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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.

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Saturday, July 13, 2002

Good Source for RSS News and Feeds

RSS News by CodingTheWeb.com appears to track news and events in the RSS space, as well as RSS technical developments. It's where Jenny picked up this story. RSSEngine is the source for the custom links. When I went to the site I just got an Under Development screen and had to use the direct feed link instead.

The most interesting (for me) feed in this group of 180 is Editor & Publisher. But the concept of custom feeds really appeals to me -- hence my experiments with "Mark Paschal"'s Stapler.

Unfortunately, I know just enough to get excited, but not enough to do much about it -- my skills with Stapler are still too weak. But I would love to be able to create a set of industry-specific feeds and make them available via my web site. I'll work on this as I have time over the next few months.

Once this catches on though, I'll wager we start to see a lot of silly anti-RSS copyright infringement suits ala the deep linking fiasco now going on (see: "NPR deep-link comedy" and the disappointing NewsBooster vs. the Danish Newspaper Association ruling.

I will never understand how a company can put information out onto an open, public forum, provide a link to that information, and then demand people not use it. Stupid.

RSSEngine.

James Linden is going to town with RSS! He's moving the Snewp feedsto a new location at RSSEngine, which also has its own blog (naturally you can subscribe to it). He's providing 180 feeds right now, including
Editor & Publisher:
http://feed.rssengine.com/editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher.rss

Eurekalert:
http://feed.rssengine.com/eurekalert.org/education.rss
http://feed.rssengine.com/eurekalert.org/socialbehavior.rss
[...] [The Shifted Librarian]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 9:42 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Friday, July 12, 2002

Fighting Back Against Patent Abuse

Palm, Handspring win patent spat. ZDNet Jul 12 2002 3:21PM ET [Moreover - IP and patents news]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 8:58 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Under the Radar -- When is it Safe to Declare the Klog Revolution

I don't know what the answer is. I don't have an employer -- at least not for long -- so I don't have to worry about it. But I can sure see the issues. If you work for any MajorCorp I think there are serious concerns (see: "Can K-Logs Improve Corporate Integrity") about how your efforts will be perceived.

Having read this (older?) piece, I'm now less interested in having my company notice that I'm k-logging/blogging/whatever, lest they spray Roundup® on me.

When do we declare the revolution?.

Where's the Beef in Web Services?

You're reading it. It's personal publishing.  Web Services are being used to reinvent the world of personal publishing. What is personal publishing good for? Knowledge management, small business, news publishing, and much more. A combination of markets worth a boatload of money (personal Web publishing can even take a bite out of the $8 b a year Microsoft makes from Word sales). In addition to the potential opportunity, personal publishing is a sexy use of Web Services that provides immediate, tangible results. [...more] [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

All true - but now we can route around the ignorance the same way that the internet can route around an outage. When the PC started being used inside organizations it was largely ignored as well. The power structure is always blind to grassroots phenomena; that's what gives them time to take root.

I would just as soon let the power structure miss the point for a while longer. What is going on now is fundamentally subversive, as Dave Weinberger has been arguing for a long time. Let's be mindful about how and when we trigger corporate immune responses. We want to reach a healthy symbiotic partnership not kill the organism or ourselves. The question is not where's the beef so much as when do we want "them" to get it. [Jim McGee: Blogging]

[Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 8:10 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

What is a K-Log -- John Robb on the Phenomenon

Neither did I, at first. You can read "Struggling with Radio Userland", "Things to do before the Demo expires", and "A Great Future in Radio" to see that it took me almost three weeks of serious effort before the value became clear to me.

Today I wouldn't go back.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 7:59 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

The Synchronicity of Klogging Culture

Below, Paul Holbrook discusses the difficulty of exposing what we think to those around us. He says (better than I could) what it's like to try and come to grips with speaking privately in a public forum. I suspect his words will ring true for many who are new to the idea of thinking in public.

I completely overlooked this post, even though I'm specifically on the lookout for pieces relevant to new kloggers. Having found it, I added it to my klogging culture package for helping future users. But I missed it. And had I waited more than a day or so to peruse Paul's site it would have fallen below the water line. I may have never seen it.

But Ron Lusk caught it. I don't know Ron Lusk. I just found his url in my Referrer log today, so I went to check it out. I liked what I saw so I subscribed to Ron's RSS feed and a little later today this tidbit from Paul showed up in my aggregator. Ron had looked where I looked, but had seen something different.

This points to the value of two things:

• Mining one's Referrer logs for little bits of gold like Ron Lusk's weblog, and
• How weblogs begin to form what Cory Doctorow calls the Outboard Brain -- an external web of information and insight that can make us all a little bit richer.

By knowing a little about who is reading my log I found a valuable resource -- Ron. And now that I know Ron exists, has similar interests, and is prowling the web for items similar to what I would seek, I can rely on him to catch some of the salient things I miss. Which means I don't have to catch them all on my own. As |Matt| says in this post:

I'm not Atlas to the internet.

Even to my own small chunk of it.

In return, I should do the same for Ron, or anyone else who reads this weblog. That is the benefit and culture of k-logs. Now, go read Paul's post and feel for yourself some of the struggles of thinking out loud.

Paul Holbrook's Radio Weblog. Paul's original RSS item was shortened, with no link to his own comments on klogging. He speaks of the discomfort in revealing one's klogging to others on a grand scale.

Shortly after I arrived, I started keeping a klog of my work. So far I've clued in the few people I've worked with so far to my klog, but as best as I can tell, they haven't paid much attention. I've been struggling with the question about when and how to let the larger project team know about my klog, but so far I've been reluctant to do so. Today I was in kick-off meeting for the large project I've been working on. Towards the end of the meeting, I was almost consumed with the desire to tell people about my klog, but I just couldn't bring myself to speak up.

I've asked myself why that is, and the answer isn't straight-forward. I've only been at Tech for six weeks; higher-ed politics are notoriously complicated, and I don't know how people might react to the things I've written. A klog is by definition not politically correct; you say what you think, not what you believe others might want to hear.[Paul Holbrook's Radio Weblog]

[Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 6:51 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Process Logging via K-Log

Process logging?.

Brett Morgan is talking about KM and blogging integration (k-logging) being the next wave of tools. You bet.  Or rather I bet. I'm betting the farm on it.

Here's a thing... How about process-logging.

Every workflow process produces an RSS output stream commenting on the state of the process and events that occur.  If you're interested in how the process is going you subscribe.

Are any of the open source workflow packages looking at RSS integration? [Curiouser and curiouser!]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 6:10 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

LinkBack to Yourself

URLs in comments. I encountered a brilliant idea (someone else's -- I'll have to call him X -- naturally) while viewing comments on a post somewhere. When the comment form requested X's URL, he entered the URL of a post discussing the item he commented on. In his comment, he said, “Click on my name for more of my views on this topic,” or the like. Bravo!

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 5:07 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

How Do You Say MLogging

I like the idea of running the klog software and working locally, even when offline -- it's very convenient. But I refuse to use a laptop computer as my primary workstation. No laptop is going to replace my 20" monitor, 768MB RAM, 80GB RAID array, and 12-year-old Northgate Computer "real man's" OmniKey/PLUS keyboard. Until I can run Radio on two separate computers and synch the result I will have to do without this feature.

There's a final item in the article that strikes me as off-base -- using e-mail and a klog like a discussion group. Modifying a klog into a discussion group seems like a lot of trouble and inappropriate use of the tool. If you want a discussion group or mail list, just use one.

Mobile K-Logging

Rapid mobility is the sign of the times. In many organizations employees spend as much or more time on airplanes, in distant hotel rooms, and at client locations as they do at the office. So, how can they contribute to a corporate K-Log when they are on the road and/or disconnected? Here is my thinking on this.

There are three modes of remote K-Logging. They are:

1. Remote access to a K-Log through a browser on a random PC K-Log tools that are located on a server or desktop PC (through remote access settings) can be accessed while on the road as long as the systems are located outside of the corporate firewall. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the case with many companies. [...]
2. Mobile laptop with a local K-Log tool. With a laptop K-Logging tool, employees can K-Log while on a plane, in a hotel room, and in a client meeting -- all while disconnected. When they reconnect, the publishing process is fast and efficient as K-Log updates on the desktop are published to the host. Additionally, news headlines are downstreamed to the laptop. This is very similar in concept to the efficient e-mail replication found in Lotus Notes (and what made it successful). This is also what I do personally.
3. Remote K-Logging via e-mail. E-mail works great as a way to post updates to a K-Log tool on the desktop or server while on the road without a laptop. Many employees now use e-mail enabled devices like Blackberries and wireless Palms. These tools don't support high quality browsing, but they do a fairly good job with e-mail.[...]

[John Robb's Radio Weblog] via [Jim McGee: Blogging] via [Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:53 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Anarchy and Infrastructure

I've heard it said that a consultant is someone who can put any idea into a 2x2 matrix. I guess that's true to some extent. But the matrix is only as valuable as the truth it contains. Searls' little pictograms really get across some important fundamentals. I just hope he's right.

Anarchy and Infrastructure. Doc Searls has an absolutely fantastic slide show on his site from his talk at the June JabberConf.  Very compelling...

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:29 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

The Devil Made Me Do It

This is disgraceful behavior. Some days I think I've awakened in the middle of the 1985 Terry Gilliam film Brazil.

Copyright bill may severely limit your rights. ZDNet Jul 12 2002 8:02AM ET

[...] In an unusual twist, Coble and Berman stressed in their letter to colleagues that their authorship of the draft bill does not necessarily "constitute an endorsement of its contents." Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the full Judiciary committee, also helped in the creation and included the same unusual disclaimer.

Spokeswoman Gene Smith said Thursday that Berman opposes the bill and drafted it only at the request of House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.[...] [Moreover - IP and patents news]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:10 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Wishing for a Way to Show Appreciation

I like the idea...read the article “About Wish Lists” cited below, too. (By the way, I've reformatted this to make it a little less overwhelming....)

That Wish List Thing..... That Wish List Thing....

Someone gave me some great help the other day. It was one of those cases where a bit of knowledge he had saved me about 3 or 4 hours of just general Linux geeking out and experimenting. So I just hit his blog, happened to see his wish list and I saw a book on it that I really loved and he wanted.  So I got it for him.  That's really cool to me.  Here's why -- in a lot of computer things, a little bit of knowledge can just save N hours (where N is an integer and usually > than 2) -- and, while I know that people generally don't mind helping, you sometimes just hate to ask. Either it makes you feel stupid or you just don't want to bother someone. Knowing that someone has a wish list means that if I feel this way, at least I can do something to compensate someone for their time. Time is valuable as is knowledge.

Was the book I got for this person the value of the time?  Of course not -- but I don't think that's the point -- it's not about value as much as it is about appreciation.  At least that's the case for me.  For example, my security article continues to get serious traffic despite my writing it about 3 months ago -- and I'm still getting emails asking for more help!  And you know something, I actually try to answer them.  I wish I did a better job -- and I'm working on it -- but the reason I try is that these people show appreciation.  And, like anyone who writes, you get addicted to the positive (or even negative) feedback.

About Wish Lists

Have You Made a Wish List for Your Blog Yet? [The FuzzyBlog!] via [Jim McGee: Blogging]

via [Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:48 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

We Just Don't Need This

Hate Group To March In Gainesville. 11 Alive Jul 11 2002 11:13PM ET

National Alliance leader Chester Doles said, "Our goal is to have White living area, White schools, White workplaces, White homeland where non-whites have no place in it." [Moreover - Atlanta news]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 10:17 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Efficient Entrepreneurs Survive in Tough Times

The next time you're grousing with a fellow entrepreneur about ungrateful employees, chiseling customers and high tax rates, take a moment to share a happier bit of news: how you recently made your business more efficient.

In this nasty economy, with price increases so difficult to pass along, lifting productivity is often the only path to higher profits -- or just plain survival if you're in an industry in which the competition is getting more efficient.

But smaller companies are at a disadvantage. They typically lack the scale to operate in the most efficient manner. And measuring productivity -- collecting detailed data on labor and other elements of production -- is a complex and time-consuming task for entrepreneurs. Getting the next shipment out comes first. [...]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 1:00 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Klogging the Project Initiation Kick Off Report

The Project Initiation Stage defines scope, schedule, resources, and risks, and gets buy-in from stakeholders to go forward. The Project Initiation Kick Off Report is your roadmap for this stage. This template has four parts:

• Interview schedule, with dates, goals, and subjects
• Description of your "Objective and Scoping Workshop"
• Schedule of planned follow-up workshops and their deliverables
• Schedule for writing and presenting your Project Initiation Report

This your "plan for the project plan."

Klogging

Feedback is your lifeblood in drafting the PI Kick Off Report and throughout the PI stage. If you are getting started, now is a good time to:

1. Subscribe to the klogs of your project stakeholders.
2. Start new project channels.
• for yourself
• for external stakeholders (management, investors), and
• for the combined efforts of this stage's contributors. Perhaps a multiauthor synthetic feed.
3. Read about technography to make your interviews and workshops better. This includes having someone blog observations, findings, and other notes during the meeting, for immediate review afterward.
4. Publish your progress and revisions to the PI Kick Off Report on your klog.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:53 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Got Them Airport Traveling Blues

Search Me, Part One.

I'm a business traveler. A frumpy middle-aged female business traveler. Not for me the obsequious service of First Class. No, I nod, drooling, to the lulling roar of the engine, wedged in the middle seat in the last row of the plane. I don't expect luxury. By God, I expect delay, inconvenience and discomfort, and I'm rarely disappointed. I endure skreeching babies and brainless wimmenfolk yammering on their miniscule cell phones about some imagined slight at the office. My guess is that *these* are the people who read -- and relate to -- the execrable comic strip "Cathy."

But I digress (actually, that's my primary form of motion). Sunday, my number finally comes up in Atlanta: I draw the short straw in the Security Lottery. I willingly trudge to the bag-search arena, only to be escorted back to the counter to have my bag tagged. "No, Mr. Williams says we ain't sposed to tag the bags." Okey-dokey. I trudge back to the searching zone and stand in line. I find myself in front of a hulking, overweight man who looks like he has slept in his soiled clothes after a long day digging graves. His latex gloves are stained, and the thumb and 2 fingers of his right glove are torn out. I insist that he put on fresh gloves before he starts plowing through my underwear. When he's finished, he makes what might have been a stab at decorum: he shoves one hand down his pants and enthusiastically anchors one errant shirttail. I shudder to think of the next victim. I resolve to launder my clothes when I get to New Orleans. Later I rethink that, and burn them instead. And stand upwind.

I get to the gate, where I again endure search: as I am being wanded by the female guard, the "blOOoOOO" shriek of the device prompts her to loudly query "Are you wearin' an underwire bra?" No, Luann, I have steel tits. Thanks for asking.

On the return trip, I am again singled out. At least the guards there are polite and kempt (that *is* the antonym for unkempt, isn't it?), but if they were wired in series, they couldn't light an appliance bulb. While I appreciated the small man's seeming respect for my underthings, his search was so perfunctory it would have failed to uncover a live armadillo in my bag. Which gives me an idea for next week's trip... [Claudia McCue's Radio Weblog]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:42 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Understanding Web Classification

The hot new term in information organization is "ontology." Everybody's inventing, and writing about, ontologies, which are classifications, lists of indexing terms, or concept term clusters (Communications of the ACM, 2002). But here's the problem: "Ontology" is a term taken from philosophy; it refers to the philosophical issues surrounding the nature of being. If you name a classification or vocabulary an "ontology" then that says to the world that you believe that you are describing the world as it truly is, in its essence, that you have found the universe's one true nature and organization. But, in fact, we do not actually know how things "really" are. Put ten classificationists (people who devise classifications) in a room together and you will have ten views on how the world is organized.

Librarians had to abandon this "one true way" approach to classification in the early twentieth century. As many are (re-)discovering today, information indexing and description need to be adjusted and adapted to a myriad of different circumstances. Why, then, use the misleading term "ontology"?

Apart from philosophical issues, there is another, more important reason to abandon use of the term. Recorded information does not work the same way the natural world does. Information is a representation of something else. A book, or a Web site, can mix and match informational topics any way its developer feels like doing. There's no such thing as a creature that is half squirrel and half cat, but there are many mixes of half-squirrel/half-cat topics in information resources and Web sites. Methods of information indexing have to recognize what's distinctive to information, as opposed to classifications of nature, and design the systems accordingly.

Link

Discuss

(Thanks, Chris!! [Boing Boing Blog]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:39 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Innovation Comes From Weak Ties

Innovation Comes from Weak Ties.. Macdara MacColl's Conference Impressions: Outtakes from Communities 2000 EAST: A Strategic Thinkers Forumhas a few good notes from that Basex conference. I especially liked the one about
communities
as complex adaptive systems
that enable innovation
through encouraging dissimilar people
to bump into each other.

She says it better.

This was two years' ago. Lots of those community vendors died or shifted markets. I liked her healthy skepticism of blogging as described by Dan Bricklin of Trellix :

"Most communication is of the mundane kind, and even if home pages are a good medium for mundane expressions of self, that doesn't make them a good strategic programming option for most companies. Trellix has created an excellent web-page authoring tool, chosen by community leaders like Tripod. But Trellix is struggling with figuring out where the future of their business lies. ISPs? Enterprises? KM? Trellix has a longer road to go than most companies to transform its offering into something obviously valuable to businesses."

I wonder if Macdara has picked up a copy of the Cluetrain Manifesto or Gonzo Marketing since then? [a klog apart]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:11 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Thursday, July 11, 2002

Digital Rights Management Lawsuit Against Microsoft.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:52 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Georgia-Pacific Pays $10 Million for Enviro Damage

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:48 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

3D graphics world shaken by patent claims.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:46 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Getting Information Retrieval Right

This article by Marcia Bates, After the Dot-Bomb: Getting Web Information Retrieval Right This Time explains in plain English seven problems areas with web-based info retrieval. Marcia's background and credentials are impeccable, and her advice invaluable. The added perspective from Louis Rosenfeld is equally valuable. It's stuff like this that makes me long for a copy of Copernic Summarizer.

I would never have discovered either of these subject matter experts on my own. And I've been digging around for days looking for really good material on Information Architecture. If you aren't reading Paul's weblog, you should be.

IR theory and the Net. Lou Rosenfeld builds on an splendid article from First Monday called  "After the Dot-Bomb: Getting Web Information Retrieval Right This Time" by Marcia J. Bates.  Read through Marcia's article, then read Lou's commentary.  Marcia Bates makes reference to several interesting sounding articles that she's written; I'll have to wander over to Georgia Tech's library and see if I can find them. [From Bloug]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 6:26 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Resistance is Imperative

In the end businesses won't do anything people won't pay for. It's the most simple and elegant control mechanism in society. If we end up with this stuff we've no one to blame but ourselves.

Privacy News from Wired News - Get Ready for New ID Standards.

The Liberty Alliance, a direct competitor to Microsoft's Passport online identity authentication system, will unveil its system on Monday. [ ... ]

Privacy advocates, however, say the creation of a single identification standard will make it easier for businesses to profile Internet users for marketing purposes.

"They want identification data to find new marketing avenues," said Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "What it means for the individual is more spam, more direct mail, more telemarketing."

Hoofnagle said a single Internet ID also will place individual financial data at greater risk for disclosure over the Internet.

"It's like using the same key for your house and your car and your safe deposit box," he said. "Compromise that one key and all the golden eggs are compromised." [Privacy Digest]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 10:35 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Russian Copyright Update

Russia is About to Amend Copyright Laws. Mondaq Jul 11 2002 4:33AM ET

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 9:52 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

And the Music Industry Contributes Value How?

Thousands of jobs at risk from Net piracy, music industry warns. Independent Jul 10 2002 9:17PM ET

[...]Jay Berman, the IFPI chairman, said: "Music for free may sound attractive but when it is taken without the permission of artists it comes at a high price. It means less new music, fewer new artists, less choice, thousands fewer jobs and a poorer European culture."[...]

And this just sounds like outright lying. Less new music? By who's measure? Fewer new artists? What does he think, the recording industry creates artists? Jeez! There's not a bar in Atlanta that doesn't have all the live music they can handle, with dozens more trying to make a name for themselves and break through the stolid bureaucracy of the music industry.

Thousands fewer jobs? Doing what, writing BS press releases and thinking up new lies? And just who thinks the music recording industry makes any contribution at all to culture. This is pathetic. I know all these guys are scared to death of having to find new jobs. I just don't have any sympathy for them.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:00 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Can K-Logs Improve Corporate Integrity

My take -- our litigious society makes it unlikely anyone in a senior position in a major corporation is going to keep a running diary about anything. And given the current direction of the software industry we're moving to self-expiring data of all sorts. These guys are scared to death of data about what they thought or said hanging around.

I doubt klogging will take root at anything other than a departmental level, and then only in non-financial areas. It's hard to imagine it ever getting to an executive level. I hope I'm wrong.

Can knowledge systems lie as well as information systems?. [...] Suppose for a moment that you had an organization where all the key players kept running diaries of the discussion and debate that accompanied their decisions. Suppose further that these diaries were a matter of record (at least within the organization). In other words, everyone kept a k-log.

How hard would it be for that organization to lie? To fool itself? I pose this not as a moral question, but as a pragmatic one. Along the lines of Mark Twain's observation that "if you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." [...] [McGee's Musings]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:46 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

RSS Feeds for Non-News Sites

But why is it good?

The two sites are industry-specific portals WhatTheyThink.com and PDFZone.com. Neither of these sites, like most in the print and publishing industries, offer RSS feeds that can be read in an aggregator. PDFZone provides a nice little JavaScript for publishing their headlines on your own webpage, but that isn't useful to me. WTT.com doesn't offer anything as far as I can tell.

I just want a headline scan in my aggregator along with all my other news. And thanks to Paschal's Kit Radio Tool, I can also group all of my industry-specific feeds (custom or otherwise) together. So now I can begin building an industry section in my News Reader and create a group of feeds that pertain specifically to vendors, competitors, industry portals, etc.

Soon I'll be able to quick scan all the key industry news without having to worry about going to each site unless there is something of specific interest. If there is an article of interest, I have the direct link to it in front of me and, better, I can immediately post it for this site. Pretty cool. Thanks Mark. I owe you dinner next time I'm in Chattanooga.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:35 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Mower explaining his liveTopics development and its relation to the blogplex More on liveTopics.

More on liveTopics.

I gave an initial pitch of some of my ideas today.  Not a pitch that I would like to give to an objective audience but, then, this is only my second day off the job!!

I was trying to show how liveTopics and blogPlex fit together.

liveTopics really started life as a bootstrap technology for the blogPlex.  blogPlexing depends upon being able to extract meaningful information from what people say on their weblogs.  Until such time as technologies like Cyc or Summarizer (see Share in the sidebar) can deliver the goods I needed something else.  Hence liveTopics was born to allow you to annotate your posts with descriptive concepts.  From a very simple original concept it has taken on a life of its own which is kind of cool.

There are two steps on the way to blogPlex that I think are worth sharing.  The first is topicRolling which I have discussed in another recent post.  Briefly topicRolling allows you to publish your topics & subscribe to the topics used by others.  This allows a group of people to develop a shared conceptual vocabulary or BlogSpeak.

The second is the super-blog.  This was really Jack Foster Mancilla's idea.  This is an extension of the Blog Topic Table of Contents (TTOC) idea which will be familiar if you click through any of the topic links on my page (or click here).   At the moment the TTOC is an individual affair, however pretty soon I am to provide the ability for a group of people to create a super-blog together.

In the same way that the TTOC now lists each of an individuals posts under a topic, the super-blog will list the posts of every member creating a way to see what each member of the group has posted regarding specific concepts.  This makes topicRolling very important.  We will also need tools to support the merging and grouping of topics into topicThemes.

My view at the moment is rather than embarking on a massive project to create some kind of control language or standardized vocabulary that we allow Darwinian pressures to select topics.  As has been written elsewhere people will gravitate towards "good" topics and abandon the bad (and there will be tools to help the losers graciously migrate).   The pressure will come from the other users of the plex, in order to be listed you have to use the right topics.

I can imagine situations where two similar topics will grow equal in size.  Thats okay.  Clever software can work out that they are synonymous by examing their associations with other topics.  And the use of topicThemes will help to prevent unnecessary isolation.

And then we reach the blogPlex itself.  At the moment I envisage this as a service subscribed to many blogs or klogs.  Using the data in each along with the topical metadata to create profiles of bloggers and kloggers.

The value of the profiles is that they will allow the blogPlex service to match up bloggers who are writing about similar concepts - who are not already linking to each other.  This is a key point because it is this that enables new communities to form.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:18 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 

Syndication

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This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT