Friday, October 29, 2004 :::
 

VentureBlog: The Internet And the Death Of 80/20

The above is very worth the read.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:03 PM

 

Unbound Spiral: Skype API

I just downloaded Skype for the 1st time after reading the above. I never thought of it as an instant messenger, but it looks like it serves in that capacity as well. We'll see how this goes...

::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:42 PM

Thursday, October 28, 2004 :::
 

WebProWorld :: RSS Spam A Growing Trend?

This could be a real issue, but what I don't get is the line that reads: "Feedster and its ability to turn a search query into an RSS feed." What do they mean by that? Are they saying that your search itself gets syndicated by RSS when you use Feedster... what? I'll have to look into Feedster and see what they're up to that I'm not aware of. Or maybe they just mean that Feedster allows you to search RSS feeds by way of search terms, but that's not how it's stated above. Anyway, something to look into.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:10 PM

Wednesday, October 27, 2004 :::
 

Esher Dyson discovers "search'n'chat"

Unfortunately, Baidu.com, the search 'n' chat site, is Chinese, so I couldn't really check it out, other than to imagine what must be going on as I stare at the symbols.

The basic gist is that you can respond to other searchers searches in near-real time, I believe in the form of a thread. So someone searches on "blogs" and this starts an instant-thread that anyone can participate in. I just took a look and of course can't make heads or tails of it, as it's in Chinese and I'm not sure how to use those translator tools, but this is just the thing I've been interested in for the last four years if I understand it correctly.

I originally launched GlobeAlive.com along these lines, whereby you type in a search/query and have your search posted to a live board, where anyone could click and respond to your search (and really respond to you) by a web-based instant messenger. We later changed the format so your search produced a results list of people on the net right now that signed up to be available for Jabber-based chat on that keyword or phrase, so you were in control and could just click and chat w/ them.

Wondir does something even closer to Baidu than GlobeAlive, I believe, in that your search (which must be entered in the form of a question) is posted live to the question board, and anyone can click on your question and instant message you or otherwise respond to your search/question in a thread-post format. I approached Esther at the Web2.0 about Wondir, but not sure I made the concept very clear as I often don't talk about it in a search context, even though that's how it looks and works.

Anyway, great to see someone talking about this. If anyone knows of any English sites that are trying this approach to search, please let me know. Or any options at Baidu.com for an English version? I'll have to poke around over there and see. Perhaps an auto-translator could help, there's probably one around I could plug into.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:08 PM

 

Attention Podcasters: Feedburner announces SmartCast
Looks like Feedburner goes beyond Podcasting with SmartCast by focusing on the RSS enclosure trend in general rather than Podcasting alone, although that's the immediate application of interest.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:33 PM

 

Google Desktop Image Search?

Does anyone know if you can search images on your desktop by way of Google DS? Don't see that as an option, but that would be quite nice.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:50 PM

Tuesday, October 26, 2004 :::
 

Is Wikinews on the way?

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:57 PM

 

Compelling Take on the Semantic Web

::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:58 PM

Thursday, October 21, 2004 :::
 

The Magic of PubSub

I'm very interested in what PubSub is doing because of what I see as an untapped aspect of the blogosphere: real-time interaction. For example, suppose someone posted something in the title of their blog such as "hey, anyone out there want to chat about podcasting? I've got some ideas I want to bounce off someone." Another user, who has a Pubsub account with the keyword "podcasting" sees that post arrive in his Gush aggregator or IE sidebar (via the Pubsub plugin) in real-time and clicks on it. This is where real-time interaction is slightly awkward, given that the comments section on blogs isn't really designed for it, but let's say that the original user has Chatango on his/her blog. The two then begin chatting about podcasting, just moments after the blogger posted the initial message.

In this way, using Pubsub, every blog post becomes an "instant message in a bottle" that anyone out there with their ear to the blogospherese that might be interested in that message can click on in real-time and respond to. (At first glance, one might think that anyone with an RSS aggregator subscribed to any number of bloggers' feeds could do this, but that's not the case. With PubSub, you subscribe to keywords, so you don't have to know the blogger in advance, and aggregators don't show you each post in real-time, although PubSub does.) Such a medium, in my mind, would facilitate all sorts of blog-initiated interaction beyond the standard personal publishing/diary/news/commentary quality of blog posts (which is great, but I feel, limited). People could/would suddenly use their blog to engage in live Q&A, initiate specific-topic chats, meet people w/ mutual-interests in real time, sell things in real-time (with a reach far greater than any chat room or walled-garden community) sending an "instant message in a bottle" into the web by way of their blog whenever they wanted to engage in a real-time conversation w/ someone out there on the net (who they don't happen to know) but who has the answer/product/service/conversation/profile/purchasing interestes, etc they're looking for in a response.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 3:38 PM

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 :::
 

Unbound Spiral: One Step Beyond the Buddylist

Stuart Henshall goes into a fair amount of detail with regard to the hype over presence. Like identity and IM, I think there needs to be an open solution that (hopefully) reaches ubiquity someday. Maybe there already is, I haven't gotten involved in the presence conversation, but it does seem far too difficult to find out whose available contact at any given time without the usual hassles of launching an IM, for example, that they happen to use and have running and have you on their buddy list, etc. I think Jabber might have a solution, we'll see.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:37 PM

 

Mary Hodder on Webnotes

Danah Boyd chimes in w/ a plea for the return of e-quill. Either way, this graffiki medium is compelling in its simplicity. I still find wikis difficult to use sometimes, whereas this seems to be a cinch, although it's clearly another animal.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:17 PM

 

Microsoft announces new client application to integrate communications

This looks interesting. Especially the bit about interoperability w/ AIM and Yahoo (only for business users though, it seems.)

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:11 PM

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 :::
 

Google Your Outlook

I've always wanted a search feature in my outlook, to find a phone number in some ancient email, etc. I just used Google Desktop to find one-- bam, it grabbed it. I think this is the best thing about Google Desktop-- indexing and searching old emails. I wonder what Scoble thinks of this. I'm sure MS will build a counterpart in a flash, or maybe Longhorn already has it. But until then, I'm really digging Googling my Outlook.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 11:49 AM

Monday, October 18, 2004 :::
 

A Conversation with a Wondir Regular

(We received the following email via feedback@wondir.com. Follow-up comments are from Larry, our head of programming. Permission was granted to publish the thread and identify the author of the original email.)

First of all- is the Wondir team planning to redo the website's design anytime soon? If you are, you might want to take into consideration these following points:

1. Would be a good idea to have an auto refreshing page for the question board. That way people can get all the questions as they come in, and don't have to keep refreshing to see the new questions

Good idea. We've heard this from others too.

2. It might also be a good idea to have a sidebar or something, listing the number of people currently signed in and who they are. Maybe have it so that people who get disconnected from the site can easily find who they were just talking to; or even if just for the regulars who want to talk to their fellow regulars...

We are in the planning stages on an overhaul of WIM. One of the things we're considering is a "Wondir Buddies" (final name TBD) list in a separate window that might contain presence information for other Wondir users that you select, maybe also folks who have answered your questions or whose questions match your alerts. And some other goodies. What do you think of putting it in its own window vs. a sidebar on the main window?

3. Maybe you could start a wondir-regulars chatroom where only members who have a position in the highest 20% of answerers or something can have access to. I bring this up because on several occasions I have seen people try to get together with people they met the other day to talk, but find it best to chat on an instant messaging service or chatting website.

4. Have all the questions that come in from the Answerbus website appear as a different color on the question board. This would be helpful to those who are regulars on the site and really want to help real people. Posting answers to questions submitted by websites is at most times useless.

I understand your feelings about this. But there are several reasons why we don't want to encourage people to skip questions originating from outside of Wondir:

1) You never know who might be looking at the answer you post - it's not necessarily just the person who asked the question.

2) Some of the 3rd-party website users do "click through" and view the responses on our site. (The questions *are* coming from real people, just not directly.)

3) The questions and answers go into the database that we search to provide "related questions and answers" results on the results page you see when you ask a question; so every answer helps.

4) We will be making questions and answers available to a wider audience through such means as RSS feeds. So, answering a question on Wondir is never useless!

5. Make it available for any user to report another user. This would be helpful if at any time a user gets out of hand and insults a visitor or fellow user. People, with the click of a button, could have that user reported.

Good idea. Would require additional staffing on our end to respond to "reports," which we have not ruled out.

6. Have a page praising people in the highest percentage of answerers. This
would give people motivation to stay and participate.

How is this different from our Wondir 50?

7. Maybe it would be good to have a page on the site that lists suggested websites for all the different categories. This would be helpful to people who are unable to find an answer on the Wondir site. For example: I noticed a real large percentage of questions related to the pregnancy category, a lot of these questions involve topics that are covered in full on other websites. (The possibility also exists to gain a profit from this through the advertising of these sites).

We are looking at a variety of ways to partner with other sites.

8. Instead of having people enter their areas of expertise in their profiles, have it as a question in bullet form, where people can click on their areas (it makes it clearer to the user). That can be done, while at the same time, if users answer a lot of questions in a certain category, they are listed under that category. (This occurred to me because last night I answered many questions in the pregnancy category and there was one visitor that asked for me through posting a question ("is neonfx out there and available to answer a question?")). She was looking for me because she had noticed I answered a lot of questions in the pregnancy category and she needed advice in that category.

Sorry to be redundant, but good idea(s).

9. Make mentioning a user's nickname in a question a default question alert. This would of been useful in the case I described in the last point where someone was looking for me. I have a messenger service (msn) that alerts me of new incoming emails, and this gives me a very useful way to know when certain alerts come in.

Some people would hate this, and anybody can easily do this themselves manually, so we'll let things be.

10. On that note, make the topic of the question alert the subject heading in the emails Wondir sends. This is useful because the questions in full don't fit in the subject column in most email services while in the inbox page. This would be useful in the case that a user places a higher priority over certain alerts.

By "topic" do you mean the alert name? On the flip side, if you get multiple alerts for the same alert profile, the first few words of the question might help you to differentiate between and/or prioritize them.

11. Give warning if you do perform changes to the site, either in email form, or as a separate tab on the main Wondir site. This would be helpful for many to smoothly adapt to new features.

We do try to inform everybody via the "weekly wondir" emails but are also considering communication methods more directly tied to the site - like a separate tab or a Wondir Buddies status window (as I mentioned above).

In all, I love Wondir.com and the idea behind it. Your team really has come up with a brilliant idea to make many people happier, a brilliant way for many people to seek advice on anything. Points I mentioned in this email are just suggestions for making Wondir.com a better site, just things that have gone through my mind these past few days, not at all things that need to be done urgently.

I would really appreciate it if this email is replied to by a person and not by an automated response email service.

My pleasure.

Thank you for your time,
Joshua Gonzalez (aka NeonFx)

::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:19 PM

Friday, October 15, 2004 :::
 

DocuTicker

Gary Price and Steven M. Cohen (two friends of Wondir) and Shirl Kennedy team up to give us the daily DocuTicker. Here's there sum:

Docuticker is a daily update of new reports from government agencies, ngo's,
think tanks, and other groups. DocuTicker is compiled by the librarians who
bring you ResourceShelf.com.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 6:02 PM

 

Got Jot?

I missed the Jot demo at the Web2.0, but heard it was impressive. I just checked out their online demo though via Rojo via Joho (the blog) via Jotspot.

I think they're on to something. As easy as wikis are to use, they need to be a lot easier to reach ubiquity. I don't think they get much easier than this.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:50 PM

 

Yelp!

Who's tried Yelp! Looks a local social network Q&A site, centered around business recommendations. Maybe a good partner for Wondir. I'll have to get in touch with them.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 10:59 AM

Thursday, October 14, 2004 :::
 

Blogospheric Inflation

Check out Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, October 2004 to see the speed at which the blogosphere is growing.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:29 PM

 

Calling all Librarians

Steven M. Cohen, a prominent voice in the librarian and information resources community, was kind enough to give us his take on Wondir and extend our invitation to librarians to stop in and answer a few questions at Wondir.com.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 2:13 PM

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 :::
 

TypePad Q&A

We're just starting to experiment with adding Wondir's basic Live Q&A functionality to blogs. Here's a very early-stage example, look for improvements over the coming days, and we should have something polished soon, at least for TypePad users.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:06 PM

 

Is it possible to subscribe to Gush announcements from particular groups? Or can one only send Gush announcements?

::: posted by Allen Searls at 11:55 AM

 

PubSubbing

I used the PubSub sidebar today to watch the blogosphere update itself in real-time. Since I'm with Wondir, I'm interested in seeing who's asking what in the blogosphere in real-time, and PubSub let me do that. I watched as several questions/posts per second cascaded down the page in real-time as I saw the live Q&A slice of the blogosphere. Very cool. Now how could we get those live Qs in front of Wondir users to respond to in real-time?

::: posted by Allen Searls at 11:46 AM

 

Blog-to-IM

Does anyone know of a service/app/project out there that notifies you by IM when someone has posted a comment to your blog? Would it even be possible to do that, and to send the comment in the IM message?

::: posted by Allen Searls at 11:45 AM

Monday, October 11, 2004 :::
 

The Semantic Web in 5 years

Mark Graham sent me this article, a Utopian (and yet not altogether unrealistic) vision of what the Semantic Web, coupled with Google, could do for us in just a few years.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 3:25 PM

Friday, October 08, 2004 :::
 

The end of the walled garden

A number of speakers at the Web2.0 expressed a very meaninful idea in my opinion: that lock-in data and the walled-garden approach to community information is a dead-end, and that the communities that open up their content to be shared with other communities will win in the end. It's not the content that makes the site valuable, but the way the site displays and shares the content that makes it preferrable in an open web (much as Google won out because it had a better way of sorting results, rather than having better content per say.)

::: posted by Allen Searls at 2:11 PM

 

Pubsub

Has anyone used pubsub to interact with other bloggers in almost real-time. This is a possibility I'm interested in-- blogging as a messaging medium, not simply a publishing medium. With near real-time RSS aggregators, real-time alerts (on both the publishing side and response/comments side), it may be possible with a new app or some combo of what's out there now to use blog posts/comments to see who's saying what at any given time and to jump in on the conversation in real-time. I hear pubsub might be step in this direction, will check it out.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:56 PM

 

Sxip In

Spent some time with the good people at Sxip at the Web2.0. I really hope this catches on. I'll be sxipping-in to as many sites as possible. A lot of people have been skeptical of the identity space-- so many have tried to tackle it, from Microsoft to PingID. Who thinks Sxip is going to pull it off and reach ubiquity? Who thinks they won't?

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:52 PM

 

Rojo

Who's tried Rojo? What do you think? I'll be trying it later today, thanks to Mark Graham. Can't wait to see what this is all about. From what I hear they're merging social networking with RSS aggregation.

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:50 PM

 

Using the Wondir ask-box to search for past questions and answers

Here's a conversation I just had with one of our regulars at Wondir. He said he's was okay with me putting it up at Wondir Land with his IM handle. I edited a couple of my comments to safequard myself agains misrepresenting the Wondir auto-intepreter system, otherwise unchanged:

MtlCstr: Howdy
AllenSearls2: hey!
MtlCstr: Zup!
MtlCstr: You know
what would be cool on Wondir - is a way to search through previous questions and
answers.
MtlCstr: I mean without posting a new question.
MtlCstr: It could
have all kinds of limiters like date and category.
AllenSearls2: very
true
AllenSearls2: we're certainly considering it
MtlCstr: Sometimes I
find new info relevant to an old question and it would be nice to have an easy
way to find it and post the info.
AllenSearls2: you can run a search at
Wondir right now via the ask-box, your search won't post to the boards unless
it's interpreted as a question
AllenSearls2: for example, try typing
"education" (without the quotes) into the ask box and clicking "ask"
MtlCstr:
ok
MtlCstr: So what parameters govern whether it is interpreted as a question
or not?
AllenSearls2: it's slightly complex
MtlCstr: I guess that's a
"duh"
AllenSearls2: (in general) if it has a question mark at the end, if it's more than
a critical number of words, if it contains "who, what, where, when, how" kind of langualge in it, then it's a generally interpreted
MtlCstr: OK
AllenSearls2:
cool, let me know if u have other questions
MtlCstr: OK
AllenSearls2: mind
if I pass this conversation around to the others at Wondir, and possibly put it
up on the Wondir Land weblog, it would be good for others to see this and know
they can do that
MtlCstr: Sure - fine by me
AllenSearls2: thx

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:17 PM

 

Who saw the keyhole presentation at the Web2.0? Was that not amazing?

I wonder how many years off the "spatial web" is. Once you can got to a website, zoom in on any point on the satellite view of Earth, such as your own house, and start clicking on your neighbors houses to view any content they've tagged to their own homes, such as their blogs, photos, profiles, etc, then we may have a whole new sense of local community (and a whole new sense of stalking, I suppose.)

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:03 PM

 

Podcasting

Lots of talk about podcasting, thanks to Doc and Jeff Jarvis and others. Who's podcasting? How's it going for you?

::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:01 PM