Mevio.com on display advertising and uses his podcast to discuss conspiracy theories. He has over 100,000 regular listeners to ‘No Agenda’ a podcast he shares with J.Dvorak states Absolute Astronomy (2009).
Two very different individuals, one a baby boomer who grew up in a time of social change and the other a member of generation X both saw the power of the Internet to unite communities. Both developed ideas which today have evolved into powerful mediums for discourse.

References

Absolute Astronomy.com Adam Curry; facts (retrieved 13/9/09)
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Adam_Curry#encyclopedia
Apple, June 2005 iTunes Podcast subscriptions Top One Million in First Two Days http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/30podcast.html
Chen Brian, August 2004 This day in TECH (retrieved 13/9/09) http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/08/dayintech_0813/
Cutter Summit Ward on Wiki, May 2006 (retrieved 13/9/09) http://www.yourdonreport.com/index.php/2006/05/09/cutter-summit-ward-cunningham-on-wiki-software-and-the-changing-nature-of-work/
What is a Wiki retrieved 8/9/09 http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki
An evening with Wiki Inventor Ward Cunningham in conversation with John Gage, retrieved 8/9/09 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7739076742312910146#15m25s
Wiki info, from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia (retrieved 8/9/09) http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Wiki
Kevin Makice 2006, Ward Cunningham on design principles (retrieved 8/9/09) http://www.blogschmog.net/2006/08/27/ward-cunningham-on-design-principles/
Wikipedia, (retrieved 13/9/09) http://www.answers.com/adam+curry?gwp=11&ver=2.0.0.453&method=3
Wikipedia, (retrieved 13/9/09) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Source_Code
Wired issue 13.03: March 2005, (retrieved 13/9/09) Adam Curry wants to make you an iPod radio star http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/curry.html

images

Adam Curry (retrieved 13/9/09)http://blogfinds.com/images/crankygeeks080adamcurry1.jpg

Ward Cunningham (retrieved 13/9/09) http://many.corante.com/archives/2005/03/

TOPIC 5 ONLINE COMMUNITY BUILDING AND SOCIAL ARCHITECTS

EXERCISE 5.2: Social architects and online games

1. What is meant by a social architect? They are those individuals who transform our online adventures, through their development of "smart games" for communities.



2. Whyville.net was a weird site, it felt kind of creepy joining and moving around this site which is designed for young people. Not that I could do much no one wanted to chat and I didn't push the issue because of the creepy feeling I felt. Zanpo at http://www.zanpo.com/virtualcity.php is another odd site it is a building site you can chat and move around and buy and build houses. Very weird, I couldn't find much about this site at all:(



3. The objectives, rules of engagement and unique features for Whyville.net are as follows:
   

• objectives an educational virtual world for curious minds to explore, learn and create together in a safe environment.
  
  
• rules of engagement you can chat anywhere in town , you are not to interfere with another users enjoyment of the site, you are not to upload, post or transmit through the site.



• unique features of the site offers parents and users the ability to delete user information at any time. Inactive accounts will be purged from their database.
  
  
  

The objectives, rules of engagement and unique features for Zanpo are? who knows there was nothing special at all about the site it was kind of fun and you could chat using the screen and blog to others.

4. "Numedeon established Whyville as its first virtual world in 1999 in an effort to provide preteens and teens a chaperoned, safe learning environment in a wide range of subject matters, some serious, and some just fun. Whyville runs on the company’s proprietary virtual world engine, NICE (Numedeon Interactive Community Engine), which supports a wide range of interactions and engagements."

http://www.whyville.net/press/Sajak_Numedeon_Investor_Press_Release.pdf

Whyville is sponsored by major corporations such as NASA, Toyota, Adobe, and Sun Microsystems.

Zanpo is owned by gaudreault.org and has been online since 2000.

I would say that the whyville site was designed by a social architect as the game seems to be evolving to suit the nature of the users. Zanpo is just a game and is a follower not a leader in its field.

TOPIC 5 ONLINE COMMUNITY BUILDING AND SOCIAL ARCHITECTS

Exercise 5.1: The many faces of you

image retrived 5/9/09 from

http://dowlerseoul.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/paz-three-faces-of-eve.jpg

What are my online identities?

myCSU e-box, Interact, e-mail accounts, blog, wiki, LC_MOO, Delicious, Teacher Tube, You Tube, Facebook, Second Life and DET Portal.

I think I'm consistent across all of my online activities.

I feel that a persistent identity says I'm predictable and regular in my habits.This pattern or rhythm is a behavioural fingerprint, suggests Child, 1998. Niels states that a persistent identity builds reputation. I suppose this brings us back to Topic 2 and the video of Who Is the Dick on My Site? Yes how can you be sure of who someone is! How can you truly prove who you are?

http://www.educause.edu/blog/nils_peterson/PersistentIdentityornot/164982

Palmer states that"...identity has more to do with thoughts and ideas than with
events or physical appearances" retrieved 5/9/09 http://www.avataroverdrive.com/inside_avatar/i_a_5/Who.htm

So if it is only your thoughts and ideas that keep you consistent while online then your identity should be safe.

references: Child Lee 1998 Bantam Press Die Trying

Morley Deborah & Parker Charles S.2007 Understanding Computer Today and Tomorrow 11th Edition Thomson

TOPIC 4 HUMAN CENTRED COMPUTING: HUMAN INTERFACES

Exercise 4.3 Social networking tools for your "PLN"

a) Social network sites that I personally feel support, i) Learning and ii) Professional development in the workplace.

Learning

YouTube Yahoo! Teacher Tube, SocialGo & Delicious

Professional development
YouTube, Yahoo! Teacher Tube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Bubbl.us, SocialGo & Delicious


I could not find any useful potential for the following sites Bebo, Facebook, Ning, MySpace, RevYu, Flickr and reddit in regards to, i)Learning and/or ii) Professional development in the workplace.


I hadn't even heard of half of them and had to go to each unknown site and find out what they were about!



image retrieved 5/9/09 from

http://www.masternewmedia.org/images/online_collaboration_best_of_2008_id25851991_size485.jpg


b) Make up two new profiles, Yes I now have a profile at Teachers Tube http://www.teachertube.com/ and at Delicious http://delicious.com/



c) Do I have a personal learning network? Yes to a small degree I do as this course has forced me to build one and to realise that I always had a PLN I just didn't realise what it was called. I try to make myself a member of sites that I can use on a regular basis. Far too many usernames and passwords to remember otherwise:(

TOPIC 4 HUMAN CENTRED COMPUTING: HUMAN INTERFACES

Exercise 4.2 Hosting good conversations: House Rules!
The cartoon image comes fromhttp://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/h/house_rules.asp

a) Three ways of providing users with more control in an online community.

1. Stop big corporations from taking over the online community base, because when big corporations take control and there is no profit to be made they shut them down. This was seen with the demise of GeoCities.


2. Like the real world communities, online communities tend to mirror the same short comings, "racism, exclusivity and class privilege" http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=neo_cities again resulting in the demise of the community. Users need to raise their awareness of these and strive to alienate them altogether.


3. Having a set of HOUSE RULES that all members know and agree too.

b) Howard Rheingolds, three good rules?

1. Make newcomers feel welcomed, contributors valued, recreational hasslers ignored.


2. Keep the rules simple and based on ordinary human courtesy.


3. Conversations about a variety of subjects.
   

The preceding points come from, http://www.rheingold.com/texts/artonlinehost.html I chose these because I feel they are important to the success of an online community and I have experienced these while online for this course.

c) Why do we need these rules? and are they the same with document sharing systems?

1. Without rules online communities can become just like high school with the cool kids and the nerds.


2. Do you feel you are being attacked personally, is it because the other party doesn't agree with your ideas? Let the conversation die, don't keep on about it. Your not in Primary School!


3. If you belong to a community you need to bend to their way of thinking sometimes, or leave if the direction of the group is altering.
   

http://www.newmedia.hhs.gov/images/sm101fig1.JPG

Yes! whether you are communicating on line via a chat or blogging, rules need to be followed. If a person is being a tool give them the thumbs down and report it to the hosting website. If you where given a document into your hand from a colleague and you weren't happy with its content you would do something about it. There are rules of social conduct which we follow, without such rules anarchy reigns.

TOPIC 4 HUMAN CENTRED COMPUTING: HUMAN INTERFACES

Exercise 4.1 Blog or Wiki design
1. How would I design and manage content in a blog? Well I'm already doing it. I use titles to organise my work. As with this blog I use the title of each topic as my main theme then list the exercise into the body of the blog. For the use of colour I only liked the one and I have no intention of changing anything as I'm paranoid that I will lose my formatting :( I love how this blog automatically saves for you. It is very simple to use similar to word as it offers different fonts, weight and colours for text. bullet and numbering options are available as with alignment of text, insertion of images and video, (not brave enough to attempt that at this time). Also has , and this is a big plus! it spell checks:) You can also revisit posts and edit them at any time.

2. What supportive tools are similar to the design advice offered? It is very easy to become a member of this blogger site. You need a valid e-mail account and it doesn't ask too many questions when you set up the account. You can allow your blog site to be found by search engines. According to Morley & Parker, pg. 346 (2007) "There are news services which monitor blogs on a daily basis .....watching up to 100,000 pages a day."

Unless you set up your blog for multiple authors, such as what you would use to collaborate on a project most blogs are an individual online personal journal. I would have to therefore say that Kim's, (2000a) nine design requirements are not met by blogger.com. Kim's (2000b) underlying principles are met at point one and two. Yes! blogger is designed for growth and change, currently there are 70 Million blogs today, http://www.blogherald.com/2005/07/19/blog-count-for-july-70-million-blogs/ with that many blogs any site that can't adapt to this would no longer be available to users and blogger.com has been available since 1999. You don't have to have feedback to your blog, it still exists without it. If you required feedback for it to be usable to your community you could have followers who post to your blog. Do members take control over their own blog? To some degree they do, you can say who can post and whether you want your blog seen by others.

LC_MOO

What a learning experience I didn't have:(

I don't understand this Multi User domain tool. I got my username and logged on and wandered around a bit and couldn't do a THING!!!! I couldn't work out how to type or do anything. I've looked at Ken's posting and there I am, "entering the room and going down and few steps, then leaving then disappearing!" what the!!!! I still don't understand it.

I really need step by step instruction, I work best by seeing and doing. Is there a You Tube posting that could help? I'll look into it. No couldn't find anything there, will need a manual of how to communicate to others when I try again. Perhaps I could have linked with the Green etherpad at the same time and got instructions as to how to achieve success.