Diigo Community

Level 4: Individual, Networked, Social Interaction with Content (Me to We with Museum) This is the level where web 2.0 sits. Individuals still do their interacting with the content singly, but their interactions are available for comment and connection by other users. And the architecture promotes these connections automatically. For example, on Netflix, when you rate a movie highly, you don’t just see how others have rated it; Netflix recommends other movies to you based on what like-minded viewers also rated highly. By networking the ratings, tags, or comments individuals place on content, individuals are linked to each other and form relationships around the content. A successful level 4 experience uses social interaction to enhance the individual experience; it gets better the more people use it. The social component is a natural extension of the individual actions. Which means, perhaps, users are ready for…

As always, comments are encouraged—and in this case, strongly desired as I work on refining this content for the article.

using web 2.0 to promote civic discourse in museums, I’m developing an argument about the “hierarchy of social participation.” I believe that, as with basic human needs, experience design in museums (and for other content platforms) can occur on many levels, and that it is hard to achieve the highest level without satisfying, or at least understanding, those that come before it. One of the impediments to discourse in museums is that fact that designers want to jump straight from individuals interacting with content to interacting with each other. It’s a tall order to get strangers to talk to each other, let alone have a meaningful discussion. And so, I offer the following hierarchy of social participation.

Strongly Recommend: Use Diigo! According to our surveys, many oD readers are involved in research in some form or other: as students or academics or media-folk or policy makers and influencers. So here is a recommendation that might well change the quality and usefulness of the web for you. The best research tool I have come across in a long time - it has really transformed my web habits - is diigo.com, which gives me the ability to make notes as I read the web, to collect all my notes in one place and to share the notes with collaborators. After joining, my recommendation is that you download and install the diigo toolbar - it makes adding notes and index-files of what you read very easy. It also has a number of other nice features that you'll probably end up using - for example, you can highlight a word and perform a Google search on it without any further typing, which I liked ... Once you have joined diigo, make sure you sign up to the openDemocracy group on diigo. Joining the group will allow you to see the bookmarks and annotations from everywhere on the web of others who have chosen to share their notes with the openDemocracy group. You'll see when you create a note - the options are pretty clear. Once you have signed up to the openDemocracy group, you can have a look at an example of the group annotation feature here where Anthony and I have commented on the UK Labour Party Deputy Leadership attitudes gathered by OurKingdom. diigo.com is the web tool I use most. I have met with Wade and Maggie, the brains and business minds behind it - I feel they really understand what researchers need and are working hard to supply it. I really look forward to using diigo.com more extensively on openDemocracy and exploring various collaborative experiments using it. More later ...but in the meantime, do sign-up to diigo.com