Last month I noticed a very flattering note on the Eachtra website about myself and this site. It invites comment from me but unfortunately I can't see anywhere to comment on their website so I decided I might just waffle away here as usual.

The title of the Eachtra post was "Brian Dolan + Web 2.0 = www.seandlaiocht.com". While being aware of the concept of Web 2.0 I had never previously thought about it in relation to myself or to archaeology.So what is Web 2.0?

Well, its difficult to say and I'm not going into the details, that's what wikipedia is for, but basically its a way of describing a theoretical 'new version' of the internet. To me at least, its talking about an internet that isn't just consumed by everybody but can be easily created and changed without esoteric knowledge about Java, C++, html or any number of other scary abbreviations that are almost meaningless to the majority of the non Star Trek loving population of the planet (not that I have any problem with Star Trek).  

Essentially it's sites like YouTube, Facebook and and Flickr which allow you to interact with the web, create your own space and interact with other people online. Sites like Weebly (the service I use to publish this blog) and Google Apps allow web publication without ANY programming knowledge. Basically if you can use a word processor you can now have a presence on the net. 

So what has Web 2.0 got to do with archaeology? Well, so much and at the same time so little. Its all about potential and a few sites (including Eachtra's with its excellent online journal , nominated for an Irish Web Award in 2009 btw) have begun to embrace it and change the way people interact with archaeological information, data and research.

Web 2.0 has huge potential to change the way archaeology is viewed in Ireland. Dissemination has been one of the buzzwords in the discipline for the last five years but I have heard little talk about how the internet can transform how we disseminate to the public. The potential to reach out to the public, to inform and, excitingly, to interact is gigantic.

Irish archaeology's response to the internet has been mixed. Some interesting and useful steps have been taken with online bibliographies, databases and mapping (e.g. Archaeology.ie, Excavations.ie, EMAP) but these are generally aimed at those already interested and they aren't exactly user friendly. Many commercial sites provide summaries of excavations, some make reports available and one even has a blog (not that it is much used). However there are plenty of very basic commercial sites out there and some of the archaeology pages on the internet I most use (Thadeus Breen's and Conor McDermott's sites)  are still decidedly web 1.0.. Academia has done little more and the University webpages are nothing if not boring. Where are the academic blogs? The rich video and audio content or the electronic publications?

In reality it has been left to enthusiast sites such as Megalithomania and Mythical Ireland to 'give the people what they want'; including detailed maps of sites, basic information (sometimes not as accurate or up to date as it could be but where are the professionals providing info?), videos, photos and lots of other content.

Hopefully I'm not coming over too preachy and I am aware that this site and its subdomains (smelt.seandalaiocht.com and charcoal.seandalaiocht.com) are by no means perfect but they do show some of what is possible with no programming knowledge, practically no money and a bit of time. Future plans for the site include a database of Irish iron sites based on my PhD research, an interactive map of the same and more articles, presentations, videos and photos. There is nothing stopping any other archaeologist starting a site and sharing a little of what they know and are interested in with the public who ultimately pay their wages (or, more likely these days, their dole!). 

The move to better websites in Irish archaeology is already noticeable with the trend for almost every INSTAR project to have a website (for a list see here) and the recently updated Discovery Programme pages.  However we can do more. Sites like Scribd and Issuu make it free to publish online; Google and Bing's mapping services offer the potential to create accessible geospatial data at no cost; and Youtube and Vimeo do the same for the distribution of video and audio.

Lectures and books are not the only way to tell people about archaeology. We don't need to make it more interesting, we all know its already fascinating, but it would do no harm to make it all a little bit easier for the man on the street. Call it benevolent self-interest: the more people get interested in archaeology and value it, the more chance they'll be happy to fund it.

An article I read yesterday on the BBC website about the conveying of complex or non-intuitive information through colours, pictures and graphics got me thinking about how we archaeologists use such things.

I actually think that, on balance, we are instinctively pretty good at attempting to visualise our work: compared with our sister discipline history our conferences are veritable media-fests.

On the other hand we do have a bit of an addiction to PowerPoint; to images of holes in the ground; of random artefacts; and occasionally of insanely stereotypical 'reconstruction' drawings.

So, could we do better? I would argue that we could do far far better, with a little imagination and inspiration, at communicating to both ourselves and (much much more importantly) to the public. Where could we do better? Probably everywhere: in our publications (online and print), our conferences, our teaching and our outreach.

The internet is full of sources of inspiration on how we can present information in innovative ways. The video above, taken from TED.com (if you click that link forget about working for an hour or two) showcases some amazing ways of presenting complex data in a visual way, even converting much-abused charts into moving, interactive objects.

Other sites such as Wordle and Tagul enable anyone to analyze and present text in a visual way. They work by scanning text (from my MA thesis in the case of Wordle and Seandálaíocht in the case of Tagul) and isolating frequently used terms which then appear bigger, the terms then acting as links in the case of Tagul (try clicking on the image below).

Information is Beautiful is a blog about visualising data in an aesthetically pleasing way. It doesn't work with archaeological data but statistics are statistics and I've already nicked a few ideas for the maps I am preparing for my PhD. There are plenty more sites out there with tools to be used and ideas to be borrowed.

Finally, a little rant: why the hell do archaeologists (and I include myself in this) design/commision websites that are useful only to other archaeologists? Sites like excavations.ie, archaeology.ie, the ADS etc etc are just not accessible to the general public. We need to write/design sites that engage, that inform and that convey complex information in a simple way. While it may sound childish; bright colours and simple shapes may be the best tools for doing it. 

As part of my continuing tinkering with the site a new design and a new logo that works as a favicon too (the little icon that appears beside the url in your browser) have just gone live .

The logo is loosely based on my initials written in ogham. Strangely, they appear almost japanese to my eye. I'm hoping to continue tweaking the look of the website over the coming months as well as finishing and re-organising the links section so i can concentrate on the blog. To have a look at the new intro page to the website click here. I'm also using a slightly differrent version of the logo on my personal portal here.