Blogs, Newsfeeds, Podcasts, and Wikis
The Internet is constantly changing as people find new uses for information technology. Community groups are sometimes unaware of recent developments and how they might use them. This page provides an update.
Blogs
A Blog is perfect for a group which has little or no expertise in making and maintaining a website but wants to share notices with a wider group via the web. It's easy to set up a free Blog with WordPress.com or Google's Blogger.com. To add notices you go to a web page, provide a username and password and then just enter a title and the information. The Blog software takes care of the web coding, archiving older information and so on.
CommunityNet Kiwi is an example Blog, specifically set up for New Zealand community groups to experiment with. Email information@community.net.nz to get access. See the article in Panui #40 for more information about Blogging and community groups.
Mac users: Safari doesn't give you the handy editing toolbar. Try Firefox instead.
RSS Newsfeeds
RSS Newsfeeds are a quick and easy way to keep track of updates to a Web site. Most blogs automatically make a feed available, but website developers can add a feed to other types of Web sites too. A feed is a specially formatted web page designed to be read by a feed reader, such as the Firefox RSS plugin or Mac Safari 2 or software such as NetNewsWire for the Mac or FeedDemon for Windows.
With a feed reader you can skim the headlines from one site or hundreds, quickly see details and easily visit the Web site itself. Anyone can read newsfeeds.
A community group with a Web site which provides news or other frequently updated content should think about providing a newsfeed.
Read more in Panui #22: Speed Read with News feeds, or in this MacTips.Info Learning Centre article: Newbies Guide to NetNewsWire. [The MacTips Learning Centre has been upgraded and not all courses are back online. Search for the correct tutorial.]
The CommunityNet Aotearoa newsfeed is available at: http://lists.community.net.nz/cna/wp-rdf.php.
Podcasting
In the same way that desktop publishing allowed us to produce our own leaflets and posters, Podcasting allows us to create our own radio stations and broadcast our content to a worldwide audience.
Podcasting is different from just recording an audio file on your computer and then putting it on your website because you use a common format such as MP3 for the audio file and then it automatically downloads for those who "subscribe" to it.
Subscribing to a site doesn't mean your audience has to pay; just that they put the address in their feed reading software and the software automatically checks for new content at regular intervals.
A podcast will automatically download to your computer and may also automatically be fed into your music playing software, such as Apple's free iTunes (Mac and Windows). You can simply play the podcast on your computer, or if you have an iPod or other MP3 player you can easily transfer it and listen to it on the go.
Podcasts include short four or five minute segments, perhaps on a single topic such as human cloning, longer "radio" broadcasts, perhaps with friendly banter, music, interviews, or even longer programmes covering a single topic or a range of topics on serious or frivolous themes. You'll find a broadband Internet connection useful as although a short Podcast may be two or three megabytes in size, longer programmes of maybe an hour could be 25 or 30 megabytes.
The Podcast format is ideal for any community groups which want to provide audio. This may include music, short items of news, interviews with experts and practitioners, perhaps training materials. It's entirely flexible: your broadcast may be three or four minutes or an hour or anything in between. It may be five minutes today, 30 minutes tomorrow and ten minutes next week. Your broadcast may appear every Friday and then also tomorrow if a news item crops up.
Unlike radio, you don't have to have a regular schedule, such as every Saturday at 7.30 am, but it will help to offer new content frequently, probably at least fortnightly.
Podcasting is a fairly new phenomenon, but like Web sites and email it's catching on quickly. Most currently available Podcasts are related to science and technology, but the sooner community groups explore this avenue for broadcasting the better. Take a look at some of the sites mentioned below and think about how your community group could use Podcasting.
One example of the thousands available is the famous Reith Lectures. The BBC each year invites a leading figure to deliver a series of lectures on radio. The aim is to advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest.
If you have a modern computer it's easy to make a podcast of your own. In times gone by many community groups made radio broadcasts via Access Radio. Those broadcasts would reach a small audience in a small geographical area. A podcast is quicker, easier and cheaper to make and distribute, is entirely within the control of the maker and can potentially reach a worldwide audience.
References
Wiki
Collaborating on a document can be hard work as you send a file to and fro, work out how to incorporate the changes, deal with delays. By using the Internet though, you could experiment with a Wiki for joint efforts.
Wikipedia.
One of the best known applications of the Wiki is Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit, with its 577,000+ articles. For Māori speakers there's also Wikipedia Māori.
In times past an encyclopedia was a big, static, expensive set of books, created by someone and published by someone else after much time-consuming research. We could search in vain for recent developments, Kiwiana or entries reflecting cultural and other minorities.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia on the web, created by ordinary people and updated and enhanced by ordinary people. Anyone can contribute, edit existing information or create new entries. Wikipedia offers helpful guidelines and a sandbox to experiment in.
Your own Wiki.
Your group doesn't have to engage in such a huge project though, if all you want to do is to formulate your next AGM agenda or Constitution, or funding application, or submission to the local council on its new policies.
Sign up for a free Wiki at Wikispaces, which advertises itself as "a place to grow communities around the topics you care about".
Compare wikis and get more information about them.
Try our test Wiki.
We've set up a test Wiki you can experiment with at cnawiki.wikispaces.org/test. Just visit that page and click on the Edit page link. Now try changing some of the information and click the Save button. You've just edited the page! Click on the Help link for details on how to make headings and so on. You can create new pages, add discussion, include pictures and so on. If you own the Wiki space you can make pages somewhat private by not including them in the directory.
Other Wikis.
There are other Wiki spaces out there and you can also host your own Wiki on your own website Try our test Wiki and see if it's something your group could use.
And remember, too, you can contribute to the Wikipedia encyclopedia — English or Maori.
The Internet started out as something we all just "consumed". These days though we don't need to be just passive consumers. Wikis are just one more way of using technology to improve the world around us.
References.
Wikipedia New Zealand entry: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_zealand