More on Computer-based Collaborative Tools

This week’s readings encapsulate what we have been discussing in the last couple of weeks.

Kolbitsh and Maurer’s article, “The Transformation of the Web: How Emerging Communities Shape the Information we Consume,” presents an overview of a broad selection of computer-based collaborative tools: wikis, blogs, social networks, file sharing tools, and other social media. It enumerates information transformations that the world experienced courtesy of these social networking tools. The article lists advantages and disadvantages associated with each of them. This, perhaps, gives us an insight of opportunities for future trends. The internet is growing, and hence its users.

The “Are Wikis Usable?” by Desilets, Paquet and Vinson, explores the usability of wikis. Specifically, the authors try to establish users’ knowledge of hypertext, an important feature of wikis. Wikis are supposed to be easy to use. But is this the reality on the ground. A study, like the one reported in this article, shows some wiki users have a problem hyperlinking one page with another.

There two articles on blogs. Their themes revolve around the status of bloggers in today’s society. Compared with journalists in the mainstream media, can bloggers be looked upon to inform, educate and entertain the public? This is an important question considering that bloggers have brought to the limelight issues that the mainstream media otherwise shunned.

“Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with history flow Visualizations,” by Viegas, Wattenberg and Dave, is a riveting article about the dynamics of Wikipedia. The article discusses wiki technology, and, perhaps, most importantly explains the workings of Wikipedia, itself.

The article introduces the history flow visualization, an exploratory data analysis tool, which helps in revealing patterns within a wiki.