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...by the inmates...for the inmates...
Wednesday, March 31, 2004The Sloganator Rides Again
Somebody over at the Bush-Cheney campaign had better figure out this Internet thingy pretty soon, or it's going to be a long, unpleasant online campaign for them.
The first evidence of the campaign's Net-cluelessness was the Bush-Cheney poster generator that came to be called "The Sloganator". This was a web tool, on the campaign's site, that let you create a Bush-Cheney campaign poster containing the slogan of your choice. On hearing about this, any Net-savvy person knew exactly what would happen next. Opponents would discover the site and create posters with disparaging slogans. Contests would be held, to see who could make the funniest poster. And the whole episode would be commemorated with an online slide show...
[Freedom to Tinker]
Monday, March 29, 2004Radio UserLand, BitTorrent, and Free Culture
Thanks to Andrew!
When I logged in this morning there was a BitTorrent window open and a copy of Free Culture on my hard drive. Simon put this Creatively Licensed work on LegalTorrents, and the Radio plugin did the rest. What a pleasant surprise! I seriously doubt I'll have the patience or motivation to read the whole thing sitting at the computer, but the chances that I'll go out and buy a dead trees copy just went up significantly.
[Andrew Grumet's Weblog]
RSS: Not Just for Bloggers Anymore
From Pamela Parker at ClickZ
RSS: Not Just for Bloggers AnymoreThe other day, I told someone I'd just met I worked for the publishing division of Jupitermedia. His reaction made me feel I'd stepped back in time. He was bemused a company that operates Web sites and e-mail newsletters would call itself a "publisher." I didn't know anyone thought that way anymore -- and this was a guy at a tech-related trade show.
Well, I hate to break it to this fellow, but it's time to expand the definition of publishing still further. If stories in USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are any indication, RSS -- the XML-based syndication format -- is going mainstream.
Already, the New York Times offers 19 different news feeds, the BBC offers at least 46 (one's entirely dedicated to Harry Potter news), and, of course, ClickZ has feeds for its News and Stats sections (more to come!). Your friendly neighborhood blogger likely has an RSS feed, too. The blogging community has largely driven the renaissance of this nearly decade-old format.
The proliferation of news search sites, such as Google News, Yahoo! News, and MSN's Newsbot, are also driving RSS's popularity. Want your site's headlines indexed on these popular aggregators? RSS is the way to accomplish that. ...
[ClickZ]
End the One-Page Site Visit
From Bryan Eisenberg at ClickZ and FutureNow.
End the One-Page Site Visit
... According to WebSideStory's StatMarket data published this week:
- 74 percent of visitors reach sites by direct navigation (type the URL) or bookmarks.
- 16 percent of visitors reach sites via links from other sites.
- 11 percent of visitors reach sites via search engines.
WebSideStory's CMO, Rand Schulman, observes, "The days of Web users randomly 'surfing' to sites is ending. Now more than ever, people know exactly where they want to go on the Web. This does not mean search sites or other Web links are now less important, because users still have to initially find a site before they can bookmark it. However, having a site worth returning to is becoming increasingly important to businesses."
If thousands, even millions of unique visitors think of your site as the one that could meet their needs or solve their problems, why do most leave after the first page or two? Why do conversions continue at an anemic 2-5 percent? Do you offer a solution or product that could meet the needs of more than 5 percent of your market? Can visitors find that solution on your Web site? Do they understand your offer's value? Was it made at the right time? Are you sure they're coming back?
Finally and most important, if you had the opportunity to engage one on one with each of your visitors and each honestly expressed her needs or wants, what percentage would you be able to satisfy? ...
[ClickZ]
DRM Customers Take It In The Shorts Again
Customers prevented, once again, from using products for which they paid. And, thanks to our clueless Hollywood-owned legislators and their ill-advised DMCA, it is (probably) illegal to bypass the copy protection to help these screwed customers. Don't know the details of how DMCA applies to protecting IP of vendors who no longer exist. Based on the law of unintended consequences, it is unlikely that DMCA handles this scenario well, if at all.
When DRM vendors fail, users get screwed. The headline in the Montreal Gazette tells the story well: Versaware a casualty of Internet crash. Company went out of business in 2001, so software is no longer available to download on the Web. A Gazette reader complains of no longer being able to read the e-books he downloaded from an outfit called Xoom, which in turn relied on coding from Versaware. Both companies are apparently kaput after hard times or at least are very hard to find. By kevin_christley@hotmail.com (Kevin Christley). [Lockergnome’s Technology News]
Sunday, March 28, 2004Web Analytics and RSS
Traffic Stats and RSS. An interesting thing happened recently. I was playing around with Andrew Grumet's tool based on the information in Share Your OPML and discovered that a number of people still subscribe to old feeds. This has direct impact on what stats can look like. [TNL.net weblog]
Blogger Discount on Bug Tracking Software
Don't know if I'll take them up on the discount, but the package looks interesting. Just what I need, another software product to test. Sigh...
Axsoft is offering a free 3-user license for their bug-tracker.
Axosoft is offering bloggers a free 3-user version of their .NET & SQL based OnTime defect tracking software (bug tracking software). For more information, visit
http://www.axosoft.com/Free3UserOffer.htm.
An interesting way to market software and build buzz.
[Marc's Outlook on Productivity]
More Web Toys
brain eaters. Whenever I’m overwhelmed with work tasks, I become far more susceptible to the siren call of brain-eating games. I lost more hours than I care to admit to WEBoggle this week. Now I find myself confronted with the ingenious InfocomBots—AIM bots that allow you to play the best of InfoComs classic text adventure games using nothing more than an AIM client. Ack! My susceptibility to the appeal of these games was probably fueled by my recent sleeplessness and drug-induced fogginess, which in turn resulted from the annoyingly persistent cough I’ve not been able to shake for the past 2+ weeks.... [mamamusings]
Weekend Blogger
weekend mode....
[jenett.radio] How To Improve Your Weblog Traffic
Dave Pollard rides again. Great tips.
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR READERSHIP.
My Blogging Table of Contents has six articles to help you assess and improve the quality of your blog, and attune it to the interests of your target audience. The "What the Blogosphere Wants More Of" list way down at the bottom of my right sidebar has some more ideas. This article distils it all down to the ten things you can do that are most likely to increase your readership, and keep it growing. Marketing 101 for Blogs.
THE TOP FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BLOG...
Marketing is useless if you don't have a good 'product'. Here are five ways to ensure you do.
- Provide something unique: There are so many blogs out there, even if you're writing brilliantly, you won't attract an audience if someone who's already more widely-read is writing on the same subjects. First-hand accounts or data, original research, surveys, original ideas, original graphics or photos or artwork, all help establish your uniqueness. World O'Crap, one of the newest and yet most popular Salon blogs, is written by a liberal who almost exclusively frequents right-wing conservative blogs and news sites, catches them in lies and exaggerations and inconsistencies, and then writes biting, hilarious satire about them. Unique, brilliant, and very funny.
- Provide something valuable: Give readers a high 'return on their investment' in reading your blog by (a) entertaining them, (b) teaching or helping them to do something (lessons learned etc.), (c) informing them about something they need to know about, (d) giving them a 'take-away' (checklist, great quote, useful tool, etc. -- something that will cause them to immediately bookmark or blogroll or write about your site and revisit it often), (e) saving them time (distilling something down, analyzing it, researching it), or (f) providing deep insight about what something means (great graphics can help do this).
- Be first: The first person to write about a particular topic will probably get a large share of traffic about it. Even if a more popular blog picks up on it, they're likely to link to you and send even more readers your way. First-hand accounts, on-the-spot photos, comments from people who were at the scene of breaking news all make fascinating reading. Even the first reviews and synopses of new movies and books usually attract a lot of attention.
- Do your research: Invest time to learn as much as possible about what you're going to write about. Spend much more time reading and researching than you do writing. Check your facts. Learn to use search engines powerfully, so no time is wasted looking for just the right information. Don't neglect primary research -- stuff you get from offline sources like real people, in-depth television reports, people you can call or survey to get information that isn't available on the Web. Always cite and if possible link to your sources. Dig for great finds, stuff that isn't on the first page of the Google results, information that you need to go through multiple links to find, information embedded in the many databases that are online but aren't Googled at all. And never lie or exaggerate.
- Learn to write very well: Master the art of story-telling. Learn to be brief without being too dense. Write in a conversational, accessible, friendly style. Eschew obscure and intimidating words, like 'eschew' (it means 'avoid' ;-) Ask people you trust to comment on your writing style. Use point form, examples, restatements for clarity. Be natural. Learn the 39 steps for story-writing; most of them apply to non-fiction, too. Have fun, be loose, show your emotion. Try to avoid clichés.
... AND THE TOP FIVE WAYS TO ATTRACT MORE ATTENTION TO IT
Once you've got a world class 'product', here's how to get people to look at it.
And finally: Be patient -- Viral marketing is very effective but takes time to work. Stick with what you're doing, especially if people are complimenting you -- word will spread, and the audience will come. And be yourself. If you try to affect a style that isn't 'you' it will come off as forced or dishonest.
- Use other media to pull people to your blog: Don't just write great stuff and wait to be discovered. Use e-mails (sparingly, selectively) to tell people you think might be interested in reading your blog about a particular article you've written. Make comments on others' blogs and include your blog URL when you do. Try to find an A-lister or two who might be interested in one of your articles, and e-mail them (just be aware many others are also looking for A-listers' attention, so do so sparingly and be patient). Or just comment, early and frequently, on A-listers' posts (first commenter on any new A-lister post often draws a lot of traffic). Join and participate in discussion groups, always leaving your blog URL at the end of every message. Contribute to e-magazines, either online versions of hard-copy periodicals like Ms., or specialized online journals like Virtual Occoquan. Use outgoing links on your blog and blogroll to articles and blogs written by people you'd like to have as readers: Chances are, they'll note you when they look at their inbound links list and come over to see what you said about them. And when people write to you, always answer, always acknowledge that they took the time, and always include your URL in your response. But don't feed the trolls (i.e. don't reply to readers who write hurtful, malicious or baiting comments or e-mails) or you'll have readers you don't want.
- Write, at least sometimes, about 'hot' topics: You don't have to be a Googleslut to occasionally get some special buzz on a topic everyone is talking about. Being very focused on narrow, deep topics will get you a faithful readership, but not a particularly large one. Writing about something popular from time to time, especially if you do so before everyone else is writing about it, and say something unique or insightful, will broaden your audience, and bring in what Malcolm Gladwell calls connectors, people who can bring their entire, large networks of potential new readers to see your blog.
- Make a great first impression: The average reader who links to your site looks at 1.5 pages and stays 90 seconds. Google hits command a small fraction of even that attention span. That's how long you have to make an impression that will bring them back. A memorable look, a powerful theme, easy navigation, legibility, making sure your links work and that you've spellchecked, using clear headings, clever, attractive graphics, summarizing your long posts, making sure your page doesn't take too long to load -- all these things help create a great first impression, and give your blog what's called 'stickiness'. The longer they stay, the more they'll remember and the more likely they'll come back.
- Learn by studying who's reading what, and what works: I look at the end of each day who's been reading How to Save the World (most blogs have a 'referrer log' tool that lists your visitors; services like SiteMeter also provide this information). If I don't recognize a reader by their URL, I'll go to their site to see who they are and what brought them to my site (and often say 'thanks for visiting' while I'm there). And I track total popularity three ways (see chart above): Average hits/day per the Salon Rankings list, Number of Inbound Blogs per Technorati Cosmos (I also visit any new additions to my Inbound Blogs list), and Number of people subscribed to my RSS feed per Dave Winer's Who Subscribes List. I know that when I write about certain subjects like blogging or business innovation, I'll get a spike in hits. But I also know my posts on other subjects, like the environment, economics, and social networking, have different and loyal audiences, who I'd lose if I narrowed the focus of this blog. And some things, like poetry and short stories, I post despite knowing they have a very small audience, because the few comments I do get are essential to improving my writing skills. And because I love writing them.
- Get outside more: Real Live Preacher, consistently one of the three most popular Salon Blogs, deliberately seeks out (looking at the Recent Updates List for unfamiliar blog names) and welcomes and helps new bloggers -- a tremendous way to get grateful new readers for his smartly written, well-laid-out blog. By using blog directories like EatonWeb or lists like Technorati's Current Events (or just typing a topic of interest in Technorati's search bar) you can find other bloggers interested in the same things you are, and connect with them. Or explore the blogrolls of blogs you like. When you find a 'like mind', link to them, e-mail them, comment on their weblog, or otherwise let them know you exist and where to find you. But don't be pushy and overtly ask them to link to you -- just let them know where you are, and they'll come around.
[How to Save the World]
For ActiveWords Fanatics
Great resource for ActiveWords lovers. I subscribed instantly and now need to read everything. There are several scripty things I want to try in ActiveWords but haven't had the time to explore. The debut of this great resource may push me over the edge. ActiveWords. Try It, You'll Like It.
Here's an excellent bit of news for fans of ActiveWords. Marjolein Hoekstra, an active and avid ActiveWords user in the Netherlands has started a blog on ActiveWords and how to use it more effectively. Only a handful of entries right now, but based on her contribution to the ActiveWords mailing list, this one is going to be a keeper. The RSS feed is here.
[McGee's Musings]Building an ActiveWords Library. This hands-on column deals with my latest thrill: writing ActiveWords scripts. Be warned, I consider it a highly addictive habit. Designing active words scripts has almost become second nature to me these last few months. I'd like to use this... [AWesome]
Lookout: Search Tool for Outlook
While catching up on unread items in my news aggregator, I noticed that both Marc and Jenny expressed a fondness for Lookout, a new high-speed search tool for Outlook. Downloaded a copy to try at work tomorrow. Anything recommended by these two is guaranteed to be a keeper.
Scobleizing a Senior Vice President
The Senior Vice President of a 22,000 employee organization within Microsoft reads your blog. Nothing like riding the razor's edge. No stress. To borrow a turn of phrase from Chandler Bing: "This would so not happen at my company." I do not mean to imply that senior people at my company don't "get it". Only that they don't "get it" as much as Eric Rudder. Miracles do happen. I'm hoping that the RSS light will click on this year at work.
Eric Rudder visits my comments.
Wow, I think this is a first. I don't remember a Senior Vice President here at Microsoft leaving a comment in my blog before today (heck, I don't think anyone above a general manager position has commented before). Eric Rudder posted this in my comments...
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
Wednesday, March 24, 2004A Tutorial Weblog: Great Approach!
I'm not switching from Radio UserLand to Movable Type just yet, but the day will surely come. Radio UserLand is a nice CMS, but lacks some basic features (such as post to past or future, spell checking, etc.) and has stability problems. The company is focused on Manila now, which they should, given the price people paid for that package. However, other packages are starting to eat their lunch at the low end.
A Tutorial Weblog: Great Approach!. Never underestimate the value of a good tutorial.
In the last couple of weeks, I've started getting much more comment spam on this weblog than ever before. When it was only one or two comment spams per day, that was no big deal for me to delete manually. But lately it's been more like 20-40 comment spams daily. I finally had to implement some prevention measures.
One reason I've held off on this task is that I use Movable Type weblog software. While I like its functionality, from the beginning I've disliked the extreme geekiness (from my perspective) of Movable Type. Its documentation is minimal, hunting for answers in the support forum is confusing and time-consuming, and fixing anything requires messing with arcane code. A non-programmer like me can easily do a lot of damage trying to make a simple tweak to my weblog. (Which is why the design of CONTENTIOUS is so basic.)
Fortunately, I've just discovered a fabulous and well-written resource for people like me, which I'd like to recommend.
If you use Movable Type and you're not a programmer, check out the Learning Movable Type blog at Elise.com. This is the most coherent, practical, and readable basic resource on Movable Type that I've seen anywhere....
(Full story...) [Contentious Weblog]
Get Better Rankings on Google With Weblogs
Get better rankings on Google with weblogs.
Lee LeFever: Case Study: Using a Weblog to Achieve #1 Rankings in Google.
Most of this stuff matches my own experiences as well.
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
Gallery RSS Generator
“Gallery RSS Generator is a script to generate an RSS (version 2.0) feed for an installation of Gallery. For more information on what RSS is, and why it’s nice, see Dave Winer’s RSS 2.0 specification. Even though you may not use an aggregator to keep up with your favorite websites, someone who visits your gallery might. Hence, it’s helpful for everyone.”By meryl@lockergnome.com (Meryl). [Lockergnome’s RSS Resource]
Tuesday, March 23, 2004Community for Bloggers
Re: the Community. forum4bloggers is an up and coming, general blogging community - where you can find more information on the ways to publicize your weblog and other communities, as well.
Web Access at 75 Percent
This should not surprise anyone. The hysterical 'digital divide' crowd needs to find a new trumped-up topic to occupy their time.
Nearly three of four people in the United States have Internet access at home, Nielsen/NetRatings said on Thursday.
In a February telephone survey, an estimated 204.3 million people, or 74.9 percent of the population above the age of 2 and living in households equipped with a fixed-line phone, had Internet access, up from 66 percent in February 2003.
"In just a handful of years, online access has managed to gain the type of traction that took other mediums decades to achieve," said Kenneth Cassar, director of strategic analysis at Nielsen/NetRatings.
Women were slightly more likely to be Web surfers than their male counterparts, the company said.
Internet penetration for women aged 35 to 54 was 81.7 percent, compared with 80.2 percent for men in the same age group. For the 25 to 34 age group, Internet usage was 77 percent for women and 75.6 percent for men.
"Women make the majority of purchases and household decisions, so it's no surprise that they are utilizing the Internet as a tool for daily living," Cassar said.
[Wired News]
A Mental Model for Persuasion Architecture
A Mental Model for Persuasion Architecture. Can't really get a grip on what we mean by Persuasion Architecture? Then think of a book. [GrokDotCom]
New InnovationTools Mind Mapping Discussion Forum
New InnovationTools mind mapping discussion forum. Are you interested in mind mapping? Then you'll love the latest addition to the InnovationTools discussion area: A new mind mapping forum. [Innovation Weblog]
Tuesday, March 16, 2004Estimating RSS Readership: One Suggestion
Estimating RSS Readership: One Suggestion. RSS feeds are undoubtedly becoming an increasingly popular way for people to keep up with what's new online. But just how popular are they becoming? That's an important and tricky question.Some recent articles and weblog entries have been touting the popularity of RSS feeds. These are great, and I'm happy to see them. However, I think there's an important part of the puzzle missing from this enthusiasm: How might publishers figure out how many people are really accessing their content via RSS?...
(Full story, with excerpt and links...) [Contentious Weblog]
Web Metrics Versus Web Analytics
Web Metrics Versus Web Analytics. by Jim Sterne Ask for a definition of “Web metrics,” and those in the know will not hesitate to explain. But be prepared to hear different stories. [Current Articles from MarketingProfs.com]
Was It Better Ads? Or Better Analytics?
Was It Better Ads? Or Better Analytics? Yes, online advertising has changed and evolved over the past few years. The primary reason companies failed then and succeed now isn't due to changes in advertising. It's changes successful companies are making when approaching the Web. Defining desired behavior, identifying success metrics, setting goals; in short, a more evolved approach to analytics.[ClickZ]
Monday, March 15, 2004Topix.net Launches
More on Conversion Rates
Without Conversion Rates, You Don’t Know if You’re Mickey Mouse or Mickey Mantle. by Steve Jackson The conversion rate on a Web site is easy to measure. Unfortunately, businesses too busy concentrating on their bottom line most often overlook it. [Current Articles from MarketingProfs.com]
Literary Aspects of Blogging
Jj commented on literary aspects of blogging: "If you are interested in the literary and scholarly aspects of blogging, check out the work of Jill Walker and Torill Mortensen. For example, they have written a paper titled "Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool". They also co-author Blogonblog, a blog about blogs which contains some interesting pointers." -- Thanks for these insights! [Universal Rule]
RSS: Doing The Robot
More on RSS and web analytics from Chad Dickerson, CTO at InfoWorld
Via Feedster, I picked up Sean Gallagher's response ("The RSS ego bubble") to my recent post about InfoWorld's RSS request trends. While the robot-like activity of aggregators is certainly a factor in looking at the numbers (as I noted in my original post), I think some of the information in Sean's post was misleading and deserves further discussion.
I've been involved in hands-on analysis of web server logs at some extremely highly-trafficked web sites over the years, so I dutifully noted the robot-like behavior of news aggregators in my original post:
I realize that the characteristics of RSS aggregators' requests are different than those initiated by regular users browsing your site -- aggregators behave more like robots or spiders. But I still think this is significant.
Sean responded:
Sure, it's significant. But does Chad really understand the difference?
Yep -- I wouldn't have mentioned the request characteristics of news aggregators in my initial post otherwise, but it's certainly worth a deeper discussion with more useful and defensible data points.
In his post, Sean extrapolates the importance of InfoWorld's RSS request trend based on the 63 users he estimates visit his site daily (50 who use a browser and 13 who use news aggregators). InfoWorld's sample is a few orders of magnitude larger, and includes a broader mix of regular browsers, aggregators, search engine spiders, etc. so I think a closer look at our usage patterns might be more useful to the larger community.
As anyone who has analyzed lots of web server logs knows, the overall web measurement picture is a bit complicated by robots, spiders, proxies, etc., and RSS measurement is no different. (The issues in counting RSS subscribers were summarized quite well by Tim Bray back in May of last year, for those who are interested in digging deeper.)
However -- I think Sean's emphasis on the robotic behavior of news aggregators is a bit overblown and depends too heavily on a scenario where the average aggregator is updating every 15 minutes, an assumption that is not borne out in InfoWorld's server logs. In InfoWorld's case, the most popular news aggregator among our users is Radio Userland (check this out), and you can only configure it to fetch feeds once per hour. Considering that fact, the 100 potential requests per day that Sean suggests is off by a factor of at least 4 for our largest body of aggregator users.
The whole world doesn't use Radio Userland, so to be fair, I picked 5 random IPs of NetNewsWire users to get a rough estimation of how often they request our Top News feed (the subject of my original post) in a 24-hour period: 49, 48, 6, 48, and 48. I'm not a NetNewsWire user myself, so I downloaded and installed it only to discover that the only choices for update frequency are: 1) manually, 2) every 30 minutes, 3) every hour, and 4) every four hours. Sean's 100-requests-a-day scenario depends on a NetNewsWire client updating every 15 minutes. Hmmm. I guess you could manually update every fifteen minutes via the "News->Refresh All News" menu, but my random tests suggest that most users update every 30 minutes. 100 requests per day for a feed would seem to exaggerate NetNewsWire's behavior by at least a factor of two.
Requests from RSS clients certainly exaggerate requests to some debateable degree; however, there are some notable corrections in the other direction. In the case of web-based aggregators (Bloglines, Feedster), you have the opposite of robotic behavior -- the RSS aggregator acts as a proxy making a single request for a pool of users. If you don't have substantial numbers of subscribers using the web-based aggregator, this won't matter so much, but we do. As I investigated the effect of services like Bloglines on our Top News RSS feed numbers, I was able to determine our subscriber numbers from the User-Agent string available in requests from Bloglines' server:
Bloglines/2.0 (http://www.bloglines.com; 981 subscribers)I'll admit, I hadn't realized before that Bloglines included subscriber numbers in their User-Agent string (others already knew), but how cool is that? In any case, I also checked to see how often Bloglines' server requested our Tops News RSS feed last Monday -- 23 times. The ratio of subscribers to requests is about 43:1 right now, and the gap is widening every day.
(Another interesting technical aside -- as our RSS requests have grown quickly, we have noticed increased server loads at the top of the hour as aggregators "wake up" to pull feeds. Not a huge problem for us right now, but the surge has roughly the same characteristics as a distributed DoS attack and could eventually present trouble for really huge web sites unless aggregators become a bit smarter. I was working at CNN.com when IE4 and its Active Desktop with various CDF "channels" was released, and boy was it active. CNN.com and CNNSI.com were default channels in the new browser. All the newly-downloaded IE4 clients absolutely pounded our servers with requests for CDF files. It was a big pain, and I wish I could remember how we dealt with it.)
Finally, the discussions about print and online publishing business model disruptions created by RSS are nothing new to us at InfoWorld (see here, particularly comments from Matt McAlister, our online GM). We're experimenting with various business models around RSS like everyone else who needs to pay the bills, but ultimately we're focused on giving users valuable content in the format they want, and the growth in RSS requests is an indication that we're getting it at least partially right.
[Chad Dickerson]
The Future of Blog Tools
Lisa Williams has been going through all the notes of ideas that people left on Dave Winer's blog about "the future of blog tools." She's written up this awesome summary. Thanks to Amy Wohl for pointing to this.
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
Onfolio: Software start-up mines Explorer niche
Software start-up mines Explorer niche. New company Onfolio launches with a package of Internet Explorer-based tools designed to help people store, search and publish information found online. [CNET News.com]
Is Onfolio A Feature Or A Product?
Is Onfolio A Feature Or A Product?. J.J. Allaire apparently knows how to get publicity. His latest company, Onfolio, launched today, and it's tough to find a tech news publication that isn't covering the story (just ask Google news). So, what does Onfolio do? It appears to be a serious improvement on the way people use "bookmarks" or "favorites" in their browser - letting them more easily stores pages, organize them, take notes on them and share the results. I don't doubt those they've seeded the program to who claim that it's very useful. However, is it actually worth $30? First of all, we've pointed out that many people have completely given up on using their bookmarks/favorites, and it's difficult to convince them to go back. However, even if they did want to go back, why would they want to pay $30 to do so? Especially when there are free services out there like del.icio.us and my new favorite Furl? As far as I can tell, Furl lets you do just about everything Onfolio does with the added benefit of it being able to build on the community aspect of everyone contributing links that others can see. If anything, Onfolio looks to be a feature. If it really started to catch on, why wouldn't Microsoft or the team at Mozilla just build in similar functionality to their browsers? [Techdirt]
Saturday, March 13, 2004RSS Adoption Rate Is Opportunity, Not Problem
The RSS adoption rate is not a problem, but a classic opportunity. Similar to the digital divide hysteria of a few years ago, there is always a difference of opinion regarding adoption rate. After multiple attempts to interest work colleagues in RSS over the last 18 months, I recently decided to try again. Opportunity, Not Problem. Onward!
So, why is adoption so low? What are the barriers that this industry must solve. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger] Scoble points to deficiencies in RSS adoption. Answering the UserLand phone these days, I get a good feel for the issues users have and I can point to some significant awareness issues. One person had been using Radio as a blogging tool and simply didn't know it had a built in RSS aggregator. The idea of having the information flow to you as its published is a massive mental shift for most people as is the idea of being able to preselect (and deselect) those sources as you desire. It does take some getting acquainted as this level of control can be uncomfortable for some ;')
I generally hear three responses:
- aaaa-haaaa, WOW, I didn't know you could do THAT !!!
- Oh My God -- this is going to change the world -- it just kills email
- I need to rest, I am so overwhelmed
In my view, adoption has only just started and the tools still have a pretty crude feel. We have an ON-OFF switch for feeds, but its always at full volume. One thing I need is a volume control - I don't want to turn it off, I just want to turn it down a bit sometimes and then be able to turn it back up, depending on what's there. Simple stuff.
[Scott Young's Radio Weblog]
Open Source Infrastructure: phpBB-php Bulletin Board
Cool Ted discovered phpBB 'cause of me!
I wonder if he knows about Zope, Gallery, Struts or Ibatis?
phpBB-phpBulletin Board software.
phpBB-php Bulletin BoardGot this from a link from Marc's Voice that pointed to SemText, so I tracked down the root technology, which is phpBB. The following blurb is from their website.
[Ted Ritzer: BizBlog] [Marc's Voice]What is phpBB?
phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customisable open-source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel, and helpful FAQ. Based on the powerful PHP server language and your choice of MySQL, MS-SQL, PostgreSQL or Access/ODBC database servers, phpBB is the ideal free community solution for all web sites.
Who are phpBB?
phpBB are a group of individuals based internationally who believe in opensource software. The project has been stable since its creation in June 2000 without changes in licencing, leadership or corporate associations. Our goals remain unchanged and clear, to continue developing and supporting a stable, free, opensource forum system.
Key Features
Supports popular database servers
LinuxBeginner Review: Moving to Linux
LinuxBeginner Review: Moving to Linux. Kiss the Bluescreen of Death Goodbye Are you planning on trying Linux? Afraid of the changes you might face? Moving to Linux by Marcel Gagné puts all this into perspective and provides a simple inviting learning enviroment to help you switch to Linux. Included is a publishers version of Knoppix on CD so inspiring users can test drive Linux. I put this book in the hands of a heavy Windows user, my wife, and here are her thoughts on the book. Read More at LinuxBeginner [Living Without Microsoft] [dws.]
Wednesday, March 10, 2004Pollard's Principles of KM, and an Invitation To Join AOK
I Have A Dream...
POLLARD'S PRINCIPLES OF KM, AND AN INVITATION TO JOIN AOK
I am delighted to have been asked to be this month's moderator of the online forum Association of KnowledgeWork (AOK) featuring some of the founders of, and some of the brightest and most creative thinkers in, the discipline of Knowledge Management (KM). My subject for the discussion, which runs from March 15 to 26, is officially "Weblogs and other Personal Content Management and Social Networking Tools in KM", but the discourse is always wide-ranging, so just about anything about KM may be discussed.
If you are interested in this subject, I welcome you to join AOK (sign up here -- it's free), read the introduction to this month's discussion here, and contribute your two cents' worth by replying to any of the discussion threads, or starting your own, either by e-mail reply (if you sign up to receive the discussion by e-mail) or by responding on the archive pages. All comments are reviewed and edited by Jerry Ash, AOK's extremely friendly and competent manager.
Some of the members of AOK are a bit impatient with "technology-obsessed" KM practitioners, so to keep them interested in the discussion, I'm going to broaden the issue to encompass dialogue on the principles underlying my belief that Personal Content Management (PCM) and Social Networking applications are critical to the survival of KM in large organizations. Here are those principles:
Pollard's Principles of Knowledge ManagementMy argument for focusing KM first and foremost on improving (and simplifying) the Personal Content Management and Social Networking tools available to knowledge workers follows directly from these principles. Without good tools we cannot support effective processes and bring about productive behaviour change.
- KM should be about Front Line Worker Effectiveness: The key 'value proposition' for KM must be improving the effectiveness (not the efficiency) of knowledge workers (defined by Drucker as 'anyone who knows how to do their specialized job better than anyone else in the organization including their boss' -- i.e. almost everyone on the front lines of the organization). In other words, don't worry about what 'knowledge' or 'knowledge work' is -- as long as what you're doing improves front line knowledge worker effectiveness, it's KM and you're on the right track.
- There is an Urgent Need to Improve Front Line KM & IT: If you talk to knowledge workers, they will almost unanimously tell you that they desperately need help in improving their work effectiveness, and that little of what KM & IT have provided thus far has been useful to that end.
- Knowledge Workers Don't Know How to do Knowledge Work: Knowledge workers perceive a crisis of information overload, and feel they do not have the time nor the skills to manage information effectively.
- Knowledge is Best Transferred by Conversations: The principal and most effective means of knowledge transfer in organizations is conversations, the best of which are oral and face-to-face, iterative and context-rich.
- Everyone Learns, Organizes and Processes Information Differently: Taxonomies, tools and processes that force people to use a different model for doing these things than the one they use naturally, will be resisted.
- Most KM & IT Tools are Unintuitive and Over-Engineered: Simpler is better. If you have to teach people to use tools they're probably too complicated. Best are tools and processes that emulate the natural 'information behaviour' and artefacts of workers i.e. mimicking their physical workspace (desk), the physical media (paper), and the processes (conversing, subscribing, stacking, shuffling, filing documents, highlighting, annotating, writing in and crossing out with a pencil) they intuitively use to acquire, process and disseminate information.
- Conversations Rarely Include the Best Possible Experts: The risk and cost of misuse (theft, hacking, inappropriate use) of knowledge pales in comparison with the risk and cost of not using the best available knowledge. That includes not knowing who the best experts are (inside & outside the organization), and relying on lesser expertise.
- Management Doesn't Want or Need KM Decision Support: Executives are hired and paid top salaries because they supposedly have the skills, experience, judgement and instincts to make near-optimal decisions quickly. They pride themselves on their ability to make decisions with imperfect information. They use their selected inner circle of advisors as a sounding board. They (mostly) don't use KM systems. KM is not for them, it's for the Front Line Knowledge Worker. A major KM challenge is that management is paying for it, but they don't use it themselves -- a hard sell.
- Stories are Critical to Knowledge Transfer: More than just examples, stories are a language for translating knowledge between our personal, unique, unfathomable mental models. A good narrative is almost inherently more effective, clearer and more persuasive than a good exposition or a good analysis. If we can teach knowledge workers to tell, and write, good stories, we can massively increase the value of stored knowledge.
- Humans are Inherently Poor Collaborators: You can't just blame poor tools for the lack of progress in virtual and asynchronous collaboration in business, and the failure of team and community knowledge tools and 'spaces' to get much traction -- at least beyond the short life and limited purpose of specific projects. Business by nature is undemocratic and uncollaborative: The hierarchy exists to reinforce that instructions flow down, work is done by individuals according to those instructions, and the results are reported back up. There is little room (and often little perceived need) for consensus building or any of those warm fuzzy things we are taught to do in Teamwork 101. In fact, most teams exist principally to dole out tasks to their members and aggregate the status and results of that individual work. Even inherently collaborative tasks like editing are usually done sequentially by individuals. If it's really important to improve collaboration and teamwork in organizations (i.e. if it's not just a smokescreen by management to make the organization appear more democratic), we're going to have to fundamentally change the way businesses are organized and operated. You might even have to change our human culture (or at least fire all the males).
- Much of What We Do at Home is Also Knowledge Work: The commercial applicability of tools developed to improve knowledge worker effectiveness could also be leveraged for home use. Example: If you want to move videoconferencing out of the stone age, figure out how little Janey in Seattle can use it to chat and play with Grandma in Florida (and remember principle 6).
Inherent, too, in all these principles is the need to stress quality over quantity -- we need fewer, simpler-to-use tools with fewer, intuitive functions, and less, better-quality, more useful content.
I am hopeful that much of the AOK discussion will be about principles 4, 7 and 9, because even with best tools in the world, there will remain cultural and learning obstacles to effective knowledge work and effective knowledge transfer. I look forward to seeing you on AOK
[How to Save the World]
Search Engine Watch 2003 Award Winners, Part 4
Best Search Toolbar
Best Search Feature
Best Specialty Search Engine
[ClickZ]
ActiveWords Rides Again
Glad to see that Buzz Bruggeman's package ActiveWords continues to gather well-deserved praise. I use it and like it. I steered a coworker to it as well. I'm not using the scripting capabilities yet, though I should. Just need to take time to learn more. Still, I have never regretted buying the full version.
My boss Lenn Pryor takes to ActiveWords. I am starting to play with it again. One of David Allen's time saving tricks is to use the mouse as little as possible. ActiveWords makes that possible.
[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
Nader Wins Priceless Fair Use Victory v. MasterCard
Nader Wins Priceless Fair Use Victory v. MasterCardBack in 2000, Ralph Nader ran a bunch of ads critiquing the corporate interests behind the Bush and Gore campaigns. To make his point, he used the style and some of ideas behind MasterCard's "Priceless" ad campaign -- specifically calling out the dollar amounts that corporate interests paid to candidates to secure their positions on the issues.
MasterCard sued Nader and his campaign committee, claiming that use of the ads violated copyright and trademark laws. My old firm, Fish & Richardson, defended Nader claiming that any similarity to the ads was protected by the fair use doctrine. Mastercard moved for a TRO against Nader and lost but continued to press the case toward trial.
Today, after four years of discovery battles and summary judgment briefing, the trial court ruled that Nader's use was, in fact, fair. A strong victory against overzealous copyright and tradem