john-23things

InfoDesk: 2015?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:11:00 +0000

Diane sent a video clip my way this week that got me thinking about what's next in the world of the reference interview. Does anyone remember that bit in that Tom Cruise movie Minority Report where he pulls up all those records in thin air & pushes them around etc. 'til he finds the one that he's looking for?

It's here, sort of, if you can afford it. Perceptive Pixel have a great demo video of their 8-ft multi-touch "collaboration wall", which you can buy as a 2007 fantasy Christmas gift at Neiman Marcus for $100,000. It is on my list...

For a bit less money you'll eventually be able to get a Microsoft Surface computer. Mind blowing interfaces with real-world objects such as your cellphone, & some great real-world commercial applications in stores, restaurants etc.

But hey, how 'bout getting a collaboration wall or a surface at the information desk? Lay your card and your books on the table to check out... Fly through Google Earth directions to experience your journey before you take it. Drag database articles to your folder on the fly, them move the whole folder to your USB. Pull up info related to your class project as you sit and discuss it, & sort through the stack of documents with your hands instead of your mouse. All good stuff. A bit much at $100k, but perhaps by 2015? A worthy addition to the master plan, methinks!

See also:

Engadget (Pixel) and Engadget (Surface)

Library-Tech Goodness

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:00:00 +0000

Sort of like brownies, but with more chips and less chocolate.

I've decided to keep this up as an occasional blog on library tech and the web of 23 things. I'm using Kinja, a web-based RSS reader, to help me with inspiration and the zeitgeist. I've subscribed to a bunch of yummy Library and tech blogs (suggestions for more in the comments, please!) . To see the list so far, or to get with the program, you can grab my sub list as OPML & import it into your own reader.

Geekbrief.TV

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:58:00 +0000

Heads up for a great resource for gadgety goodness and a look at the way the wind is blowing re: technology trends etc. If you're into such things after having completed 23 of them, Cali Lewis hosts GeekBrief.tv, a video podcast with available audio version. Just the sort of good stuff to download to your MP-3 player.

For anyone thinking about podcasting for themselves, there's also a setup page at Geekbrief to give a clue as to the tech required... admittedly this is professional grade stuff, but helpful nonetheless. Podcasts, anyone?

Oh, and Rubella was eradicated from the U.S. in 2005, allegedly, but apparently Cali is "bringin' it back and makin' it sexy," thus the gloves.

New Blogger Feature: Blogger Play

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:24:00 +0000

Blogger just added a fun new way to browse some of their recently-added content. They're calling it Blogger Play, and it is apparently a public version of a program that they've had in the office there for years. Play will show you a slideshow of images that have been recently uploaded to public blogger blogs.

For a full intro, see Blogger Buzz, and for more, check out the FAQ.

Overdrive and Netlibrary Audiobooks

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:08:00 +0000

After a chat with a colleague I decided to dig a little deeper into the Cowon IAudio U-3's apparent aversion to Overdrive and Netlibrary. There's a relevant discussion in the Cowon America Forums, (don'tcha love the interweb?) For the full scoop, check out Prospect112's info. (I'm excerpting, so please read the source post / forum thread before you make any changes on your player.)

The major factors...were switching the U3 from UMS to MTP mode in Settings>General>USB connection (requires you to restart the player for change to take effect) and only using windows media player to add the files.

Now, when I plug the U3 into my PC it is recognized as a windows portable media device and not as a flash drive.

Next, I open the downloaded NetLibrary file in Windows Media Player (I'm assuming you've already gone thru setting up the license to play it), and it appears in the "Now Playing List."

I right click on the title in the "now Playing list" and select "Add to sync list" from the pull down menu. Click on the "sync" to open that window of the player.

Select the title(s) you want to sync from the left side window. Your player should appear in the right side window. Hit the "start sync" button in the upper left side of the window. That's it.

I haven't gotten a straight answer about safely ejecting the U3 from the PC when it is MTP mode. There is no dedicated icon for "safe to remove" in this mode, and I'm not sure if it is necessary to disable it from the device control panel or if you can just pull it out after closing down WMP.

Anyway, now, when the U3 is in MTP mode and its file browser is set to "music", I can find the audiobooks under the artist/author name or album name "unknown" and they play great. They are not visible if I switch back to UMS mode.

I'm happy to report that this works! I listened to an Overdrive Audiobook on the way home from work last night. I had to update Windows Media Player (again) and update the security settings. I made sure to sync the files to the MP-3 player from within Windows Media Player also. Worked out great, and my previously downloaded podcasts still play in the new setting.

I'm a downloadin' fool!

23 ThNings

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:51:00 +0000

Another follow-up post after the 23 things are said and done, this one to point you to a groovy community of help and resourcefulness composed entirely of folks wot are dun wiv their things.

Beth Tribe, Howard County Library's coordinator of software support and training, has established a 23-Things social network on Ning. You should join, really....

That's all...

Thing #22: AudioBooks Redux

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:01:00 +0000

A much more satisfactory outcome today when I checked out and successfully copied some Hunter S. Thomson from NetLibrary onto my MP-3 player. I did some digging in the I-Audio forums, and discovered a well-duh solution... Turns out that you have to use Windows Media Player to transfer the file to your MP-3 player so that the license travels with it. All acts of dragging and dropping are viewed as subversive and possibly illegal, and so the file doesn't work when 'tis dropped. So... don't drop the audiobooks. Hopefully this will work with Overdrive files too.

Am looking forward to a fun, gonzo and Thompsonesque drive home now. Cool!

Thing #23: What's Next?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:00:00 +0000

Great process. Great introduction to the state of the web 2007 & the impact of new services on Libraries. Here's 10 more things that could be next, & it would be great if some of them were:

Creation of an OPML format blog subscription list of critical (authoritative, relevant) Library 2.0 blogs, so that interested professionals (all of whom now have Bloglines accounts) can subscribe and stay current with one click (or at least one import!). ALA established basic and advanced reading lists in April 2006. I wonder if they're still being updated? Anyhow. OPML files are lists of multiple feeds. Save the file to your desktop then import it into Bloglines.
Corresponding culture change (or at least culture-tweak) which says that reading work-related feeds at work is appropriate / useful.
Continued blogging by staff members to build their 23 things blogs into nationally-recognised forums for the discussion of Library 2.0. Let's interact in the blogosphere outside the county, raise our profiles, and participate.
Participation in other forums, whether the Ning Library 2.0 group or elsewhere.
Continued monitoring by all interested staff of the services evaluated in this program, and of the new services that come along behind. Read Library Clips!
Space on the Intranet for these staff to share ideas / chat about Library 2.0
Formation of a staff committee to integrate Library 2.0 into HCL operations.
Development of a social customer catalog that allows customers to review, rate, tag their titles / suggest read-alikes etc, and allows other customers to see that information. Think HIP meets Amazon meets Library Thing. Yummy.
Development of a Library 2.0 area on the staff intranet to link to critical resources.
Space on the Library's website for customers to build communities around shared interests or resources. Ning, or Del.icio.us, hosted and sponsored by HCL.
OK... one extra. How about podcasts of our bookclub discussions? We could record them pretty easily (MP-3 player and a good line-in mic?) and make them available for download & subscription. Our discussion questions could feature in the show notes. We could establish a forum to share our bookclub experiences with home-bound patrons and with other librarians.

I'm excited to observe (and participate on the periphery of) this period of professional self-examination / redefinition, & I can't wait to see what's next.

Thing #22: Downloadable Audiobooks

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:01:00 +0000

Nearly the end. I wanted this to be fun times, but Thing #22 was work, I tell ya! I was disappointed with the complexity of this process, enough that I didn't embrace digital audiobooks with as much excitement as I thought I would. Why?, I hear you cry. Well, let's review the 10 steps to migraine-hood that made my afternoon so fun.

Browse the collection & bookbag / check out a couple of titles.
Attempt to download
Error Message. The Overdrive Console is not installed
Download a "bootstrap file" for the Overdrive media console
Download the console itself
Install the console
Attempt to download the books from your bookbag
Receive error message. Windows Media Player Security Update Required
Head Explodes. Then update Windows Media Player (Why? I won't be using it....)
Finally download to the console
(OK, there's 11 steps, but this one is OK...) Export books to player.
The files are on the player, but they don't play. Yippee!

OK. Multiple frustrations with this process. It was not simple. It requires a special piece of software to work properly. It piggy-backs on Windows Media Player (so will it work on Linux?). The files don't play when they get onto the player. Too many steps and too many problems!

Portable players are already able to play audio files, & pull files down from the web, so why can't this be a simple "download to player at CKO" process? One click? Drag n' Drop? Something! I realise that it will be more straightforward once I can figure out how to get the files to play, since the console is installed at this point, but I'm booking a vacation on the strength of my rough experience here....

Thing #21: Podcasts

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:00:00 +0000

What is a podcast?

A podcast is an audio file that has identification information attached so that your computer or MP-3 player can go off & find it on its own. I would so be the king of the podcasts already if I had an MP-3 player and access to a fast connection... Wait a minute....

Where do you find podcasts?

You can find podcasts using any of the available podcast services, & most of them will let you add feeds that they haven't cataloged yet. For starters, check out:

Yahoo Podcasts
Podcast.Net
Podcast Directory
PodScope (which searches the words spoken during the podcast)
AOL Search Podcast Beta (which does the same)

I've decided that podcasts are harder to navigate than blogs. It is more difficult to find good quality & interesting content. A blog post usually links to another, related blog post, which leads you to another blog, and so on, until you're familar with a series of topically related blogs & can subscribe to them and keep up to date with them, etc. I'm having a hard time finding similar quality links between podcasts, & recommendations. I agree with Stacey that the most successful means of finding podcasts seems to be searching. I'm going to keep an eye on Podcasting News for a while, & see what I can see in terms of recommendations and repeat mentions.

How do I get into podcasts?

The tricky bit is figuring out the best way to get the content off the web and onto your player, and from thence to your ear. Some services are web based. Others require that you download a "podcatcher" to your PC. Some seem better than others, or at least better suited to your circumstances.

I'm lucky enough to be using a player that's also a flash drive. At the cost of a bit of your player's memory space (& provided you're not planning on using the player for watching video clips, which require special software etc. before they'll work) you can use a "podcatcher on a stick" to grab and download your subscriptions each time you sync your player, independent of the machine you're plugging in to. Podcast Ready provides just such a program, called MyPodder. Here's what to do:

Plug your player into your computer. Note the drive letter.
Sign up for an account at Podcast Ready
Download MyPodder to your computer
Unzip the MyPodder files
Copy the unzipped files & folders across to your player, placing them in the top level folder on the player, & leaving the relationships between them intact.
Safely remove the player
Log in to Podcast Ready & browse their available selection of podcasts. Add a few to your subscriptions.
Plug in your player once more. You should be prompted to run MyPodder, which will sync with Podcast Ready and pull down new episodes of the shows you've subscribed to. Excellent!

So now I'm all set to keep up with the Rugby World Cup and BBC radio a whole new way. Cool!

Thing #20: YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:59:00 +0000

YouTube is a viral video sharing site, with many of the same features as the other social web services that we've already examined (personalised accounts, tagging, voting for favorites, bookmarking). YouTube is, however, the only one of these services that hosts video of my college dorm being demolished with explosives.

There are a bunch of other great Sorby-related videos too, if that's your scene, (but really, why would it be?...)

Back to YouTube. If you create an account, you're able to search videos, favorite them, compile playlists, rate videos and interact with other users by leaving comments and by preparing video reponses. This allows a conversation to form around certain content.

YouTube doesn't allow videos to be downloaded (as a way of retaining attribution) but several web-utilities that can encode YouTube videos for downloading do exist, so it is possible (though not convenient) to take your favorite YouTube clip with you.

In further evidence that Web 2.0 is catching on, YouTube was also recently used as the medium to pose questions to the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidates in the first CNN / YouTube debate. YouTube puts user-generated video front and center on the web. The fact that these are video clips that can be viewed by anyone may also make YouTube the first web 2.0 service to cross over into the mainstream. I would argue that it is certainly the most popular / widely known of the 23 things!! With recurring themes like the Mentos & Coke fountains

and the excellent treadmill music video,

there's no limit to the power of YouTube!

Thing #19: Web 2.0 Award Winner

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:40:00 +0000

I'm choosing Blummy (Honorable Mention: Bookmarking) as the site I'd like to spotlight. Many of the Web 2.0 services that we've evaluated as part of the 23 things program use what are called "bookmarklets" to enhance the features of the service. These sit on the links bar in your browser. At the most simple, they're bookmarks that will link to another website. They can, however, be more complicated than that.

There's a bookmarklet to grab images off the web & drop them in your Flickr account.
Feedburner offer a bookmarklet that gives you quick access to your subscriber stats.
Bloglines have a bookmarklet that allows you to subscribe to a site's feed with one click.
LibraryThing have a bookmarklet to place content in your LibraryThing account when you're viewing it on Amazon. (3rd item under "booklists")
Rollyo have a Rollbar bookmarklet that keeps your searchrolls handy
There are tons of bookmarklets for Del.icio.us, like this, and these, and er, this.... Some are for viewing content. Others suggest tags or make bookmarking easier.
There are also loads of bookmarklets to make tags on Technorati.

You get the idea. Web 2.0 tools use bookmarklets all the time. See more on Bookmarklets.com. Whoa, Nelly! There's no more room on my links bar....

Enter Blummy! Blummy provides a way to organise these bookmarklets and keep them neat on your links bar. Why not take all those bookmarklets and store them together in, er, a bookmarklet. Blummy is very intuitive and simple, but makes browsing neater & more straightforward. You simply log in to Blummy, choose the bookmarklets that you want in your toolbox, (or write your own if you're so inclined) then drag a specified link to the links bar of your browser, where it will sit quietly until called upon:

When you see a page that you'd like to work over with some bookmarklet mojo, click the blummy link to pop up a lime-green box of bookmarklety goodness from your links bar. Then select the bookmarklet that you want to run.

Neat, tidy, tidy & neat. Blummy is useful for keeping a selection of web 2.0 tech tools handy but hidden, and for building an accessible addition onto your browser's links bar. All good stuff.

Thing #18: Online Productivity Tools

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:03:00 +0000

OK... So I'm composing this post in Zoho Writer, which is an online word processing application that I used to recommend to patrons in the days before OO Word Processors on the Groovix PACs. I like Zoho writer because of the web-based interface, and readily available editing options for your document. There are lots of fonts, as well as all the text editing options that you'd expect to see in an offline word processing application.

Zoho writer allows you to share an online document with your friends & colleagues, and to invite them to view the document with either read-only or read / write privileges. This presents a great opportunity for collaboration, and is an alternative to the use of a wiki for building a document, especially since there are simple and straightforward versioning tools that would allow edits to be undone.

Oh, hey, there's also a "publish to blog" feature... (goes off to mess with it...)

OK.. back in the Blogger interface, so that I can add some images.

There are two pop-up windows. The first asks you to choose a service & enter your username etc:

The second pop-up lets you select a blog, choose to publish the doc as a draft, and convert keywords in the document into Technorati tags.

Zoho has a somewhat comprehensive "Publish to Blog" help page, but of course I have some thoughts:

The post didn't have a title when it was published. It was called "untitled." Perhaps if I "save as" in Zoho first the post would have to document name?
There wasn't a way to enter Blogger's labels into the draft post, so I end up in the Blogger window anyway.

So, not perfect for posting to blogs, but an option. Perhaps a more complete, saved, "ready for prime-time" document with images inserted already and everything would be a better bet for testing the auto-blog feature. Otherwise, great for working on a doc on a machine without a word processor, or for small-group collaboration.

Thing #17: Sandbox Wiki

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:38:00 +0000

My blog is added to the Sandbox Wiki list of favorite blogs. All v. good, especially with the jazzy WYSIWYG interface. No need to speak Wiki, which is good, because I was never very good at foreign languages....

Thing #16: Wikis

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:35:00 +0000

As a good first step, let's separate what a wiki is from how you can use it.

What is a wiki?

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.
Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.

So. Wiki architecture presents the user with the skeleton of a website. There's no content, but there are plenty of opportunities to add content. There's no requirement that content is added by multiple users, or that the pages are open to editing, but both of those things are possible.

How could you use a Wiki?

They can be used for all sorts of good stuff, but are most appropriate, I guess, for collaboration and the sharing of knowledge. Michelle Gorman of ComixLibrarian uses a wiki to advertise her workshops and to communicate their content.

Library Instruction Wiki is a wiki comprised of resources and teaching materials for librarians. This wiki includes a section on Library 2.0 in 15 minutes per day, which seems to be an equivalent program to 23 Things managed by Sam Wallin.

Library Success is a Wiki designed to collect best-practice information from library professionals and make that information available for sharing.

You no longer need to be able to code wiki pages in order to contribute. Most of these Wikis offer rich text editing. Vandalism and inaccuracies are also easily reversible. So... great for collaboration, (wikipedia) but collaboration not required.

Thing #15: Libraries 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:34:00 +0000

To begin at the end, Wendy Schultz proposes a value chain from commodity to product to service to experience, with experience proposed as a far-future version of the Library.

Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library.

I'm stickin' around if there's single malt coming....

There's more to this, though, than leather armchairs and good sippin' whisky, and the balancing act is going to be a delicate one. Rohit Bhargava suggests that this is all about putting the people back into the search. Rick Anderson notes that we don't often have the time or the staff to teach comprehensive courses in the use of library resources, & so we need to design and use interfaces that don't need to be taught. He also suggests that we need to deliver information to patrons where they are, to make ourselves relevant and accessible in their busy schedules so that they'll use the library even if they don't visit the library. This last point is echoed by Michael Stephens, who suggests that we meet users where they are, and that we're as transparent about it as possible. He also foresees a future where Librarians and customers are masters of the mashup. This is a broader trend in technology. I don't want to read the whole newspaper. Just deliver the sports pages to my RSS reader. I don't want to pay $25 for the whole CD. Just let me download the two tracks that I like on I-Tunes. Let me take it and make it mine!

Laura Cohen, author of the Library 2.0 manifesto, responds to discussion of her document by noting three key obstacles to the universal embracing of 2.0 philosophies. Her second point hits home with me most strongly:

I'm of the opinion that the leap from 0.0 to 1.0 was a less significant one than the leap from 1.0 to 2.0. Why? When we first moved from card catalogs to OPACs, and from paper handouts to Gopher and then Web sites, we were changing media but not our relationship with users. We were (and pretty much still are) doing it "my way." We had total control. It was our material, our input, our world. I've come to the conclusion that this is a very comfortable place for most librarians to be. (I don't mean to imply that only librarians are comfortable here, but hey, this is a librarian's blog.) I think it's much more difficult to let users into our spaces as active participants. Let them modify our Web pages? tag our catalog records? blog their opinions about us? mash up our content on other sites? This is a far more radical proposition than putting our content online and under our control.

So we need content unbound. Content that can be sorted and searched and combined and digested in any way that can be thought of, & in some that haven't been thought of yet. To blend the "country house library" with the technology of 2.0, though, we're going to need to be master architects. To produce a 2.0 library that can simultaneously deliver content to users in their preferred format (a very tech-centric endeavor) and appear to be a "retreat from the technohustle" as proposed by Wendy Schultz will be a difficult and expensive proposition.

Here's what I'm really curious about..... The accelerated pace of change. I don't think it will be long before the most affluent or most visionary libraries are looking at Library 2.5 or 3.0, while others are still struggling to provide enough PACs... Is anything 2.0 a luxury commodity? How does Library 2.0 service become not only a system's commitment but a global standard?

Thing #14: Technorati

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:00:00 +0000

Technorati has been around since 2002, when it looked a bit like this:
Technorati '02 was something of a one-trick pony, although to be fair it was a neat trick, and a new trick. According to Wired News, there were only 500,000 blogs at the time. As a new search service, Technorati offered users and searchers a way to track the links between these blogs in the form of a "Link Cosmos," a list of inbound links to a blog, ordered chronologically with the most recent on top. This was a great way to see who was reading your stuff, and to be able to enter into a dialog with bloggers who were responding to your content.

If ever there was evidence required of the expansion in Blogging, and the development and integration of Web 2.0 services, Technorati's screenshots would serve the purpose. Today, the site looks like this:

and the service is less a one-trick pony and more a whole stable of Lipizzaners. Extreme Home Makeover, anyone? According to Technorati's April 2007 "State of the Live Web" report (which offers abundant statistical information about the scale of web 2.0 activity, and provides an excellent justification for the 23 things program, by the way,) there are now more than 70 million weblogs being tracked by the service.

Compare with August 2006, if you'd like to!

Technorati has grown and changed to keep pace with this rapid expansion. You can still check out your cosmos on Technorati (View my less than stellar results, then show me some link-love, people!) but now you can do so much more. Technorati now offers a wide range of information about what they're calling the live web. To get a sense of the broad range of features and functions which are now integrated into Technorati, check out the State of Technorati report from April 2007.

The crucial adjustment that Technorati made was the switch from exclusive search to social interaction by introducing Tags. Content producers can now tag both their site (with major content / topic headings) and their individual posts (with tags reflecting the content of that particular entry). This produces another folksonomy of user-generated labels for content. Account holders can keep a list of their favorite blogs, and tag those with relevant terms. Authors can tag their posts for detection by Technorati. Searchers can look for content by tag using the Tag Search section of the advanced search page.

On tags... It is important to note that Blogger's Labels have the rel="tag" attribute in the code for each label, so they're detectable as tags by all sites that recognise the protocol. Check it out:

<a href='http://john-23things.blogspot.com/search/label/23_things' rel='tag'>23_things</a>

When you label your posts in Blogger you're tagging them too. Labeling your posts will ensure that they're accessible by Technorati and a number of other tag-search services. People will be able to find and see your stuff. Cool, huh? The tag protocol is used widely across other services and sites that use tags. Check out Keotag as an example. Enter the tag that you're searching for... perhaps thing_1, as used here, then click the icon of the service that you want to search. On Technorati, you'll find my first post. Other services return other goodies, and some seem to filter more effectively than others. Want to know more about adding labels to your 23 things blog? View Blogger's Labels Help.

Back to Technorati: The full range of Technorati stats and information about your blog is available in a single sidebar widget. Here's what it looks like:

To get this box for your blog, sign in & access the widget setup under Edit Profile > Blogs. With all the bells and whistles installed, this box enables you to add site search, a tag-cloud of your most frequently used tags, a link to your profile, a photo, a one-click link to your link cosmos search results (which is where the service started out, remember?) and, most interestingly, a box that displays your authority.

Authority is an interesting concept, and is one way that we as librarians might be able to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of blogs as sources. As they say on the Authority Support Page: "Technorati Authority is the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has." If a blogger is writing great content with a wide audience (or publishing celebrity gossip) the likelihood is that they'll have inbound links from a large number of sites and will thusly exhibit a high authority number.

Just like Del.icio.us (Thing #13), you can also use Technorati to track stuff you like, by adding tags to your watchlist or adding blogs to your list of favorites. I've added the full-featured Technorati widget and a favorites button to my 23-things blog. Check out the cool new stuff in the sidebar, & have fun exploring the content and services offered by Technorati. Who knows what this thing will look like in another five years!

Thing #13: Del.icio.us

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:00:00 +0000

Great name, but what is it & how do I make it work for me?

At the most basic level, Del.icio.us gives you the chance to take your browser bookmarks, save them to an account on the web, and access them from any PC. See something at work that you want to look at again at home? Don't write it down. Save it to your Del.icio.us account! There are a couple of tools that you can integrate into your browser to make it super-easy to grab content for Del.icio.us. It's like putting stuff in your pocket for later, but without the fluff!

Now of course the story doesn't end there. There are bells, whistles, and assorted additional goodies that take this far beyond a mobile bookmark list. There are two major ways to extend your use of the stuff on Del.icio.us. First, in an online strategy shared with Thing #5: Flickr, you can review content sorted by keyword. The critical ingredient is Del.icio.us tags. When you add a page to Delicio.us, you label it with keyword tags. If you save some great cake recipes and tag the bookmarks "baking", other users will be able to see your selections on the "all pages tagged baking" page, and (more usefully?) on the list of "popular pages tagged baking"

The "popular" page again gives you access to the wisdom of crowds & lets you see which pages have been considered important by other people who share your interests. See the pink bar on the entry at the top of the list? 417 people have bookmarked Bakespace since it was first bookmarked in August 2006. Must be good, right? There's a "save this" link next to the title there, & so with one click, you can bookmark Bakespace too.

Baking not your scene? There's loads of other tags. See the tag-cloud of popular tags on the service, or do a tag search for a keyword (search box, top right of the page) that interests you. The URL's for the pages are consistent too, so you can even go straight to a tag page that you think might exist by typing

http://del.icio.us/tag/whatever or http://del.icio.us/popular/whatever

So you can view content by tag. Cool, but there's another layer of social goodness too, because you can also share Del.icio.us content. Your bookmarks and tags have RSS feeds, (Thing #8) so that other people can subscribe and be notified when you add stuff. You can network with other users to share / suggest links to others and to view links added by other users in your network. You can also display the contents of your Del.icio.us account on your blog by putting a linkroll (list of your recent links) or tagroll (cloud of your tags) in your sidebar, or a Del.icio.us account widget such as this one:

which will let everyone know your signon, the number of people in your network, and the number of people who are "fans" of your bookmarked content.

See Del.icio.us help for a more comprehensive introduction to the service. Del.icio.us is not the only game in town. There are hundreds of sites that offer similar features and functions in various combinations. For a comprehensive list that hits enough feature highlights that you can make a comparison between the sites on offer, check out 3-Spots.

Thing #12: Rollyo

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 17:50:00 +0000

What is the most difficult thing about Rollyo? Thinking of a topic to Roll, & finding a few good sites to fold in to the mix. So. Rugby World Cup it is then. "Golden Boots" Wilkinson is 4th from the right in the above pic, FYI, & clearly the team have all shown up for training in their pajamas... (apparently this new "grab-proof" kit is all the rage.) For a review of Rugby Shirts through the ages, see the BBC's slideshow. Anyhow....what was I doing?

Rollyo is a great idea if you make frequent visits to a small group of sites, or are only interested in authoritative content from a select number of sources, or have a particular topical focus / obsession. After creating an account you're able to create and save a "searchroll" list of up to 25 sites that you select. Use "create searchroll" on the black tab-bar at the top of the page for the purpose. I built a Rugby World Cup 2007 searchroll, then clicked over to tools > searchbox to turn my searchroll into a page widget.

So here's the Rollyo searchbox that will hit 6 of the most high-profile Rugby news websites if you choose that option in the select box. It will also allow you to search the web, and to search this site (for whatever that's worth!) This ought to make it easier to keep tabs on any further whacky changes in shirts...

Rollyo allows you to use browser bookmarks as a basis for a searchroll, allowing you to scan multiple sites without visiting each one. They also have a bookmarklet for the links bar in your browser so that you can keep your searchrolls handy in your browser no matter what page you're on. See Tools > Import and Tools > Rollbar.

Thing #11: LibraryThing

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:45:00 +0000

First off... How refreshing to find a service where the only information they need or want to collect from you on your first visit is a signon and password. Most places want your whole life history before they'll let you have an account. So, 5 points to Library Thing on behalf of those of us who like things simple.

Library Things is a social book catalog. There are lots of different tools inside Library Thing, & you can use the site in all kinds of ways, but the power in the service comes (I think) from the pooling of information & the wisdom of crowds.

First, set up an account (easy, as discussed) & add books to your Library. I had some challenges finding correct editions etc. in the search part of the process, where the default catalogs offered are Amazon or LC. I wound up inputting ISBN's to be sure I was getting the right book.

Next, view "your library" to sort books, rate your books, and tag them so that you (and other users) can find your books by topic. We've run into Folksonomy once before, see Thing #5, Flickr and we'll be coming back to tags in considering Technorati and Del.icio.us. Inside Library Thing, tags enable you to label your cataloged books with keywords that you feel are relevant. They also let you access the hive-mind (Bzzzzzz). On the "social information" page for a given title, you can see which tags other Library Thingers have attached to a book, and assess their relative importance, judged by frequency and displayed by size.

The social information page includes some read-alike recommendations based on user data. You can also access this information under the "suggestions" tab. There are some social networking and profile features on Library Thing too, and so opportunities exist to make connections based on shared interest in reading material. To see it all in action, take the tour.

Thing #10 Redux: Meez

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 14:19:00 +0000

Oh, alright then.... you talked me into it....

For what it's worth, I'm a little disturbed that the hairstyle depicted with such style and unquestionable charm by my be-kilted digital alter-ego is named "receding" on the menu of available styles! (Funny, sad, but oh, so true, in both the real and the virtual world!)

Thing #10: Online Image Generator

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:30:00 +0000

I couldn't quite see me with a meez, so I did and gone and done and went and Warholized myself. It was relatively painless and is, apparently 100% reversible, although you wouldn't think so to look at me! All good stuff. I'm meeting the Velvet Underground and Nico for cocktails at Studio 54 after work....

Thing #9: Library Related Feeds and Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:16:00 +0000

As expected, the Librarians are on the cutting edge. The Merlin feed is an orange RSS icon at the bottom of their main page (subscribed). There's lots of other good stuff there on-site, including a fine set of learning links that can serve as a great 23 things starting point.

Crew Merlin aren't the only librarians sharing their love of the techy goodness. There are a number of Library blogs considering these issues in challenging and provocative ways. One must-see blog (I'm not kidding... this should be thing 24) is John Tropea's LibraryClips. This is like 23 Things on Steroids (but in a good way!). All the new "Web 2.0" technologies reviewed, dissected and reassembled in interesting new ways. John has been all over Rollyo (Thing #12) since 2005, and now that we're hip to RSS (thing #8), John can tell you how to pimp up Google Reader with 15 Firefox hacks. Can't go wrong at LibraryClips! (Man, I hope I'm not the only 23-thinger to use the word "pimp" in a post...Quick, someone else use it!)

In the same vein, (2.0 tech, not the p-word!) check out Nicole Engard's What I Learned Today, where there are pointers to some great discussions around Web 2.0, Libraries and Technology. One of Nicole's current discussions addresses the Librarian 2.0 manifesto by Laura Cohen. The manifesto can be read as either inspirational or somewhat depressing... as a charter for change or an admission of prevailing stuck-in-the-mud-ness. Nicole concurs with Tyler Cohen at Library Garden , who eloquently laments the fact that such a 2.0 manifesto should need to be written, & believes that we should consistently keep current with technology because that's just who we are. Is it new? Is it hip? Do the people want it? Then I'd better understand it too.....
An interesting debate.

These aren't the only Librarians in the Blogosphere. There are lots of other Library bloggers too. To find one that you like, check out Libdex's list of US Library blogs. Not exhaustive, but a good place to start...

Thing #8: Bloglines

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:40:00 +0000

So. Have set up a Bloglines account to track the blogs of my colleagues, & added some news sites there too, mostly having to do with the Rugby World Cup in France this September. England are the defending champions, but they're not at all likely to defend their title, sadly. The open against the USA on September 8th in Lens. Keep track of their performance on the IRB official World Cup site.

17-all in the 2nd period of overtime, & the ball comes back to Johnny Wilkinson, the man with the golden boot, and the rest is history... "They'll be dancing in the streets of insert hometown here tonight."

OK. Bloglines... After some wrasslin' I've been able to put my Bloglines blogroll into the sidebar of this blog. (See "My Colleagues" in the sidebar.) Putting the javascript blogroll in the sidebar was a bit tricky because the username I selected on Bloglines John-23 was not legal in the javascript inside Blogger, and so the blogroll wouldn't display. It took me a while to figure it out, but now that my username is John23, we're all set!

I'm not a huge fan of Bloglines. I prefer "river of news" style readers that deliver stories from multiple sources ordered by recency instead of clustered by source. I had a feed-crammed Kinja account for a long while. Google Reader provides a similar "stack" of stories from multiple sources with the most recent on the top. That way you can see the new goodies right away, without having to go into each site. Another great "halfway house" for learning about RSS is an e-mail subscription service like R-mail, that takes new feed entries, formats them as e-mail, and delivers them to your inbox. My feeling is that the "river" format maximises the benefits of RSS, especially if you're following a group of sites that respond to one another or a fast-breaking news story.

Anyhow. That's thing #8. Bloglines explored and accounted for.... Go England!

Thing #7: Interesting Technology - Feedburner

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:45:00 +0000

Here's the Feed settings page on Blogger, under Settings > Site Feed.

I'm building a 23 things blog, & I'm going to explore RSS as Thing 8. This blog already has a great set of feeds attached to it, though, and so for my "interesting" free post Thing 7, I'm going to explore the feed options offered by Blogger, and run the default feed through Feedburner so that I can collect subscriber stats and add extra goodies to the feed.

If you want to leave your feed as-is, Blogger offers 3 feed options:

1. The posts feed, which can either be "full" or "short". A full feed includes the whole text of the post. A short feed only includes part of the post and encourages readers to click-through to your site to see the rest of your article.

2. A comment feed, which allows readers to subscribe and keep track of any new comments that are sent.

3. A per-post comment feed, which allows a commenter to subscribe to the comments thread of a given post (perhaps one that they've commented on) so that any replies show up in their reader.

Blogger also includes the option to redirect the post feed through an external third-party service such as Feedburner. This new option is introduced on the Feedburner blog. Previously making this change was a big deal and involved a lot of template editing. Now it seems pretty straightforward, & is well worth it.

If you're interested in "burning your feed," check out the Feedburner Blogger Quickstart. It's all very straightforward:

1. On the Feedburner front page, type your blog URL in the "Start Feedburning Now" box:

2. Some sites offer feeds in multiple formats. Select which feed you want to burn. It doesn't matter which one you pick for our purposes:

3a. Choose a title and Feedburner address for your feed.
3b. Set up a Feedburner account for yourself (username, e-mail and password is all that is required.)

Keep a note of the Feed address that is assigned to your feed. We'll need that for step 6.

4. You're mostly done in Feedburner... "Skip directly to feed management" to see your stats, unless you want to get into some of Feedburner's extra goodies. If you do, click "Next"

5. Choose which additional stats tracking services you'd like to activate

After you click "next" at this point, you'll get into some detailed Feed options. Your feed stats will be under the "analyze" tab. There are other useful tools under "optimize" and "publicize."

6. One more step. Go back into your Blogger account under Settings> Site Feed. Type or paste your Feedburner Feed Address (from step 3) into the "Post Feed Redirect URL" box, and save your settings. Now Blogger knows that you want your subscribers to access your feed after it has had the Feedburner treatment, and not before.

You're all set! Now you'll have stats and the option to add feedflare. A burned feed is a wonderful "thing #7", and a great addition to a 23 Things blog!