Web Directions

Presentations about user generated content

Podcasts, slides, videos and more

Mark Pesce — Closing keynote: This, that, and the other thing

• In: Resources
• By: jessie
• June 19, 2008
• No Comments

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 4.05pm.

This is what it feels like to be hyper­con­nected: a new kind of com­mu­nity – per­va­sive, con­tin­u­ous, yet strangely tense and ten­u­ous, like a bal­loon inflated to the point of burst­ing. The lim­its of the neo­cor­tex meet­ing the ampli­fier of the Human Network. That cre­ates unique oppor­tu­ni­ties: we can come together at a word, self-​​organize around or against a blog post, a live-​​streamed video, an auto­mated reply from a face­less, rent-​​seeking orga­ni­za­tion. Nothing can stop us. We can’t even stop our­selves. But what do we want? And the other thing? You’ll need to be at Web Directions South, for the clos­ing keynote, if you want to find out.

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Laurel Papworth — The business of being social

• In: Resources
• By: jessie
• June 19, 2008
• 1 Comment

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 10.45am.

It’s not true that there are no proven mon­eti­sa­tion mod­els for online com­mu­ni­ties; in fact, there are dis­tinct rev­enue streams that have been suc­cess­ful over many years. This ses­sion looks at the soft returns on invest­ment for engag­ing with user gen­er­ated con­tent, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with the con­sumer and then moves into how social net­works earn money for their investors and developers.

The aim of this ses­sion is to limit the slap­ping of ban­ner ads on every niche com­mu­nity online — you might be sur­prised to learn that the least prof­itable rev­enue model is… Advertising! Come, spend an hour on the Dark Side, and find out which social net­works are mak­ing money, how much and by what means and learn about the busi­ness mod­els in this growth industry.

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Sebastian Chan — Social media and Government 2.0

• In: Resources
• By: Maxine
• September 29, 2007
• 2 Comments

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.

More than ever before there is an enor­mous amount of pub­licly held data about our com­mu­nity, our cul­ture, and cit­i­zens. How can gov­ern­ment respond to the oppor­tu­ni­ties of Web 2.0? How can gov­ern­ment web­sites and data­bases become more citizen-​​centric, and more respon­sive by lever­ag­ing social media? In 2006 the Powerhouse Musuem, a NSW State Government insti­tiu­tion, opened its core infor­ma­tion asset — its col­lec­tion and research data­base — to pub­lic tag­ging, and dynamic user-​​driven rec­om­men­da­tions. In the same year the Museum launched a range of public-​​facing blogs, invit­ing com­ment from vis­i­tors and audi­ences. Sebastian Chan will dis­cuss why the museum has made these very suc­cess­ful for­ays into social media, and how a small in-​​house web devel­op­ment unit was able to push through and launch a project which is counted among Australia’s top web 2.0 appli­ca­tions. If you work in a large organ­i­sa­tion and have dreams of social media, do not miss this session.

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Rashmi Sinha — The perils of popularity

• In: Resources
• By: Maxine
• September 29, 2007
• No Comments

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.

Can web-​​based social sys­tems with their wide reach, user-​​generated and user-​​filtered con­tent har­ness the wis­dom of crowds? Duncan Watts’ recent exper­i­ments reveal how pop­u­lar­ity based web social sys­tems can throw up fickle, ran­dom trends that are essen­tially unreplic­a­ble, and only tan­gen­tially related to qual­ity. However, pop­u­lar­ity as a way to fil­ter infor­ma­tion con­tin­ues to rise in pop­u­lar­ity — replac­ing hier­ar­chi­cal menus, over­tak­ing tags, and even used in lieu of rel­e­vance. Rashmi will link decades of psy­chol­ogy research on group deci­sion mak­ing and social influ­ence to what is hap­pen­ing on the web today. She will dis­cuss dif­fer­ent mod­els of pop­u­lar­ity based fil­ter­ing such as Digg and YouTube. What are ways to avoid the Watts dilemma — includ­ing Google’s model of social­ity, tag-​​based social sys­tems, and object-​​based social net­works. She will present some prin­ci­ples for the design of web social sys­tems and how there were used in the design of SlideShare and dis­cuss how SlideShare as an evolv­ing social sys­tem han­dles popularity.

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Laurel Papworth — The business of online communities

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• September 30, 2006
• No Comments

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 29 2006.

It seems that every­one is talk­ing about user gen­er­ated con­tent and online com­mu­ni­ties these days. But how will cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism, user-​​generated con­tent, the Blogosphere, tag­ging, rank­ing, and Wiki knowl­edge reshape brand­ing and your busi­ness? How do you man­age and scale this com­mu­nity and then hand con­trol to your users (and how do you explain to the boss what you’ve just done?). Gain an under­stand­ing that dia­logue is the new con­tent and learn how to max­imise the ben­e­fits (and min­imise the pit­falls) of cre­at­ing online com­mu­ni­ties in this pre­sen­ta­tion. See the slides and hear the podcast »