Audio in a social Web of linked data

March

20

09

Andy Powell, [email protected]

www.eduserv.org.uk/research

Unlocking Audio 2Connecting with Listeners

British LibraryMarch 2009

Image: Gabriela Camerotti @ Flickr

Audio in a social Web of linked data

What do social networks tell us about the discovery, sharing and re-useof audio resources?

March 2009Unlocking Audio 2 - Connecting with Listeners 2

apology


confession


I know very little about audio


I know a little bit about digital libraries


JISC Information Environment


Dublin Core Metadata Initiative


any coherently managed collection of audio resources delivered via the Web is a “digital

library”...

right?


on that basis... I hope I have something useful to say

but we’ll see!


so... getting back to the audio for a moment


I increasingly buy my music here



and here



and...

I increasingly listen to music here



and here



and...

if I was more into educational podcasts, I’d probably have to access them via



but let’s ignore iTunes for now


Blip.fm and Spotify both interesting for a number of reasons


both push at the boundaries of how we have rewarded artists to date


both are explicitly social in nature

(and like Muxtape which went before, they represent the evolution of the informal social sharing of

recorded music which has gone on for decades)


both are not just “on” the Web but “of” the Web


Huh? What does

of the Web

actually, like, mean?


an attitude


an expectation that your content will be re-used in ways you didn’t anticipate


an expectation that people will take your content, your API and URLs and use them to build

something different


oddly (given the previous slides) Spotify is not accessed primarily thru a Web browser but thru

an Adobe Air application


a situation that will be familiar to many Twitter users in the room


aside: when my 19 year old daughter first saw Spotify her reaction was, “This is amazing, I

never need to buy a CD again”


which nicely captures a possible generational change in attitude from ‘ownership’ to ‘access’


Amazon and iTunes are also ‘social’ but not so much in the explicit (outward facing) way of

Spotify and Blip.fm


both derive knowledge from the attention data of large numbers of users


whilst Amazon is very much “of” the Web, iTunes is barely even “on” the Web


so... that was just anecdotal and by way of introduction but…


two important themes that I want to return to


1) being ‘of’ the Web rather than just ‘on’ the Web


2) the importance of ‘social’ activity around content


both are important when we think about what it means to be ‘open’ and to ‘unlock’ content on

the Web


step back


look at digital libraries


in a generic way


uk-centric


and specific to higher education


jisc ie diagram


focus on the content


primarily ‘document-like objects’


focus on describing the content (primarily using simple Dublin Core metadata)


and on moving that metadata from providers to consumers


for the purposes of resource discovery, access and use


and so we talk about the OAI-PMH, Z39.50, SRW/SRU, OpenURL, Dublin Core and so on


much of the content is provided commercially


so there is also a focus on mechanisms to protect content from inappropriate access


and, perhaps more importantly…

there is an implied flow


jisc ie diagram


the JISC IE says very little about the relationships between people and content


and nothing about relationships between people


it says nothing about the social use that grows around content


it talks about identifiers for stuff


but not about identity (of people)


this is not unusual for ‘digital library’ activities


we talk a lot about content, and data formats, and metadata, and curation, and preservation, and

persistent identifiers, and …


we even talk about openness, and Creative Commons, and other open licences


and these things are all very good and important


but we don’t talk much about social networks


which is a shame…


because while we have been busy building digital library initiatives like the JISC Information

Environment


the Web has changed under our feet


it’s increasingly participatory


it’s increasingly about user-generated content


it’s increasingly open


it’s increasingly social








3 things that are interesting about these services...


firstly, concentration

http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001556.html


secondly, they are ‘of’ the Web

they support diffusion thru simple and open APIs, the use of RSS, cool URIs for everything of value, a

RESTful architectural approach, and so on...


in short... they see being mashed as a virtue


thirdly, identity (in these services) is not just concerned with questions like “who are you and

what are you allowed to do?”


but also about “this is me, this is who I know, and this is what I’ve created”


identity has become user-centric


concentration, diffusion and identity are enablers of social interaction


meanwhile... somewhere in academia

(a alternative case-study)


the open access

movement

and

scholarly repositories


a university-based institutional repository is a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It is most essentially an organizational commitment to the stewardship of these digital materials, including long-term preservation where appropriate, as well as organization and access or distribution. … An institutional repository is not simply a fixed set of software and hardware

(Cliff Lynch, 2003)


scholarly publications

learning objects

research data


manage

deposit

disclose

make openly available

curate

preserve


largely institutional focus

interoperability through centralised aggregators (national and global)

harvesting metadata about content using OAI-PMH (metadata = simple Dublin Core)


jisc ie diagram


but...

our terminology is confusing to ‘real’ people


a focus on plain old ‘making content available on the Web’ would be more

intuitive to researchers than ‘deposit in a repository’


a focus on ‘content management’ would change our emphasis


OAI-PMH out…


search engine optimisation, usability, accessibility, Web design, tagging, information

architecture, cool URIs in…


Google indexing

RSS feeds

widget technology – embedding functionality into other sites


we have tended to adopt service oriented approaches in line with long

tradition from Z39.50to SOAP/WSDL


our focus has been on building“services on content”

rather than on the“content” itself


we don’t tend to adopt a resource oriented approach


we don’t adopt REST – an architectural style with a focus on resources, their identifiers (e.g. URIs), and a simple

uniform set of operationsthat each resourcesupports (e.g. GET,PUT, POST, DELETE)


we don’t encourage aWeb style “follow your nose” approach


… and we tend to treat “content” in isolation from the “social networks” that need to grow around

that content


successful “repositories” (Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, etc.) promote the social activity that

takes place around content as well as the content management and disclosure activity


the institutional approach has fundamental mismatch with the real-life social networks adopted by

researchers

subject-based

cross-institutional

global


while institutional approach isgood from perspective of institutional

management, preservation, etc.

globally “concentrated” repositories might better reflect the social networks that need to arise


the net effect …is that there is no net effect


repositories remain uncompelling places to disclose scholarly publications from POV of the

researcher


perceived cost of deposit remains higher than perceived benefits


we resort to institutional or funder mandates, “thou shalt deposit”, to fill what would

otherwise remain empty


what would a Web 2.0 repository

look like?



high-quality browser-based document viewer (not Acrobat!)

tagging, commentary, more-like-this, favorites, …

persistent (cool) URIs to content

ability to form simple social groups

ability to embed documents in other Web sites

high visibility to Google

offer RSS as primary API

use of Amazon S3 to cope with scalability


final thought


visitors vs. residents

http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2008/07/23/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents/


counterpoint to the whole ‘Google generation’, ‘digital native’ meme


resident – “an individual who lives a percentage of their life online”


visitor – “an individual who uses the web as a tool in an organised manner whenever the need

arises”


the cultural heritage sector tends to build services aimed at visitors


I think we should be designing with residents in mind


conclusions...


http://www.plasticbag.org/images/extra/native_02.jpg

http://www.plasticbag.org/images/extra/native_02.jpg


what would I do if I was advising on something like the JISC Information Environment now?


I’d aim to be as like the mainstream Web as possible


I’d ask “How would Google do this?” more often


I’d focus on the basics


I’d focus on the principles of linked data

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html


use URIs to name things


use HTTP URIs so that people can look them up


provide useful information when people dereference the URIs


include links to other things as part of that information (so that the recipient can find new

things)


I’d promote the principles of cool URIs

(practical persistence)


I’d strongly encourage a RESTful architectural approach


I’d encourage RSS / Atom as essential point of access


I’d focus on the social aspects of the systems being built


implies that the Open Stack (OpenID, OAuth, ...) is increasingly important


I’d focus on building stuff for residents rather than visitors


thank you

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Audio in a social Web of linked data