Last week I went to the Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology (CAA) UK 2007 Chapter Meeting in Southampton. There was a range of interesting papers and it was really exciting to talk to people with similar passions.
I managed to overrun and didn't get to the last few slides of my paper, which were some random suggestions for cultural heritage organisations looking to get started with Web 2.0. They're based on the assumption that resources are limited so the basic model I've suggested is that you think about why you're doing it and who you're doing it for, then start with something small. I would also suggest matching the technology to your content, using applications that meet existing standards to avoid lock-in, ensuring you backup your data regularly (including user-generated content) and taking advantage of existing participation models, particularly from commercial sites that have User Interface and Information Arcitect specialists.
- Start small, monitor usage and build on the response
- Design for extensibility
- Sustainable
- Interoperable
- Re-usable
- Use existing applications, services, APIs, architectures, design patterns wherever possible
- Embrace your long tail
- It's easy and free/cheap to create a blog, or a Flickr account to test the waters
- Investigate digitising and publishing existing copyright free audio or video content as a podcast or on YouTube
- Add your favourite specialist sites to a social bookmarking site
- Check out Myspace or Second Life to see where your missing users hang out
- Publish your events data in the events microformat so they can be included in social event sites
- Geotag photos and publish them online
- Or just publish photos on Flickr and watch to see if people start creating a folksonomy for you