Augmenting the Web with Greasemonkey

Rob McKinnon

http://kiwimp.sf.net/

Information wants to be free ...

• ... but is everywhere in chains
• When information is not free, then the class that owns or controls it turns its capacity toward its own interest
• It is not just information that must be free, but the knowledge of how to use it
• [Information] requires an active, subjective capacity to become productive

quotes from A Hacker Manisfesto by McKenzie Wark

Freeing information ...

• ... with Greasemonkey
• Empowers people to share reinterpretations of Web content
• We may benefit commercially, civically or socially

Flexibility

• Don't need to maintain running server application
• Easy to hack and share script
• Popular scripts will propagate and evolve quickly
• ... but ultimately a website is accessible by a wider audience

Example: transparent govt.

• In a similiar vein to UK's TheyWorkForYou.com:
• A NZ Hansard script augmenting published HTML of parliamentary debates

Before script

After script

Future explorations ...

• Social documents via Greasemonkey?
• Scripts could support:

• Tagging

  via del.icio.us url search?

• Commenting

  via Technorati blog search?

• Searching

  via Google search?