Monday, January 29, 2007

number nine. number nine

Feedster and topix are fine, despite their slapdash interfaces... but most users probably don't so much need more feeds as more time to follow the feeds already identified. syndic8 has a very "dorm room basement" feel but it's still pretty interesting. As for technorati...

technorati has a featured link on many Washington Post stories labeled "see what the bloggers are saying about this article". Previous experience following those technorati links suggests that while my committment to freedom of speech is unlimited, I don't really need to process all speech myself. Blogs can be a social networking tool -- witness the blog features of myspace, etc., but technorati's links from the Post suggest that blogs can also be an antisocial dispersal tool, too -- providing the means for people to talk without listening, split into brittle self-reinforcing camps of opinion, and just generally be mean. A walk thru featured sites on technorati's own website does not change this impression...

I donno, I know a lot of people with a lot of different views. I do not generally seek out the company of people based on their ability to make others cry, to seem like fools, nor to act superior. Usually, it's more the ability to make people, me 'specially, laugh. Whether it's religion, politics, or the Rosie/Trump feud, it's hard to find humor in the blogosphere. I wish there was more.

Thing 8: RSS and Bloglines

I've used bloglines for awhile -- it is the app that makes me want a different computing device -- the very light yet indestructible screen about the size of a composition book, with touch screen mouse and (well, obviously) everywhere wireless. Because i could see sitting down at Roy's or Ledo's or Deli South and reading the news via RSS/bloglines on that device. At this point I have a much smaller list of feeds than I would if I had a more portable device...

As for posting my bloglines account, I could do that, but I'm not gonna...because my fondness for comic strips some might consider corny (Unshelved? Red and Rover? Mary Worth? OK not Mary Worth) is covered, I think, by patron confidentiality. And I'm not just Radically Transparent enough yet...

Monday, January 22, 2007

Jackson County Oregon

Jackson County Oregon, population pop. 190077, home of Southern Oregon State University, Ashland Shakespeare Festival, Harry & David, some great looking new library branches and some not great news: http://www.jcls.org/infoblog/?p=3

Friday, January 19, 2007

So you’re blogging – keeping a web diary. Your thoughts and feelings about business, technology and life are on the web. If you’re a teen, your blog has likely replaced the diaries and journals kept by previous generations. Remember diaries? Those personal documents bore an aura of secrecy strong enough to spur countless brother-sister spats, “you just don’t trust me” screaming matches with parents, and Young Adult Novels. Those have been replaced by blogs, repositories as private as today’s Washington Post.

And you’re flickring – posting photos from your world to the world’s most famous photosharing site. Time was, your snapshots were carefully wrapped in opaque envelopes at the Rite Aid. The clerk would hand them to you and you would inspect them with a certain sense of circumspection. If someone was standing behind you, would you hold the pictures close, because your photos, your life, was private?

One thing seems clear, the definitions or personal and private are changing. It isn’t the tools themselves that change our understanding of privacy, it is the human behaviors and choices that the tools enable. Some bloggers hold personal information, and personal insight close, others become publizens or open humans. Some flickr users protect their photos to ensure only friends and family will view them, others, including those who are working as artistic or professional photographers, post photos that let the Internet look quite closely at their lives and interests. More and more, people are choosing transparency over privacy. The tools make this choice easy, but I don’t think they actually motivate it. If you’re moving towards Radical Transparency, it is offering you some value – intellectual, emotional, professional, business.

So for 23 Things there’s the value of the prize, the value of the learning, and the social networking value of others reading your posts. For flickr-ites, there’s social networking, potential selling of photos/services, and the coaching you’ll see in the comments of high-end pictures. For blogs? Well, perhaps we all dream of being the next Wonkette, or Daily Kos, but for most bloggers I think it’s more that people want to be heard. They say 51% of the Millenial Generation plans on being famous-- and perhaps they will be.

The tools make it easy, the zeitgiest makes it acceptable, the variety of blogs diminishes shyness (as bloggers must think, “oh, I’ve seen goofier blogs than mine”), and the downsides are not immediately evident - especially not to Millenials. So if there’s value to you, be transparent.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Cool chick


Cool chick
Originally uploaded by OskarN.
retrievr thinks this looks like Rust Library's front door

Mashups: One I like, One I don't

There are a lot of flickr mashups, and it makes sense -- flickr mystique is one of it's main assets, and that mystique includes a willingness to focus with obsession -- makes sense for a photo site, right? Most of the mashups are tricks and treats without a lot of practical use but they demonstrate the skill of the programmers and the fleixbility of flickr's structure. That seems small but contrast it to the way Microsoft and Apple hold their API's tightly. (I know, Apple has a much groovier reputation, but the reason there are no eaudio vendors for libraries that vend material to use on the iPod is because Apple holds it's Digital Rights Management structure so tightly). And you can bet that the programmers who do the mashups -- especially the ones that rise to being "hits" on the web -- get attention.

I don't, myself see much in Mappr. It relies on tags (or perhaps the user profile) to determine geographic place, and then thumbnails pictures based on that. Putting in a zip 25425 deals a deck of pictures connected in some way with Harpers Ferry West Virginia yes. But it's hard to see that the mappr interface advantages a user much over just using flickr's native search.

On the other hand retrievr is cool. You sketch a simple design in a box, and it pulls back flickr images that look something like what you drew. It has more sophisticated tools built in that let you upload an image to find a match from the rest of the flickr corpus. The basic idea probably has a much more powerful implementation at the National Reconnaissance Office and the FBI; but this little trick seems quit innovative and sharp (and doesn't rely on tags or captions to generate results). Of course, the similarity of the sketch/uploaded image to the retrieved images is not always clear. But interesting nonetheless, and you can't go wrong with a seascapes, cats and monkeys.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Lazy Hippo


Lazy Hippo
Originally uploaded by tonninods.

Woo hoo, this would be the entry for thing 5, where I blog on an interesting flickr photo. Now, about Lazy Hippo himself, there is only so much to say ... he's in a zoo, he's used to exposure. We humans, perhaps less so.

About flickr, it should be remembered that it is a commercial enterprise, and one that has competitors in it's market. Smugmug, photobucket, pbase, webshots, and more. Including many out there whose operations and interface use other languages. Tho' I drink Coke (a lot of it) I as a librarian am probably not inclined to recommend to users Coke over Pepsi because it's more cool. And it is more cool, really.

I used smugmug myself for my last vacation pitcures because I find their interface easier and faster.

Taken as a whole, these photo sharing sites simplify the process of posting photos to the web so much that it changes everything. Lots of people point to YouTube as having an impact on the last election; the larger corpus of photos out there has the same kind of impact, just not as headline grabbing. For examples (1) its documented that people have been fired, hired, disciplined at school, etc., for photos from these sites, (2) for pro and pro-am photographers who don't have their own (expensive and hard-to-keep updated) websites, these tools provide a front door to their business. Seems to me that as bands from the international stars Oasis to local tidewater rockers Rooks must have myspace pages now, those photographers seeking to enhance their reputations, get new clients, and work in a community on their art, those folks have to get on flickr. And it's in the communities, the conversations, and the high end photos that flickr seems to pass it's competition. For good phtoographers, it must be a great place to share.

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.