As usual, Brian comes up with the best ways to evangelize and communicate about the wonders of social software and online stuff.
Three Amigo Camp will be running the day before Moosecamp, which is in turn the day before Northern Voice. On Thursday afternoon (Feb. 9), we’ll be hanging out at UBC from 12:30-3pm, and everyone is invited to drop in and chat, show/tell, and most importantly mooch on some free catering.
This will be a “Three Amigos” (Brian, Alan and myself – plus guests) production, so expect lots of irreverance, jocularity, sarcasm, and twisting of metaphors. And free food.
As usual, Brian comes up with the best ways to evangelize and communicate about the wonders of social software and online stuff.
Three Amigo Camp will be running the day before Moosecamp, which is in turn the day before Northern Voice. On Thursday afternoon (Feb. 9), we’ll be hanging out at UBC from 12:30-3pm, and everyone is invited to drop in and chat, show/tell, and most importantly mooch on some free catering.
This will be a “Three Amigos” (Brian, Alan and myself – plus guests) production, so expect lots of irreverance, jocularity, sarcasm, and twisting of metaphors. And free food.
Thanks to a pointer from Alan, I took another look at my 43Things account. It’s a place where you can track stuff you’d like to do – like a shared wishlist. There are 2 other related sites. 43Places lets you track places you’ve been and/or would like to visit. 43People lets you track people you’ve met or would like to meet.
Sounds a bit lame on first blush. Why do that in a public place? What are they doing with the data? Amazon is an investor, so why would I feed my data into the corporate beast?
Well, because it is a very well done set of applications. I think it’s only a first step, but it already lets you easily find other people who share interests. If I’ve indicated that I’m interested in meeting someone, I can see a list of other people who are also interested. Then, I can see what other people these folks are interested in meeting. Or have met. Kind of like friend-of-a-friend, but as a living thing. Connectivism, anyone?
I’m not sure if I’ll keep the lists up to date on a daily basis, but if nothing else it’s prompted me to think a little bit about what I want to do, where I want to go, and who I’d like to meet.
Here’s a screenshot of the really cool/interesting 43Places view of my account:
Thanks to a pointer from Alan, I took another look at my 43Things account. It’s a place where you can track stuff you’d like to do – like a shared wishlist. There are 2 other related sites. 43Places lets you track places you’ve been and/or would like to visit. 43People lets you track people you’ve met or would like to meet.
Sounds a bit lame on first blush. Why do that in a public place? What are they doing with the data? Amazon is an investor, so why would I feed my data into the corporate beast?
Well, because it is a very well done set of applications. I think it’s only a first step, but it already lets you easily find other people who share interests. If I’ve indicated that I’m interested in meeting someone, I can see a list of other people who are also interested. Then, I can see what other people these folks are interested in meeting. Or have met. Kind of like friend-of-a-friend, but as a living thing. Connectivism, anyone?
I’m not sure if I’ll keep the lists up to date on a daily basis, but if nothing else it’s prompted me to think a little bit about what I want to do, where I want to go, and who I’d like to meet.
Here’s a screenshot of the really cool/interesting 43Places view of my account:
Every now and then, I remember about the great search application called Kartoo. It’s a flash UI on top of a bunch of search engines, and does some really interesting things with the aggregated search results. The coolest (and most visible) thing is the “concept map” view of search results – and this display doubles as an on-the-fly social network diagram.
For example, I just did a quick ego search (don’t laugh – you do it too. fess up!) for “darcynorman.net” to see what kind of diagram came up. I was surprised by how on the mark it is. The diagram is a good starting point (although far from comprehensive) for getting an idea about what interesting bits I published (since only those will be linked to by others), and you get a rough idea of my immediate social network. The display is paged, which is unfortunate and counterintuitive (since you can zoom and pan the diagram, and pagination only makes sense for text lists…). Here’s a screenshot of the second “page” of results mapped out:
Every now and then, I remember about the great search application called Kartoo. It’s a flash UI on top of a bunch of search engines, and does some really interesting things with the aggregated search results. The coolest (and most visible) thing is the “concept map” view of search results – and this display doubles as an on-the-fly social network diagram.
For example, I just did a quick ego search (don’t laugh – you do it too. fess up!) for “darcynorman.net” to see what kind of diagram came up. I was surprised by how on the mark it is. The diagram is a good starting point (although far from comprehensive) for getting an idea about what interesting bits I published (since only those will be linked to by others), and you get a rough idea of my immediate social network. The display is paged, which is unfortunate and counterintuitive (since you can zoom and pan the diagram, and pagination only makes sense for text lists…). Here’s a screenshot of the second “page” of results mapped out:
I’ve been giving some thought to my ever-growing collection of RSS feeds (now up to 498 subscriptions) and realized that I don’t “read” many of them. The majority of the feeds (half? two thirds? more?) are merely scanned.
Why scan so many feeds? To me, it’s about patterns. Keeping my peripheral vision (peripheral mind? is there such a thing?) pouring over more information than I could ever consciously absorb. And being able to pick up on subtle variations in the attention of the flock that I am a part of, as well as other related flocks.
Many of the feeds are used to keep up on the status of people, projects, and events. Things that don’t fit very cleanly into the River of News metaphor. What would be more appropriate for that kind of information would be more of a dashboard at-a-glance interface, like Flickr’s “Contacts'” pages. Or Google News. Something that keeps “status” items fresh and ready, without being interlaced in the content I need to be more actively engaged with.
The River of News can be a bit misapplied. Even with sorting/filtering capabilities ( something that BlogBridge does very well ) it’s still the wrong interface to meaningfully present many kinds of information. Photos are better in an album (again, something BB does very well). Events are happiest in a calendar, etc.
When all types and priorities of content are dropped into a blender and squirted out in simple chronological order, it gets very difficult to separate signal from noise. Simply shunting everything into folders or directories doesn’t help either – all that does is temporarily decrease the size of the flock being observed, while adding a corresponding increase in effort to get to that group (you have to navigate to the group’s folder).
I’m guessing a more effective approach would be to provide multiple interfaces, each displaying the most appropriate types of information. And, ideally, some kind of 50,000′ aggregate view to show group flocking behaviours – memes, linking, trajectory shifts, etc. And it has to be fast, responsive and relatively resource friendly because I’d be practically living in this space.
And, most people are consuming their content in isolation. BB has the foundations for making it a shared or even social experience – letting users publish sets of feeds (attention?), and to share ratings and tags for feeds and items. How can we more effectively leverage the intelligence of the hive, rather than making each bee try to make
I’ve been giving some thought to my ever-growing collection of RSS feeds (now up to 498 subscriptions) and realized that I don’t “read” many of them. The majority of the feeds (half? two thirds? more?) are merely scanned.
Why scan so many feeds? To me, it’s about patterns. Keeping my peripheral vision (peripheral mind? is there such a thing?) pouring over more information than I could ever consciously absorb. And being able to pick up on subtle variations in the attention of the flock that I am a part of, as well as other related flocks.
Many of the feeds are used to keep up on the status of people, projects, and events. Things that don’t fit very cleanly into the River of News metaphor. What would be more appropriate for that kind of information would be more of a dashboard at-a-glance interface, like Flickr’s “Contacts'” pages. Or Google News. Something that keeps “status” items fresh and ready, without being interlaced in the content I need to be more actively engaged with.
The River of News can be a bit misapplied. Even with sorting/filtering capabilities ( something that BlogBridge does very well ) it’s still the wrong interface to meaningfully present many kinds of information. Photos are better in an album (again, something BB does very well). Events are happiest in a calendar, etc.
When all types and priorities of content are dropped into a blender and squirted out in simple chronological order, it gets very difficult to separate signal from noise. Simply shunting everything into folders or directories doesn’t help either – all that does is temporarily decrease the size of the flock being observed, while adding a corresponding increase in effort to get to that group (you have to navigate to the group’s folder).
I’m guessing a more effective approach would be to provide multiple interfaces, each displaying the most appropriate types of information. And, ideally, some kind of 50,000′ aggregate view to show group flocking behaviours – memes, linking, trajectory shifts, etc. And it has to be fast, responsive and relatively resource friendly because I’d be practically living in this space.
And, most people are consuming their content in isolation. BB has the foundations for making it a shared or even social experience – letting users publish sets of feeds (attention?), and to share ratings and tags for feeds and items. How can we more effectively leverage the intelligence of the hive, rather than making each bee try to make
I finally got a chance to listen to Matt Pasiewicz’ interview with Brian Lamb during EDUCAUSE 2005. What a great discussion. Always fun to listen to Brian talk about subversive activities in the Academy 🙂
Main points I took away from it:
- I owe Brian a few bucks for mentioning me so positively – perhaps a round of brews during Northern Voice 2006 will suffice? 🙂
- I have to check out AGGRSSive – sounds very cool for an rss aggregator and tagger. I saw a preview of it a while back after stumbling across it in my referrer logs, and it was very cool. It’s kind of like an RSS rip-mix-burn-omatic.
- “Mass amateurization” – the concept that social software is at the point where it gets amateurs to 80% of the output quality that a professional would produce, with only modest technical skills and effort required. I’ve used the term myself a few times, and love what it implies about the read-write web.
- Blogging as “narrating your work” – Brian mentions (almost apologetically) that his blogging has shifted with the advent of tools like del.icio.us – less impetus to “link blog” new finds, as they just get hurled into the social bookmark bucket. His blogging has shifted to be much more personal in nature – more in tune with his daily activity. Brian mentions that he’s sure he’s got a smaller audience, but is getting a much more intimate/rewarding experience. I fully agree. Over the last few months I think I’ve switched to be doing much the same thing, with the blog providing a narrative journal of daily work/projects/interactions. IMHO, this kind of blogging is actually much more useful (or perhaps more meaningful or thoughtful) than the previous link-blogging style.
Anyway, give the interview a listen. Brian is always entertaining and engaging. And every single time I hear him talk about social software, I find new ways of thinking about it, or of applying it, or just of describing it. He is such a deep thinker about this that I am truly humbled as a mere software geek :-).
I finally got a chance to listen to Matt Pasiewicz’ interview with Brian Lamb during EDUCAUSE 2005. What a great discussion. Always fun to listen to Brian talk about subversive activities in the Academy 🙂
Main points I took away from it:
- I owe Brian a few bucks for mentioning me so positively – perhaps a round of brews during Northern Voice 2006 will suffice? 🙂
- I have to check out AGGRSSive – sounds very cool for an rss aggregator and tagger. I saw a preview of it a while back after stumbling across it in my referrer logs, and it was very cool. It’s kind of like an RSS rip-mix-burn-omatic.
- “Mass amateurization” – the concept that social software is at the point where it gets amateurs to 80% of the output quality that a professional would produce, with only modest technical skills and effort required. I’ve used the term myself a few times, and love what it implies about the read-write web.
- Blogging as “narrating your work” – Brian mentions (almost apologetically) that his blogging has shifted with the advent of tools like del.icio.us – less impetus to “link blog” new finds, as they just get hurled into the social bookmark bucket. His blogging has shifted to be much more personal in nature – more in tune with his daily activity. Brian mentions that he’s sure he’s got a smaller audience, but is getting a much more intimate/rewarding experience. I fully agree. Over the last few months I think I’ve switched to be doing much the same thing, with the blog providing a narrative journal of daily work/projects/interactions. IMHO, this kind of blogging is actually much more useful (or perhaps more meaningful or thoughtful) than the previous link-blogging style.
Anyway, give the interview a listen. Brian is always entertaining and engaging. And every single time I hear him talk about social software, I find new ways of thinking about it, or of applying it, or just of describing it. He is such a deep thinker about this that I am truly humbled as a mere software geek :-).
So, Flock looks cool. A custom build of Firefox, with direct tie-ins to social stuff like del.icio.us and weblog posting. Has a handy blog manager built in, like a MarsEdit Lite. This could be one handy tool… It’s pegging my CPU right now, so I’m not going to play with it as much as I’d like…
Technorati Tags: software, flock
Interesting… It actually embeds the Technorati Tags into the post. And adds in the
elements. That’s a pain, since I have WP set to auto-create them…
I noticed that the Flock blog editor also had an option to display a Flickr toolbar. That’s interesting. I didn’t get a chance to play with that, since I had to force quit Flock to get my Powerbook’s CPU back. I’ll give ‘er a shot tomorrow.
Update: an actual writeup on Flock at The Savvy Technologist.
Update: Wait – it uses my del.icio.us account to store all bookmarks/favorites? That’s bloody brilliant! No local bookmarks! It’s currently chewing through my collection of bookmarks on del.icio.us and bringing them into the Flock management interface. Very cool.
So, Flock looks cool. A custom build of Firefox, with direct tie-ins to social stuff like del.icio.us and weblog posting. Has a handy blog manager built in, like a MarsEdit Lite. This could be one handy tool… It’s pegging my CPU right now, so I’m not going to play with it as much as I’d like…
Technorati Tags: software, flock
Interesting… It actually embeds the Technorati Tags into the post. And adds in the
elements. That’s a pain, since I have WP set to auto-create them…
I noticed that the Flock blog editor also had an option to display a Flickr toolbar. That’s interesting. I didn’t get a chance to play with that, since I had to force quit Flock to get my Powerbook’s CPU back. I’ll give ‘er a shot tomorrow.
Update: an actual writeup on Flock at The Savvy Technologist.
Update: Wait – it uses my del.icio.us account to store all bookmarks/favorites? That’s bloody brilliant! No local bookmarks! It’s currently chewing through my collection of bookmarks on del.icio.us and bringing them into the Flock management interface. Very cool.
Kris Krug posted a link to The FlickrVerse, April 2005 – a beautiful poster generated from a subset of Flickr users, and their relationships.
The map isn’t a complete view on the Flickrverse, but on 2367 users – I’m not in there, but Roland Tanglao is.
It seems to validate this research from IBM’s Almaden Research Center that suggests that a map of links between nodes on the web roughly forms a bowtie shape.
Kris Krug posted a link to The FlickrVerse, April 2005 – a beautiful poster generated from a subset of Flickr users, and their relationships.
The map isn’t a complete view on the Flickrverse, but on 2367 users – I’m not in there, but Roland Tanglao is.
It seems to validate this research from IBM’s Almaden Research Center that suggests that a map of links between nodes on the web roughly forms a bowtie shape.
