Great post today by Craig Stoltz:
http://2ohreally.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/twing-searching-the-deep-web/
He discusses a search service, called “Twing” that retrieves content that Google doesn’t (sorry, Virigina, Google doesn’t search the “whole” web).
According to Stoltz, Twing therefore usually returns pre-blog/pre-social media content that is posted in… (wait for it…..) forums. Forums are suprisingly still both prevalent and active (I belong to three myself) and they are usually highly specialized by topic (yes, as you probably suspected, my three forums are all Star Wars related).
The part of the post I found particularly interesting was the question of why you’d care about searching for content in forums. The response from Twing’s Director of Product Management:
Whenever you’re looking not for information about the thing, but for conversations about the thing.
Oh, you mean conversations existed prior to Web2.0? It’s a world gone mad!
Best Stoltz quote: “Twing has shown me this: That whole creating communities-of-shared-interests thing? That whole power-of-collective wisdom thing? That whole long tail thing? You know, that whole web 2.0 thing?
It’s been under our noses all along. We just forgot where to look”
~Carie
Good point, Carie. I joined my first listserve (forum) in 1996 as part of a patient advocacy group for a family member’s lifethreatening illness. This group was one of the “granddaddies” of patient listserves on the Internet, and has even been studied by social researchers as a model for how patients & caregivers formed a spontaneous, grassroots organization and learned to:
*find the best medical experts for this disease in the world
*engage some of those experts personally with patients, and provide a ready source of clinical trial volunteers
*track research and trials worldwide, and provide first-hand anecdotal information about treatment results
*provide patient-to-patient and caregiver-to-caregiver support for an incurable disease, including treatments, side-effects, emotional issues. An example: advice on how to get your local oncologist to work with one of the leading experts on managing your particular case. Before the internet, most local oncologists were unused to patients seeking second opinions from out of state
*lobby Congress for NIH and cancer research funding
*raise money for research
Spinoffs have included many other cancer-specific listserves, research-oriented websites, memorial websites for those who passed, and more.
We did not need web 2.0 for any of this. Perhaps that’s why I’m indifferent to some of the web 2.0 hype.
I’ve also belonged to industry-based listserves for many years. What’s interesting is that no matter the content, the evolution of these listserves follows a predictable path. There is always a sense of common purpose, there are always stories that inspire–and there are always flame wars.
And one more thought about why listserves persist in the age of 2.0: they serve the needs of the participants and require a lower technical threshold than social media sites. Like any specialty group, those of us interested in digital media self-select and don’t reflect “average” technology users. We need to remember that It’s still a big step for many who join a listserve to figure out how what it means to switch to digest mode, or even how to subscribe or unsubscribe.