The tail of an old topic is taking a new direction so I'm starting a new topic.



Sure. If web 1.0 is about publishing, web 2.0 is about participation.

Here's a quick example
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skew-t/220792519/

Somebody else took the picture. I added a comment. It's a small thing, but ...
- The picture taker and others who stumble upon it got educated.
- Interest is piqued. It might cause a visit to the WRM.
- It makes the public aware that WRM is alive and participating.

I just did that in 5 minutes. Contrast that with putting a similar page up on your organization's website. A lot more work, takes longer, gotta talk to the web guy... and it isn't conversational. It doesn't add anyone to the discussion.

Blogs

The most common Web 2.0 activity is the weblog, or blog. And it can be VERY serious business - some people's careers depend on it, and in some job roles, if you don't blog, you're dead. Matt Cutts is a Google employee who blogs both personally and professionally, serving as an alternate, inside "Voice of Google". Most companies allow this, as long as the blogger uses common sense. Jeremy Zawodny is talking about the Yahoo-MSN merger: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/

Blogs are scarce in railway preservation. VMT has an official blog http://vmtmusings.blogspot.com/
And one of its employees also has an "unofficial" blog
http://thevmtrailyard.blogspot.com/

A blog is not just a broadcast - it allows comments, and these comments interconnect blogs. One person leaves a comment on another's blog, and links back to his own blog. Or someone may write their own blog entry in response to someone else's blog entry - these are linked to each other via a "Trackback". There are also search engines specifically for blogs.

People typically blog every 1-7 days, it varies.

Wikis

A potentially much more powerful form of collaboration is the Wiki. (which means "Quick" in Hawaiian.) A Wiki is a shared information repository to which anyone can contribute. (access can be controlled, all changes are logged, and nothing is ever lost.)

Wikipedia is a Wiki. You can have a specialized Wiki on anything, and many exist. On a lark, I mocked up one about the Southern Michigan Railroad: http://www.wolfharper.com/smrswiki/index.php/Main_Page

It's only a test, so I invite everyone on RyPN to "mess with it".

In fact it has a page on RyPN. Please add to it. Change anything.
http://www.wolfharper.com/smrswiki/index.php/RyPN

Do you see the power of collaboration here? It's a written record of enormous depth. What if there was a railway preservation Wiki that had a page on pantograph rebuilding? It would get quite a lot of detail as various experts added to it.

For another example, go to http://www.wikipedia.org and search for your own organization. Is the information correct? Current? Complete? If not, you should take a few minutes and add some improvements.

Flickr
YouTube

http://www.flickr.com/ and http://www.youtube.com/ are the most popular sites for users to post their own photographs and homemade videos. Flickr is part of Yahoo!, so if you already have a Yahoo! ID, you don't need to create yet another website login. Both of these sites allow comments from registered users, and you saw what I did above.

Podcasts

Podcasts aren't quite like the others. They're essentially a radio show - audio that you play on your computer or iPod (while you do something else). Anyone can make a podcast if they set their mind to it. The new Macs have podcast-making software built right in.

Most podcasts have web forums where listeners can discuss the podcast. Podcasts can be audio or video. Podcasts are anywhere from 2 minutes to an hour or more, though I personally think an hour is a lot to ask of a listener (plus more work to produce.) They typically post an edition once a week to once a month.

Unfortunately there are no railfan or preservation podcasts right now - but that's an opportunity for someone to start one up! It could be as easy as reading material out of RyPN Flimsies, or as complex as arranging audio interviews and roundtables with preservationists.

Free Information

You notice that Web 2.0 involves a completely different way of looking at the value of information itself.

Let's say I know how to rebuild a pantograph. By the old way of thinking, this knowledge is a precious commodity to be hoarded. "If more people knew, they wouldn't need to pay me for what I know."

So imagine trying to grasp that the information in your head INCREASES in value if you spread it around wildly! If people think "Oh, my contributions need to be copyrighted to maintain their value" -- that's not really how this new way of thinking works.

This is a bizarre concept. But try it. Look at Glenn Guerra, who does wooden car restorations for pay. What makes him so special is not book knowledge. It's experience - and that doesn't fit in a Wiki or blog. In fact, the smartest thing Glenn could do is blog about his expertise. "This is what I did, here is how I did it" with photos and everything - the Norm Abram of railway preservation. Wouldn't all his customers then just do it themselves? NO!-- Watching New Yankee Workshop doesn't make you Norm Abram -- but it sure makes you want to hire him!

In a similar vein, you can't put Wikipedia on your coffee table, so fear not for sales of your books. If anything, like in the Flickr example or Wikipedia, easy access to all this information tends to serendipitously pull more people into being interested in those topics.

And that's what it's all about!


So I hope I've given a decent description of Web 2.0 and the somewhat revolutionary idea behind it. And how this could serve railway preservation.

Great post. I wanted to add that there is a podcast for the V&T Lyon reconstruction project here: Lyon Podacast

I agree that communication within groups and to the public could be greatly enhanced through the use of blogs, wikis, and podcasts.

The classic web 2.0 in under five minutes:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

Bob

The problem with wiki is that anyone can mess with it. Hardly useful for something professional, IMO.

For example, and as a test, I just gave the SMR an ex-NS ES40DC. (you can thank me later). And no teacher/professor will ever accept something that can be so easily modified as a source for any type of report. I suggest resources be put into a real site that can not be so easily modified.

The disadvantage of Wikipedia and other internet sites as a source of information is that in most cases there is no experienced "editor" to ride herd on what gets posted. Things that get posted may or may not be correct, but the mere fact that they are prominently displayed on the internet gives the impression that the source is reliable. Once wrong information gets circulated, there is no way to shut it down, and it turns into "legend".

Add to that the army of clueless individuals who parrot any piece of information about their favorite topic area, running from website to website just to be the first to post it, and you have an endlessly expanding worldwide superhighway for disinformation.

Then there is the issue of copyrights and misuse of copyrighted information, but I really can't blame the internet posters entirely for that. Some book authors are now pulling large portions of text from copyright protected magazine articles and using it to fill out large parts of chapters in their books without seeking approval of the original author or the publisher.

"In the May 1989 issue of Trains Magazine, so and so said......" followed by many paragraphs of quote. What a massive abuse of the "fair use" guidelines. A quick and easy way to get a paycheck by stealing the work of others.

MX

Wikipedia at least does encourage editors to cite their sources, and some editors do police articles in their areas of interest. Just within the past week or two, there was a push to add citations to "railroad terminology" and "list of U.S. railfan jargon."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_terminology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._railfan_jargon

If you want to see my contributions to Wikipedia, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:N2xjk

My own experience with this occurred after I outgrew the Photo section of the Steam Lizards group on Yahoo. A museum in the UK offered to host my survivingworldsteam.com website, and set up a photo gallery for our collection of steam pump pictures:

http://www.survivingworldsteam.com/gallery/

It has public commentary on the pictures turned on, so anyone can add comments to any picture. I have had several "drive by" visitors leave behind bits of information that was very interesting or useful; here is an example:

http://www.survivingworldsteam.com/gall ... ER6MJP0504

One person left me a note stating that he was the great, great grandson of George Fordyce Blake; founder of the George F. Blake Manufacturing Co. After several enjoyable emails back and forth with his family, I ended up with an entire "wing" on the history of the George F. Blake Manufacturing Co. in my "Steam Lizards Virtual Museum":

http://www.survivingworldsteam.com/gallery/Blake

On the down side, I had a back-and-forth tussel several months ago with a spammer who once a month would leave hundreds of links to "adult" sites scattered around the gallery. I finally caught on, and when he came through, I would turn off public comments, clean out all of his mess, and after a week or so turn it back on. This went on for about three months, he must have finally realized I was on to his game, and he stopped.

In closing, I found the occasional notes by visitors to be more than worth the trouble caused by an occasional idiot, and so anyone can still leave a comment if they want to. But, you can turn off public comments, and only allow logged in individuals to leave a comment.

(The software used by the website is Gallery v1.3.3; found at http://gallery.sourceforge.net/ .)

I have been having a hard time reading the Interchange as of late. I am behind in my e-mail responses, and that combined with some threads that have turned me off have added up to a lack of participation.

I was embarrassed by the "idiot" threads about dumb things people say. Why? Because I saw comments, many from people I know and respect, that should never, ever be posted on a public forum.

It was then I thought that we are seeing examples of how the web can bring out the worst in our community and put it on broad display. The breach of trust between patron and preservationist represented in that thread came close to me putting RYPN on my do not read list.

And I, too, was thinking a little Web 2.0 primer would be good (though I despise that term).

But the needs go far deeper than that...

Right now, only a handful of railroad museums actually use the web to even a fraction of its potential, and I will be bold enough to say that even the best heritage railroad websites don't even scrape the surface of what they could do to put butts in seats and money in the bank.

I am working on a marketing document which I hope will be something I can combine with a live presentation to some of you, that will explain how you can use the web to further your organization's goals without breaking the bank doing so.

Success on the web requires focus, discipline and the commitment to follow-through, but if you start with a good online marketing plan and a good online business plan, keeping it rolling is pretty simple.

As I get closer to finishing my presentation, I hope to discuss some of it here and arrange to do some full-blown presentations.

All the best,

Rob Davis

The Tod Engine Foundation makes the maximum use of the Internet to spread information about our steel industry preservation activities.

First is our website: http://www.todengine.org
Then the Youngstown Steel Heritage Preservation Blog:
http://todengine.blogspot.com/
Next we have over 4,700 photographs on webshots, most all of industrial heritage subjects: http://community.webshots.com/user/todengine
Also, I created a series of forums about steel preservation, history, modeling and discussion at: http://www.steelheritage.org
And finally all the products that we offer from our organization's virtual gift shoppe is online at: http://stores.ebay.com/Steel-History-and-Heritage

All of this is rather easy to do. It just takes some time sitting behind the computer. However as a result we are one of the places that many people looking for info. on steel heritage go to. Since education is our main goal, these various sites allow us to more effectively educate a wider audience.

I see someone gave the ES40DC back to NS... still no comment on how to keep information on these types of sites "pure". When 99% of the internet is to apparently provide porn, how will sites with public access keep it clean?

Keeping pure is not an issue. There are software packages and techniques out there that make it a non-issue. You just have to do what it takes.

Rob

You guys do a great job, but if I might use your work as an example, your variety of sites actually has less of an impact than a single site at a single URL would.

Why?

It is all about search.

The Web 2.0 model you and many of us have followed spreads your content out on numerous sites and decentralizes links and traffic to your main site.

Google and the other search engines use a complex equation to set page rankings. Driving traffic off your URL, and too many self-refernetial links between pairs of sites, actually hurts your ranking.

Your sites go great in Google if you search "Tod Engine" but they don't make the front page for the phrases "steel preservation" or "steel mill museum". You do have one great positioned link under a search for "steel mill preservation".

Now, this is not just you. The NMIH doesn't show up their either.

Even more ironic, under "steel preservation" my blog post about your site is in the top 10, but the site is not.

None of this is meant to take away from what you have done, but it underscores how even the best among us can take it even further.

Now to take this away from one example and apply it to all. Who comes up in Google's top 10 for the phrase "steam train"... should be filled with 10 tourist railroads, no? Let's see.

Nope.

Of the Top 10, only 5 are railroads with steam (Austin Steam Train Association, Essex Steam Train, Roaring Camp Railroads, Louisiana Steam Train Association (LASTA) and Virginia and Truckee Railroad).

On the paid link side of the page (right column) LASTA, Old Threshers Reunion and the Bel-Del show up. These groups pay to be there.

Ironically, LASTA doesn't really need to pay for search on this phrase as they did a good job with their site's free ranking.

SEM (search engine marketing) is when you need to pay to show up for a key word or phrase. SEO (search engine optimization) is when your site is designed in a way that key phrases get you in Google's top ranking.

It is not easy, but it is becoming more and more important.

Part of the treatise I am working on is a way to educate heritage railways in how to maximize the FREE side and minimize the need to PAY for search. That money will be better spent on e-commerce and ticketing online.

That's all for now,

Rob

I know exactly what you mean. You're sitting there thinking "This cannot possibly work. Wikipedia is impossible. The bad people of the web will burn it down, just like they trashed Usenet, email, the Web, IM, open blogs, open forums etc."

But it would appear the people who figured out Wiki's are smarter than you and I!

This participatory world of Web 2.0 *defies* our established ways of thinking about information. That's precisely my point.

SMRSwiki just bounced back; someone reverted your edit before I got there. That wouldn't have happened on a blog or forum (for fear of participants childishly deleting each others' posts), so I actually consider Wiki to be the safest participatory form. Everyone being able to edit means the good people only have to outnumber the bad.

And by the way - the abusers are very few in number. The 99% of the internet you speak of? I deal with it in my job. It's very few authors publishing very many pages. I used to know half their names :b

However, to assuage your concerns further -- plan B is to lock down the Wiki, so only those with usernames/passwords can edit -- and dole those out to the members. You can take it further and control read access, I have that at work on a wiki. (MediaWiki isn't really designed for read access control, so we use Twiki.)

How would I go about fixing that problem? The reason we have the various sites is because at this point it is the most economical solution to use what is available for low cost.

The ebay store results in many more sales than we would get if the items were available only on our website.

No. "Steam train" is far more likely to be a query for information about railways of yesteryear. Who ran them, how did they work, etc. So there should be some informational results among the top 10, and there are.

In the search business (I work for Yahoo!) it is a common fallacy to believe that every query related to ones business is an attempt to buy what one has to sell. It's a problematic fallacy, because it can lead folks to foolishly overreach in their SEO efforts.



Unfortunately, commercial sites tend to aggressively SEO, while informational sites tend not to at all. We search engines have to work hard to counterbalance that, so people can find informational sites. We want the #1 position to go to the most relevant, not the most skilled at gaming the search engine algorithm. My job is dealing with sites who take it WAY too far. Usually that involves sites which have no useful content at all, but sometimes I must deal with sites which are simply being SEO'd very inappropriately. Please be careful who you hire for SEO, and know exactly what they do to your site.