Social Media Research > Kudonomics

In the American science fiction show Star Trek there is a species called the Borg. The Borg manifest as cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones of multiple species, organized as an interconnected collective. Within the interconnected collective, every drone shares what it sees and does and decisions are made by a hive mind. They operate solely toward the fulfilling of one purpose: to “add the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species to their own” in pursuit of perfection. This is achieved through forced assimilation, a process which transforms individuals and technology into Borg, enhancing, and simultaneously controlling, individuals by implanting or appending synthetic components. In Star Trek, attempts to resist the Borg became one of the central themes, with many examples of successful resistance to the collective. Every now and then drones can escape the collective (most notably Seven of Nine), and become individuals once again.

Though this is purely fictional, I wonder if I could be considered a Borg drone. I think I am. Others are assimilated by me through endless rants and encouragement to get connected and buy new technology to enhance their lives. I actively participate in the collective hive called the Internet. I share what I think on my blog and Twitter, what I see on Flickr, what I read on LibraryThing, what I drink on Snooth, discuss on Facebook and base the purchase of my next mobile phone on reviews and Hunch. One could argue that I’m not completely sharing everything to the fullest. For instance I cannot share my emotions directly or what I’m smelling right now (a cup of coffee). Another person would not be able to experience the exact same thing. Future technology will solve this problem. By using nanotechnology to implant nano-wires into the vascular system in our brains we are able to change the input in our brain. This technology could in theory link brains to each other or link a brain to a computer. Would I every have to use Twitter again?

There is however one major difference from the fictional story—where persons are forcefully assimilated into the collective—in contrast to our current society. In the current society we cannot wait to share everything out of free choice using social media services. Add some nanotechnology in the mix and we can get connected losing the computer as middleman.

Will we shift to an interconnected collective hive? And will there be a Federation that will save us from this interconnected collective hive called the Internet or is resistance futile?

On Saturday the 18th of April I will present a social tagging and digital storytelling project called ikweetwatditis.nl at the Museums And The Web 2009 conference in Indianapolis. This project looks at the use of social tagging and digital storytelling for cultural artifacts. For this project a pilot application was created that allows users to tag these artifacts. In a sense one could compare this to Flickr the Commons but we try to invite groups ranging from experts, amateurs and people with no relation with these artifacts.

The main question is whether these groups can be identified, stimulated to add content descriptions and whether this has an effect on the involvement of these people towards the museum and whether it increases the access of the collection by the general public. At the conference we will present our first findings.

Abstract

Many cultural artifacts lack a description and those that do are not very useful for the general public. Useful in the sense of understandable and in the sense of helpful for retrieving the artifacts. In the Netherlands some 20 million artefacts in museums await a description, of those that do have a description only half of it is digitally available. The current descriptions themselves are limited to six or seven aspects such as date of acquisition, an inventory number and a genre classification. Meaning that the description is mostly there for administration purposes and not for helping the general public for finding and understanding the artifact. It is not uncommon for a description to have no reference at all to that what is most visible in the picture.

From a professional viewpoint there is reasonable doubt whether this will change in the near future: the task is too large for the few professionals most cultural institutions employ, certainly in light of the large numbers of artifacts that await such a (re)description. With the digitalization of cultural artifacts and the development of a widely available platform that stimulates access and interactivity, the Internet, a new solution presents itself. There are many people ‘out there’ that are willing and have the expertise to say something useful about certain artifacts: amateur scientist, retired professionals, friends of the museum, et cetera. Opening up the collections to these people in such a way that they can enrich the artifacts with their knowledge can help to make those collections more useful for the general public.

Four museums in the Netherlands (Naturalis, Museon, University Museum Utrecht, Dutch Institute of Image & Sound) together with three research and knowledge institutes (University of Applied Science Utrecht, Telematica Instituut, BMC Group) decided in 2008 to explore the potential of these groups of people that in some (professional) way are related to certain collections. The main question is whether these groups can be identified, stimulated to add content descriptions and whether this has an effect on the involvement of these people towards the museum and whether it increases the access of the collection by the general public.

In order to research this question a dedicated social tagging tool was developed with AJAX technology and implemented: www.ikweetwatditis.nl (‘Iknowwhatthisis’). Specific collections were uploaded to the site: a collection of photo’s of dentist artifacts, drawings of Japanese imprisonment camps during WO II, and photos of rare beetles. People can add information by tagging the photo’s. Currently we are experimenting with digital storytelling, integrating this into the website and researching the relation between the tags and the stories. Also we ‘benchmark’ are results with data from Flickr and Flickr the Commons. The social tagging tool will be demonstrated, including first results and future work.