English 342 (NU) discussion

Hey everyone and Happy Thanksgiving!

The first article - "Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense"

Web 3.0 has not yet happened but will in the near future. This "world-wide database" will not only connect documents, but connect data as well. According to designers of the new "semantic web" the web 2.0 qualities are not detailed enough and do not meet the needs of every single web user. In web 2.0, travel look-up takes hours to completely put together a package. In the new Web 3.0, the same search would be put together as if it were done by a travel agent. The ideas of web 3.0 are decided, but what is still left up in the air is how and when these systems will be built. One agreement is in place, and that is that the new search will be more valuable than today's engines. It is hard to have users vote as to what they feel is important in a search engine. Web 2.0 uses "Page Rank" to list systematically what is important to users. In Web 3.0, there is thought of using Radar's technology. This allows users to collaborate and add their thoughts on all aspects of the web. This is done by storing associations as opposed to text or numbers. "One sample system created using the technology is Opine, which is designed to extract and aggregate user-posted information from product and review sites." In today's web, you have to sort through user comments according to when they left them and not relevance. In web 3.0 the web would automatically weigh and rank all comments and find the right thing for a specific user. The main idea is to have machines doing intelligent things to help users more thoroughly and less stressfully. Lenat building Cyc (an A.I. system) shows that we are moving towards more advance technological machines, and also more human-like and knowledgeable ones.

The main debate in this article is whether A.I. will be the driving force behind web 3.0 or of it will happen in a more natural manner.

Questions:
What is your prediction on the main debate?
Would you prefer the new web 3.0 rather than the 2.0 version that we are using right now?
What personal benefits would users get from the new version of Web 3.0?
in what ways is Web 2.0 losing appeal?


The second article - "Web 2.0 isn't Dead"

This article is about Web 2.0 not losing its steam. Although there is a lot of talk about the Semantic web, or Web 3.0, there is not much action. There is a lot of creativity and enthusiasm, however. The fact that the machines will be more than basic search tools and have "intelligence" will take time. 2.0 is not going anywhere anytime soon because 3.0 still needs to be fully developed and made perfect yet. It will be added to the new web, not replacing it and there will be a ton of them connecting together over time. There has been emphasis on A.I. while talking about this new web, but Spivack says that it is not necessary for the goal of Semantic web. Web 3.0 is not to be set apart from the now, it is to be worked in slowly. It is already being used with some companies (i.e. yahoo food is using it) but it is not available to the public yet. 2.0 will be around for much longer than we may think.

Questions:
Are you looking forward to Web 3.0?
How much longer do you think it will take for 2.0 to become 3.0 and why?
Do you think that the new web will really fit right into the old web or do you think it will be a lot different and harder to use?

The third article - "Web 2.0 vs. Bubble 2.0"
(I am a bit confused because this article says nothing about Bubble 2.0, but I'm just going to go with the article and not the title)

A cartoon is what starts the article. "I know! I keep writing in my blog .... and you pay me!!" Web 2.0 is a lot of groups or projects connecting to each other. Joi states that it actually may be the platform for the future of greedy people. On web 2.0 anyone can publish it's content whereas 1.0 was overly complicated. The content can be retrieved very easily by a broad audience whereas in 1.0 was just sending people what they already know in mass. In 2.0 you control and own whatever you your content is, and in 1.0 as soon as you uploaded it to a site they owned it.

Questions:
Which do you believe is//will be larger - the jump from web 1.0 to 2.0 or the jump from web 2.0 to web 3.0? Why?
Do you think that everyone has control over their content on a site? If not, give an example.
What do you think that Joi meant when stating "it's possible that Web 2.0 is becoming the platform for the short-term future of greedy people?"

Hey guys i'm sorry it took me so long to get this to all of you, I was on a student govt. conference and thought I would have access to the internet, but i didn't.

The main goal of our collaborative web resource is to give students at Niagara University the opportunity to find out what there is to do on and off campus, where to go to eat, hang out, shop, as well as where to go for the necessities. The primary audience for our site is the students at Niagara University. These students will mostly be between the ages of eighteen and twenty two, both males and females. At this age many students are looking for something fun to do and are always looking for something new to try, both educational and recreational. These are the students who make Niagara their home for four years and the people who will get the most out of our creation.
The students will view our site to find out what stationary things there are to do around Niagara (The Fashion Outlets, restaurants, and information on the State parks, anything fun that they can do around the school). The students will also view the site to find out things happening around campus that are not always here (The Peach Festival, concerts, celebrations). The students will return to the site because of the way it is updated. When a Niagara club is hosting an event on campus it may be posted last minute, but students are going to want to know about it. When something new is opening off campus, this will be a great place for students to find the information they need. Students will return to find information on places they have not yet visited or restaurants they have not yet chosen. With the sections that are permanent and the sections that are ever updating students will not come back because they have too, but because they want to. Also students will return because they will have the opportunity to put the things they love about the area, things that may otherwise go unnoted. We believe that students would want to participate in the growth of their web resource, and would come back in order to both learn and spread their knowledge.
On top of the students we will have secondary audiences including those students parents as well as faculty. The site is an excellent way for parents to find hotels to stay when they come to visit family. Its also a good way to know that their children are able to have opportunities for fun while at school. The faculty at Niagara University will also be able to use the like the students because they also live in the surrounding area and this is a perfect way for them to find out what is going on in the communities they live in.

Proposal for the site
NU WooHoo

Cathleen Cuddahee, Melissa Higgins, Kristin Peworchik, Jason Nufryk, Molly Lizzio, Nick Hasbrouck, Tiffany Jacobs

The Purpose
The purpose of this site is to give users information about different events and activities in the Niagara Falls or Buffalo region and provide Niagara University students with examples of things to do. Different attractions as well as current events taking place around the area would be listed. For example, things such as restaurants, movie theatres, museums, bars/clubs, dance halls, malls, parks or even other things such as hair salons could be listed. Each suggestion would be accompanied by the location and an explanation. Although the main purpose of this site is to provide possible entertainment outlets for students and their families, convenience is also a consideration. We would want to provide students with information about places all around town such as grocery stores, department stores, beauty salons, automobile shops, etc. Also the places suggested would fall into a restricted range surrounding the campus. Major events or attractions outside of Niagara Falls will be included but as for general needs they will fall under a twenty mile radius.

Similar Sites
Syacuse.com is a site that Syracuse natives live by. Most of it’s content is linked through The Post Standard, which is Syracuse’s local news paper. However Syrauce.com is a much more interactive way of reading the paper. There is a forum with several topics of running conversation to choose from. This feature was especially popular with high school sports. Parent’s coaches and athletes of opposing teams could talk about games and other districts.
The main difference between out site and Syracuse.com is that not only are we not linked through The Buffalo News, but any user will be able to update because our format is a wiki. Just like Syracuse.com we will be able to talk about the local football games and movie times but we can also have a place for activities that might not have made the papers due to a small venue.
A similar site to what our site will be like is the myspace.com group site the New Paltz World Order. The site is dedicated to making connections in New Paltz, NY. On their site there are two blogs, one is Things To Do For New Paltz Newbies and Where do you work. The two blogs enable user to find people who are interested in similar things. It is similar to our site because it gives users the ability to find fun and interesting things to do. It also allows people to find friends who are interested in the similar activities as they are. On this site anyone that is a member of the group can post information. Our site will be different because our site won’t include as much stuff as the NPWO site does. The NPWO site has a spot to buy New Paltz clothes and view pictures from New Paltz which our site will not include.


Primary and Secondary Audiences



Site Content and Categories
The base of this web site will be content based. The best way to break up the information on this site is to create categories. These categories should have their own web site so they could be broken up into subcategories and explained. There should be a few broad categories which would break up the information by region. These regions will start big such as United States and Canada, and get more specific with cities. The major cities we are concentrating on are Niagara Falls, N.Y. and Ontario, Lewiston/Youngstown, Niagara on the Lake, Grand Island. There will be a site in relation to the Buffalo region. However, due to its farther distance away from Niagara University only main events will be posted. There will be additional sections for general area maps and links to sites such as Mapquest.com and Google Maps as well.
Some examples of detailed categories are: Area Restaurants (which can be broken up with fast food, coffee, high scale and low scale, Lodging, Attractions, Driving Directions, Shopping (grocery & malls), Theatres, Museums, Bars/Clubs, Automotive stores and shops, Public Transportation, Parks, Current Events, Beauty Salons (for nails, hair and tanning), Historical Sites, Video Stores, Super Centers ( Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart), Gas Stations, Drug Stores.
Further development of these categories will be very detailed. Listed will be the name of the destination, its address, phone number, hours of operation, and website. It may be beneficial to have rating systems or even tags that show which ones are our personal favorites and a comment section as well. This would help viewers who are unfamiliar with some of these recourses with their options.

How People will Collaborate and Foster Community and Possible Problems
We will create this site as a class project. We start out by each taking responsibility for a certain part of the site and posting our portion on the course discussion community. This will allow all of the students to view each part and make suggestions or ideas as needed. After the sections are complete and the whole class has agreed on them, one person will edit the different portions to become one document.
This site will foster community within both our classroom and within Niagara University by allowing students to comment on the specific places or things that they have experienced themselves. By the students sharing their experiences and opinions they can see who has similar or opposing opinions and learn from each other, which is a major factor in building a community
With the collaborative and open-ended nature of wiki software, potential problems could arise in the process of developing our Collaborative Web Resource. One of the foremost difficulties could lie in our opinions on a certain subject that we are writing about. For example, someone may believe Restaurant X is exemplary, while another may think the exact opposite. How we decide to transfer these opinions into articles (if we do at all) is important to the value of the community. The best route to take in these matters is discussion and attempts at compromise, and if we are unable to do this in class, we should put the discussion on the wiki ala Wikipedia. Here we can engage in civil discussion to reach the overriding goal of improving the article.
Although unlikely at this point, another concern is that of potential vandals attacking the site. Since the site is established by us, I feel it would make sense to give us administrator rights, assuming this is a feature in PBwiki. This way, whether it's someone inserting obscenities into random articles or purposefully injecting false information, we can easily revert the damage and block the offender. If administration isn't an option, we can always just monitor the site with a watchful eye and track changes not made by one of our classmates.
Ultimately, the best way to safeguard against edit warring, vandalism, and changes that are inappropriate for what we are trying to accomplish is to set reasonable guidelines that will determine how our site functions. They don't need to be too in-depth; they'll just be there to lay out the basics. These guidelines should be readily available on the wiki for all users when they enter the site. This could be integrated with a welcome page so that new users are immediately acquainted with how the site is intended to run.

Timeline
The site will be complete and accessible during the last week of the semester. We have three weeks to complete the site. During the first week we will write the proposal, and decide how the site will be arranged. The next step is to split up tasks for all the members of the class. Generally, there will be a few categories given to each student and completed within the second week of the assignment. During the third week we will spend class time putting it together through Dreamweaver, and do some final editing. Also, we need to address how the site will be updated after the project is over.

i mean question # 5, not 3 sorry

1st and 2nd part of question #3

We will create this site as a class project. We start out by each taking responsibility for a certain part of the site and posting our portion on the course discussion community. This will allow all of the students to view each part and make suggestions or ideas as needed. After the sections are complete and the whole class has agreed on them, one person will edit the different portions to become one document.

This site will foster community within both our classroom and within Niagara University by allowing students to comment on the specific places or things that they have experienced themselves. By the students sharing their experiences and opinions they can see who has similar or oppositing opinions and learn from each other, which is a major factor in building a community.

A similar site to what our site will be like is the myspace.com group site the New Paltz World Order. The site is dedicated to making connections in New Paltz, NY. On their site there are two blogs, one is Things To Do For New Paltz Newbies and Where do you work. The two blogs enable user to find people who are interested in similar things. It is similar to our site because it gives users the ability to find fun and interesting things to do. It also allows people to find friends who are interested in the similar activities as they are. On this site anyone that is a member of the group can post information. Our site will be different because our site won’t include as much stuff as the NPWO site does. The NPWO site has a spot to buy New Paltz clothes and view pictures from New Paltz which our site will not include.

for part of question 2

Syacuse.com is a site that Syracuse natives live by. Most of it’s content is linked through The Post Standard, which is Syracuse’s local news paper. However Syrauce.com is a much more interactive way of reading the paper. There is a forum with several topics of running conversation to choose from. This feature was especially popular with high school sports. Parent’s coaches and athletes of opposing teams could talk about games and other districts.

The main difference between out site and Syracuse.com is that not only are we not linked through The Buffalo News, but any user will be able to update because our format is a wiki. Just like Syracuse.com we will be able to talk about the local football games and movie times but we can also have a place for activities that might not have made the papers due to a small venue.

Purpose of the Site:

The purpose of this site is to give users information about different events and activities in the Niagara Falls or Buffalo region and provide Niagara University students with examples of things to do. Different attractions as well as current events taking place around the area would be listed. For example, things such as restaurants, movie theatres, museums, bars/clubs, dance halls, malls, parks or even other things such as hair salons could be listed. Each suggestion would be accompanied by the location and an explanation. Although the main purpose of this site is to provide possible entertainment outlets for students and their families, convenience is also a consideration. We would want to provide students with information about places all around town such as grocery stores, department stores, beauty salons, automobile shops, etc. Also the places suggested would fall into a restricted range surrounding the campus. Major events or attractions outside of Niagara Falls will be included but as for general needs they will fall under a twenty mile radius.

Here's what I've come up with:

With the collaborative and open-ended nature of wiki software, potential problems could arise in the process of developing our Collaborative Web Resource. One of the foremost difficulties could lie in our opinions on a certain subject that we are writing about. For example, someone may believe Restaurant X is exemplary, while another may think the exact opposite. How we decide to transfer these opinions into articles (if we do at all) is important to the value of the community. The best route to take in these matters is discussion and attempts at compromise, and if we are unable to do this in class, we should put the discussion on the wiki ala Wikipedia. Here we can engage in civil discussion to reach the overriding goal of improving the article.

Although unlikely at this point, another concern is that of potential vandals attacking the site. Since the site is established by us, I feel it would make sense to give us administrator rights, assuming this is a feature in PBwiki. This way, whether it's someone inserting obscenities into random articles or purposefully injecting false information, we can easily revert the damage and block the offender. If administration isn't an option, we can always just monitor the site with a watchful eye and track changes not made by one of our classmates.

Ultimately, the best way to safeguard against edit warring, vandalism, and changes that are inappropriate for what we are trying to accomplish is to set reasonable guidelines that will determine how our site functions. They don't need to be too in-depth; they'll just be there to lay out the basics. These guidelines should be readily available on the wiki for all users when they enter the site. This could be integrated with a welcome page so that new users are immediately acquainted with how the site is intended to run.

The site will be complete and accessible during the last week of the semester. We have three weeks to complete the site. During the first week we will write the proposal, and decide how the site will be arranged. The next step is to split up tasks for all the members of the class. Generally, there will be a few categories given to each student and completed within the second week of the assignment. During the third week we will spend class time putting it together through Dreamweaver, and do some final editing. Also, we need to address how the site will be updated after the project is over.