Practicum 7 - A Final Wrap Up

I've spent a lot of time this semester researching, making a powerpoint, rereading articles, applying concepts, and writing this paper all for the sake of this practicum. I chose to do my practicum project on specialized information sites and in even more detail I picked a very heavily commented articled entitled "Creating an effective Facebook Post" by Carley Knobloch on the information website eHow. While I did learn a few new aspects of the new Facebook in the article what I learned most was how specialized information sites affect the concept of collective intelligence and the community on these types of sites are very user information consuming. Articles are written to teach and inform instead of be critiqued and analyzed. The site eHow does accurately fit Pierre Levy's three aspects of Collective Intelligence. While the real-time coordination of intelligence is a bit of a stretch it can be argued that authors can upload their articles onto the site as soon as they're written. For the most part specialized information sites such as eHow are an endless source of information that allows users to gain and understand skills that they did not have before. Facebook has become a very important part of the internet and is used as the way to post comments on an eHow article. While the community on the actual site is not very active, the eHow page on Facebook is updated with new articles where users from all across the globe constantly comment and debate different ways and tips to enhance each users experience with the article. In the end I searched and read through many how-to articles to find one that showed community and that interested me. When I found the article that fit my needs I was able to learn and discover about the idea of collective intelligence.

eHow in Pierre Levy's Eyes (Practicum)

Pierre Levy wrote an article on the Collective Intelligence and how it is created and maintained through the internet. He stated the goal of collective intelligence as "the mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities." It is through communities that knowledge is built up and expanded upon through the sharing between users. All total knowledge resides in humanity and the premise of these specialized information sites is to gather as much information using as many users as possible. eHow embraces this concept by gathering as many articles written by as many experienced authors as they can. The users are information consuming who have the ability to request or drive up the demand for certain articles on a wide variety of subjects. Pierre stresses three main aspects that tend to make up collective intelligence. These are intelligence is constantly enhanced, real-time coordination of intelligence, and the effective mobilization of skills. The first eHow is a prime example of because any time an author decides to write an article and post it he/she adds to the already large bank of knowledge. Real-time coordination does not really work for eHow because information is not updated every second it is discovered, it takes an author to find something to write about and then spend the time to write, edit and upload the article. eHow is a prime example of Pierre's final aspect, the effect mobilization of skills. This is what the website is built on, all the articles are meant to teach a wide spectrum of skills and tasks to anyone who is willing to learn them. These are usually in step-by-step form and users are allowed to share their own tips and experiences to benefit other users.

Article for Specialized Information

The article I chose to focus my practicum on was "Creating an Effective Facebook Post" by Carley Knobloch on the website eHow. The reason I chose this very article is because it was one of the very few with more than a few user comments and its subject matter was something I am fairly familiar with. Carley is a feature tech blog for eHow who focuses on the personal and professional benefits of social media. She has a very broad background of technological knowledge. Her article explained how Facebook has changed and the new updates and features its users have access to. Carley started her article by explaining the new Timeline profile feature. Along with Timeline she explained the new geo-location that can be added to pictures, videos, posts, etc. so persons know where a photo was taken or where you are making your post on their wall. Another feature on Timeline is the ability to add Life Events to your timeline so you and arrive one else can remember and celebrate the important milestones in your life. Besides talking about the new features of Facebook, Knobloch talks about proper online etiquette. She stresses that you and the person you are posting with are not the only ones who can view that post so be careful to make sure comments do not cross the T.M.I. line. One great bit of advice from her is to check your homepage Minifeed to stay updated to your friends so you make sure your friends online stay your friends in real life. Since Carley is a media expert she explains how adding all different types of media to posts can not only enhance the post but show that you know and understand the technology you are using.

Specialized Information Sites Practicum

There are countless types of specialized information sites. Wikipedia, eHow, instructables.com, etc. are all great sources of information that can be accessed for free by any user. The trend in the specialized information community is for the users to be more lurkers than actually contribute their own input to the site. With Wikipedia being a main exception to this trend, I noticed that when Wikipedia users edited and redact each article it is overseen by a special group of users named administrators. On these other sites of specialized information the main way users are allowed to interact is either in a forum or on a comment section at the end of each article. eHow, the website I chose to focus my practicum on, was a community of lurkers who consume the endless articles of information, usually step-by-step, instead of contributing their own ideas. This mostly comes from the way eHow operates by paying freelance writers small sums to write article for the site which drastically affects how well the articles are written and the amount users participate on the site. It was very difficult to find any article that had one if not more comments by users. There is no way to create an account but the way one can comment is by signing into your Facebook profile to post. From their you can choose to post it to your wall, minifeed, or not post at all. The online eHow community is much larger on Facebook. Articles that are posted on the actually site are uploaded to  the eHow Facebook page where they are flooded with likes and comments by users all over the world. These users interact more and take each other's thoughts and comments into considerations. Even on some articles users give advice on how to improve or do easier the action the article was explaining. It is through this platform that users are free to interact with one another in a much more sensible and noticeable community.

Practicum (Editing eHow Wikipedia Page)

As a follow up to my practicum I went to the eHow Wikipedia page to add my own two cents.

What I found when I got there was a much shorter than expected Wikipedia entry. The introduction told about eHow and how its content is created an added to the site using freelance writers who are paid per article written. The other two subpages were the history of eHow and criticisms. eHow started in March of 1999 and has seen countless new owners. Continually sold and resold because in the past the site constantly lost money, eHow is finally run by a few owners and programmers to help keep costs down. The only place I saw fit on this page to add  my own thoughts as part of my practicum was in the criticism  section. Most of the criticism involve calling eHow a content mill meaning they pay low price for low quality information as much as possible to create as many pages that turn up more often in search engines.  In recent years search engines have changed their algorithms to combat this idea of content milling. I wrote in this section "eHow can be seen as an information consuming site by its users. Users do not provide articles, let alone very little feedback, to the site and thus users cannot directly affect the type of content that is seen on eHow. Compared to more user driven sites such as Wikipedia, eHow's user community tend to be more lurkers than contributors." This was my conclusion to my practicum project.