 |
||
|
Online services with unique interfaces that change regularly and through those changes provide a different experience AND different content to their users. |
||
|
Group: Social Media |
Trend in 2021: |
Unanimous Decision |
|
Added to List: 2019 |
|
Previous classification: Practically Extinct |
|
Trend in 2021: |
||
|
|
||
|
Imminence of Action Action is recommended within twelve months, detailed assessment is a priority. |
Significance of Loss The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world. |
Effort to Preserve Loss seems likely: by the time tools or techniques have been developed the material will likely have been lost. |
|
Examples Interfaces to Gmail, Facebook, Google Docs, Hotmail, Ask Jeeves, Tweetdeck, TurboTax, MySpace, Quicken Online, and many others |
||
|
‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Robust and extensive web archives with strong documentation of search algorithms, ranking and personalization of interfaces. |
||
|
2021 Jury Review This entry was added in 2019. The Jury noted that while there are overlaps with several other entries around social media and the web which pertain to content, this entry highlights the configuration of interfaces and, therefore, the ever-changing arrangement and presentation of content. Personalization means that the same query can produce quite different results to different users at the same time; the application of machine learning to behavioural surplus means the same may obtain different results at different points in time. That is over and above the rapid churn in the appearance of web interfaces. There is little appreciation of the implications for the use of online services and the potential for manipulations that arise. Moreover, the digital preservation community, which is historically concerned with data rather than interface, has only rudimentary tools to address this challenge. |
||
|
Additional Comments Some of the content/iterations of these are likely preserved to an extent within existing web archives but not as targeted collection efforts. As we've seen with myspace and other platforms where the platform producers decide to remove content or shut down rather quickly, it can be too late if this content has not been preserved already. Upgrading is compulsory - if really considered a problem, could an emulator be developed/used? This is like how some sites respond differently depending on which browser you are using - what is the significance or value in capturing all these differing user experiences? Why can we see how online services behaved five years ago? Moreover, why cannot we see how they manipulated data to present content differently from how they now do such that the content we can access via them is different? The authenticity of displaying social media content from 2014 through modern interfaces is questionable, and without recording the interface at the time, it is not currently possible to recreate older interfaces. You'd think the platform owners would have the older versions saved, but these are not available at the moment, and it would be worth engaging in a conversation about making them available to cultural heritage institutions for display purposes. How far do we take this? The returns are likely to diminish. Who is taking responsibility to preserve? What are the platform creators doing to preserve this cultural history? Some of this information is almost certainly lost already (some through deliberate erasure). The imminence of action depends on the type of institution. |
||
No Change