Introduction

Emedia Assessment 2 John Fuller 1039297

Introduction
The term Web 2.0 refers to a ‘second’ generation of design and development for websites that seek to share, collaborate, communicate and involve users. Web 2.0 is the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content, the websites that allow users to do more than just retrieve information. Web 2.0 means unprecedented on-line visitor participation, interest, and buy-in. This is facilitated by some Web technologies and features that were neither available or effective, as little as five years ago. It’s not just some improvements to tech specifications, but about changes in the ways designers and users interact with the web. The term became notable after the “O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004”. (1)
GetUp!
The intention of GetUp! www.GetUp.org.au is to bring together like minded people to participate in democracy, “a new independent political movement to build a progressive Australia”(2). The genre of this website would be described as a non-profit organisation and it also falls slightly into a social networking service genre and will have many elements in common with similar genre sites. They have a continuing series of campaigns and use the media, especially the web and television, to spread the message that they create. The web has transformed traditional political lobbying methods and the GetUp! website has become a “popular and powerful medium for political expression”(2).
The organisation is not for profit and receives no money from any political party or government and relies totally funds and in-kind donations from the public. While GetUp! doesn’t have all the features of the classic Web 2.0 site, it does benefit from this platform for input and fast response to campaigns. The organisation has a specific lobbying role and to be effective it needs to be focussed on its key campaigns and priorities so while user input and contribution are encouraged, campaigns are directed strategically via results of processes such as the vision survey 2009.


Analysis
This analysis of design will be about the aesthetic and the technical. Some research came from the web builder Wiliam Web Services - http://www.wiliam.com.au/ which had a brief to build “a versatile, easily accessible web site that would not only support the demands of those in the industry, but also provide an easy and enjoyable experience for the end user.”(3).
The home page layout is clear which is good user interface design, relating to the user, above the system architecture. There are eight links in the main banner – Home, Join, Community, Campaigns, Donate, Blogs, Media, About. Three of these – Community, Media and About could be combined into About [leaving six , regarded as a better number of choices] to minimise this banner as there is a degree of repetition within them.
The six features or techniques that identify Web 2.0 would typically be SLATES [search, links, authoring, tags, extensions, signals], an acronym that was coined by Andrew McFee (4).
Search – finding information easily through a keyword search.
There is no keyword search function on GetUp!. Though the information is accessible through the usual channels presented in the main banner, to find info eg. a specific ad that was part of a previous campaign, isn’t easily achieved without prior knowledge. The inclusion of this function would be a positive.
Links – connecting to important information, other good pages.
The links on the home page are predominantly within the site. There are media issues that link outside to those specific stories [ABC and youtube]. Within the pages though there is a denser link in specific campaigns to similar or parallel organisations eg. ANTaR or Oxfam in regard to the indigenous ‘Close the Gap’ campaign.
Authoring – the ability for constant updating with more contributors.
GetUp! has a blog function which constitutes the main scope for authoring. This seems to open up many issues, as is normal for political discussion, and while allowing lots of topics for discussion leaves the organisation free to focus on the main topics that they are pursuing. Participation is achieved through campaigning emails to the membership which create easy channels for action. An example would be signing a petition. GetUp! sends the mail and includes the direct link to the page which controls this petition. Then they suggest the link/code that enables you to forward the petition within your own networks. While this is not authoring in the classic sense it does require your initial interest and then gives you the simple tools for a limited role. ‘Spreading the word’ among your networks is made very easy by the site and is part of the strength of the GetUp! model - grassroots democracy.

Tags – categorising content with simple single word [where possible] descriptions to aid searching. There is no tagging evident within the site which would lead to the pattern building that sites like delicious - http://delicious.com/ - would use.

Extensions - pattern matching preferences to create recommendations.
As with the tags, there are no extensions evident in this site, though this concept is handled basically in providing links to sites that would are like minded.

Signals – using RSS technology to notify users of changes in content. RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and provides a feed of information, the format of which can be determined by the user, without having to go on to the website. RSS gives viewers control over receiving information they want without revealing information about themselves. “Unlike subscribing to an e-mail newsletter, viewers never have to give out their e-mail address with an RSS feed.”(5) RSS is attractive as the possibility of receiving spam is avoided.
GetUp! Doesn’t have this facility and it is unlikely that supporters would need ‘the latest’ info. As the political lobby world doesn’t jump every minute as does the news world, when there is an alert to respond to email would suffice.

Conclusion
Web 2.0 is not that radically different to web 1.0, both rely on participation. But it is the combination of “the open architecture…lowering of barriers… ease of connecting ideas…increase of bandwidth and computing power” (6) that defines 2.0. As these are a continuous part of the webs history and future, we will probably see a new phase of web emerge as the convergence and connectivity of equipment, mobile devices and static surfaces.
O’Reilly described “four levels in the hierarchy web 2.0” (1) , GetUp! as explained is not in the top level or ‘classic’ web 2.0 bracket. It doesn’t rely on interactive participation on its web site to exist but needs the interconnectivity and ease of participation in distributing the information via its site to be successful. GetUp! had an ‘Online Director’ position
advertised within the organization which states that they are “searching for best practice in online advocacy, e democracy and citizen journalism as we take GetUp to the next level.” The use of web 2.0 is a great basis for an organization such as GetUp!, its immediate future may benefit in greater use of web 2.0. The real challenge will be in use of the next level of ‘web ?.0’ which may be the convergence of man and machine.




Reference:
(1) viewed at http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html on 10 April 2009
(2) viewed at http://www.getup.org.au/ on 10 April 2009
(3) viewed at http://www.wiliam.com.au/services-wiliam-sydney-web-design-development-firm-australia/industry/government/web-maintenance on 10 April 2009
(4) McFee, A. Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. p 23 MIT Sloan Management Review Spring 2006 Vol. 47 No. 3.
(5) viewed at http://www.wiliam.com.au/services/what-is-rss on 13 April 2009

(6) Weinburger, D. The real difference between the 2.0s KM World p18 February 2007 accessed ABI/INFORM Global