Once again we’ll start with a Common Craft video:

Here are some feeds that I like to keep up with—-add them to your Google Reader if you think they might be interesting:

Dallas News Frisco Blog

Internet Explorer enables you to create RSS Feeds that appear on your browser, alerting you to when new content has been posted to your favorite site. Simply navigate to the favorite section of a website (maybe the non-fiction book review page at NPR.org).

• Now press the dropdown arrow next to the RSS icon just under the search bar in Internet Explorer.
• Select the RSS feed you are interested in monitoring. This takes you to a new screen… the RSS feed display!
• At the top of the page there is a Subscribe to this Feed link (in the yellow box). Click on that link.
• A window pops up to add this to your Internet Explorer favorites. I suggest checking the “Add this to my favorites tool bar”. This places the name of the RSS feed under the address bar with a drop down arrow. When the name is bold, you know new content is added! Use the dropdown arrow next to the link to select which article interests you!

Outlook is another place you can have your favorite RSS feeds sent. Perhaps getting the news feed from Publisher’s Weekly online or the latest update on grants from the Public Library Association sent directly to your email inbox would be more convienient. Many people work directly out of their inbox and having carefully selected information delivered to the inbox can be a powerful way of staying on top of events.

• Navigate to your favorite site on the web.
• Use the RSS feed button below the search bar on Internet Explorer to select the news feed that interests you. This will open a new screen in Internet Explorer.
• Copy the URL in the address bar.
• Open Outlook.
• Under the Tools menu, select Account Settings
• Select the RSS Feeds tab
• Select the New button
• Paste the URL of the RSS feed you copied earlier
• Then select which folder you want the feed to be deposited. I recommend changing from the default of the Feeds folder and select your Inbox.
• Wait for the news, events, and happenings to find you!

i was reading through seth godin’s blog on “the long tail and the dp” and its really just a paraphrasing of al ries’s categoru leadership concept. basically, if you cannot win in a large category, redefine your market until you can uncover a winnable niche (category). his perspective is be the number 1 or 2 in a category otherwise get out.

personally, i dont know if this is one of those generalizations that just doesnt make that much sense in a connected world, or one which takes into account that you dont always have to “win”

1. you dont want to be number 1 in an unprofitable/unsustainable niche

2. there is a profit/effort(cost) equation that may show being a copycat product in a large niche with a low cost base may be more profitable than a leader in a specialised segment (i.e. you can piggy back off competitors advertising for the category and product innovation)

so category leadership could just be an ego issue – i.e. we need to be a leader in a category because it makes us feel good rather than its the most profitable thing to be. There is the human element too, its tough to get up in the morning looking to do absolutely nothing to change the world (even if its by making a better widget).

Both seth and al (hop they dont mind being called by their first names) speak about needing to target this specific segment and not expecting to end up in a niche, even if you targetted that mass market, by chance or as a consilation prize.

seth goes on to speak about the long tail (al doesnt) and its potential impact in getting out your message. but getting out your message isnt always profitable – the long tail is the land of the aggregator more than the producer  – i.e. the money is in aggregation of lots of long tail content rather than developing long tail content as there are a lot more people looking for lots of content than people looking for a specific piece (e.g. nest building habits of pigeons in leafy suburbs of Johannesburg).

Hello all,

Today I’d like to take a look at something we’ve gone over in my online journalism class that goes along with the subject of this blog, being “textually active”, and that is Amazon and aggregators.

Amazon is largely used as a marketplace for books and other products.  The things that make it special and unique are its preferences algorithms and the ratings from other consumers.  Amazon will remember your buying choices and recommend other similar products that it thinks you might be interested in.  This mathematical algorithm is highly innovative, and its what put Amazon on the map.  Its other         feature, consumer ratings, adds value to the the information available.  Imagine, for instance, that you are unsure about whether or not you want to buy a specific product.  Amazon shows the ratings and reviews of other consumers for many of the products available on its website.  If someone says that a product is complete garbage, then you will probably be less likely to purchase it.

Google, the world’s leading aggregator, is another thing we discussed in class.  Instead of creating content like most websites, it provides links to information.  Companies and websites pay google for SEO, or search engine optimization, in order to come up on Google’s first page of results.  Google also makes money through pay-per-click, in which websites pay a certain amount for each unique visitor linked to them through Google.

Newspapers websites are currently battling Google, trying to get compensation for the money Google is making off of the information it links to, but didn’t pay to produce.  This is an interesting skirmish that could have consequences that affect the entire industry.  So keep your eyes peeled!

-Tyler

A reader, also known as an aggregator, is a tool that allows you to interact with blogs and other Internet sites. Instead of visiting each site individually, you create subscriptions for the sites you follow and then visit the reader to view new content. We’ll be using Google Reader.

To get started, let’s first view this video from Common Craft: Google Reader in Plain English

You don’t need a new user name and password to open a Google Reader account—-you can use your Blogger account credentials. You can use your Google Reader account on any computer or mobile device with Internet access. Let’s start by opening http://www.google.com/reader.

Enter the email address you use with Blogger and your password, and then click Sign in. The layout of Reader is similar to the program you use to read email: folders on the left and an item list in the middle.

The Getting Started guide (http://www.google.com/help/reader/help.html) is a great overview of Reader’s features. You’ll be ready to start adding subscriptions after you’ve read it.

The first subscription we need to add to your account is one for the FPL 23 Things blog: http://fpl23things.wordpress.com/

1. Copy the address (highlight it with your mouse, right click and select Copy)
2. Click on the + Add a subscription button in the upper-left corner of your screen
3. Right-click on the box that opens and select Paste
4. Click the Add button

Now, most librarians like to keep things organized—and you’ll need some organization to keep up with your feeds. You should see the FPL 23 Things Blog in the middle pane of your window. Click on the Feed settings button, and then the New folder link:

Enter FPL 23 Things as the name for the folder, and click OK.

Now we’re ready to repeat the process. Add subscription for your blog (use the URL for your blog), and add it to the FPL 23 Things folder. Add the blogs of a few of your coworkers as well. (You can find a list of participants on the FPL 23 Things blogroll.)

Now you’re ready to go exploring on your own. You’ve created your Reader account, and added two subscriptions. Play with this … and write about it in your blog.

Last Thursday I attended a lecture by Dr Claire Wardle regarding social media and how it’s shaping the journalism industry. She has been Principal Investigator for a number of funded research projects – one in which she examined the use of User Generated Content (UGC) across BBC news outlets.

Claire gave us a well-informed and ultra fast-paced lecture, not sure if she’s sponsored by Relentless but perhaps she should be. The lecture largely consisted of new social networking tools which are helping journalists find out a lot more about what’s happening in the world than ever before.

Tools such as news aggregators, for example Netvibes which enables people to have news brought to them, social network aggregators like Addict-o-matic and new applications to enhance Twitter such as Twitter Grader where you can find where you rank in the Twittersphere, TweepML to find lists of people you may be interested in following and Twitscoop a useful way of using the micro blogging service to see the current trending topics and automatic refreshing of your live feed. These applications help you keep on top of what is happening in the world in real-time.

The sites are becoming vital for journalists to use. Not only because it helps them keep abreast of local and international news but also it makes their lives easier in terms of research (aggregators/Twitter) and contacting sources (social networking sites).

As we are continually being told the face of the industry is changing, and rapidly. The era we’re entering may be as important as the advent of the Gutenberg’s press and these new tools are essential to learn if we want succeed in this ever-changing landscape.

As Twitter encourages people to let the world know what they are doing right now journalists need to pay attention to the news this can create.

What we read while incubating ourselves from the threat of flu…

• This is easily our favorite campaign website. You know, Mike Bloomberg does remind us a little of Mary Bailey.

• John S talked about the problem of aggregating sites way back in August; now, Craig Fehrman of The Big Money wonders why sports aggregators seem to engender less ill will than those of the news variety. We’re not going to tell you what sites John and Fehrman concentrate on, or what they conclude, or what the irony about connecting those two pieces is, lest we be confused with an aggregator ourselves.

• Too big to win? We can only wonder what adjective Slate could have used if Jim McGreevey had stayed in the race six years ago.

• The Walrus–the only Canadian magazine we have on our Google Reader–shows why in its look at GPS devices and their long-range impact on our sense of direction.

• And the award for “Coolest Headline of the Week” goes to National Geographic: “Giant, Mucus-Like Sea Blobs on the Rise, Pose Danger.” Yeah, like you’re not going to click on that story.

• Tyler Cowen, whose work Josh has talked about before, opines on a topic Josh has written about before, dining tips in New York City.

• But does anyone want to (except, of course, Tim)?

Interesting words from the MD of NewsNow, Struan Bartlett, in an open letter to newspapers of all shapes and sizes.

He’s responding to concerns from mainstream news outlets that aggregators are stealing our content.

Bartlett writes: “The truth is, if anything, it is the growth of the internet itself – not link aggregation – that has undermined your business by destroying the virtual monopoly you once held over the mass distribution of written news…”

Certainly Newsnow helps www.sunderlandecho.com – rising as high as number four in our monthly top referers list – and I only see it as a positive influence on our site. It enables us to compete on a level playing field with the ‘big boys’ who have urls which are more likely to be saved in someone’s favourites list. And it brings new users to our site in a way our sometimes sub-optimal search engine optimisation rarely manages.

>> Full text of Struan Bartlett’s open letter to newspaper chiefs

So, it seems that Hearst Entertainment has recently begun poking its fat little fingers in the sticky, SEO-friendly sweetness of the aggregation pie.

With Google’s massive fist already permanently implanted, (and dreadfully intent on achieving the personal satisfaction of button-bursting overindulgence) I do have to wonder if there will soon be anything left to prevent other news organizations from going hungry.

According to this post on the Business Insider, a small group of Hearst content gurus are gradually developing a new aggregation site called Let Me Know (alias: L.M.K.) that the post author equates to the “marriage of ESPN’s statistical information with Wikipedia’s general content, but with a cleaner, better-looking design.”

While the initials might be a bit more appropriate for a member of the Kennedy family, I’m still undecided as to whether or not this particular news will hold nearly as strong a political presence in the realm of content aggregation.

I’ll admit that I initially feared a design scheme that bordered on the icon-laden helter-skelter of The Huffington Post, which I had complained about semi-thoroughly in a previous post (you remember…the nocturnal project, the overabundance of thumbnails, the iMac that I essentially threw out the window telekinetically…).

However, L.M.K. is remarkably-and refreshingly-clean-cut…particularly for an aggregator. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Neatly arranged articles, comprehensive columns AND color-coded stats? All in the same place? It was like a methodical mirage. I had essentially died and gone to HTTP (dot-Heaven-dot-com).

In fact, right now, you can get almost any kind of news piece that you could ever possibly want to read right at the tip of your finger…that is, as long as that finger is arced arthritically over a computer mouse, and that news has at least something to do with the Gatorade-saturated world of college football. If you’re craving something else, (like finance, lifestyle or, you know, any sort of tangible news) you’ll probably have a little bit of a wait ahead of you. Apparently, making other types of content accessible to the public is still on Hearst’s ‘to do’ list.

However, perhaps it is the whole ‘sports’ element that makes the site appear so clean. After all, L.M.K. is only dealing with the hyper-statistical world of organized athletics. ‘Sports’ is sort of a blanket term that editors can hack up pretty feasibly into digestible, bite-sized chunks of information (I apologize if that sounded morbid).

Think about-in the realm of punting and passing alone, you’ve got your teams, your regions, your sports scores, your previews…in a word, you’ve got statistics. It will certainly be interesting to see how this type of generic organization will translate into major political debates or financial issues…the multi-faceted eggheads of the Internet news repository. Sports articles, particularly those that focus more on the simple-minded point A-to-point B of a single game or contest are really just the jocks.

This whole concept of algorithm-based personalization is actually pretty intriguing. As more and more people turn to the blogosphere, (that pesky little brother to the big-name media outlets who is always so conveniently-or perhaps, inconveniently-around) they sort of begin to get used to the idea of, simply put, reading what they want to read about (reading only those stories that specifically interest them).

For example, users now have the option of reading a blog that specializes in generating content that exhibits an unambiguous slant toward a particular political group, sexual orientation or even music taste. Consumers these days seem to know what they like and consequently, like to read about. This algorithm-based, pattern recognition system came at a very good time.

Personally, I don’t find the whole Big Brother element terrifying; I find it helpful. I’ve always been a little annoyed with Google News simply because it sorts information based on time stamp. Just because a story appears at the top of the page, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to find it important. I’m sure there’s a simple way to customize the page, but so far, I haven’t found it…nor do I want to waste time looking. Honestly, if the option exists, I’d rather just have the system do it for me. Maybe I’m lazy. Maybe it’s just the whole Generation Y thing talking.

I also noticed that a few commenters were a little hostile toward the fact that L.M.K. has not expressed an interest in producing original content. While I’ll admit that this is a little odd for a company that owns 15 daily papers, the whole concept of aggregation is an entirely separate market from the brand of journalism that the company currently produces. This is simply meant to be an aggregation site. Clearly, Hearst papers already produce their own content (whether it is good quality content is a totally separate subject). Maybe users will expect aggregators to produce their own content as the concept becomes more and more popular. However, now, it seems as though Yahoo and A.O.L. are simply overachievers.

Honestly, news organizations are still debating how to best use the Internet for their own purposes. Different concepts are still fighting it out on a vast cyber-stage-it is a war of models and formulas, essentially, from which the best marketing strategy will ultimately triumph. Maybe users will find L.M.K. to be the best content aggregator. Maybe L.M.K. will ‘win.’

Screenshots: http://www.lmk.com

I was lucky enough to have two teachers visit my classroom today who were pretty inquisitive about both the hardware in the room (hard to ignore a beautiful SmartBoard with a wall mounted projector) and the content the students were tackling. One of them questioned if I was a ‘blogger’, and, while totally unintentionally, implied that there were certain people, or types of people, who blogged. I became totally intrigued by the perceptions of the ‘outside’ world as to who blogs, and for what purpose.

While I think it’s true there used to be a very small, specific community of people who blogged (in my mind they looked like your traditional techie who sat in a dark room and never left their computers, however not having been a blogger until recently I’m not entirely sure who they were), the idea of worldwide blogging is so powerful when thinking about communication, so many more have jumped aboard. THE WORLD OF EDUCATION NEEDS TO BE NEXT!

There are so many great things going on in so many of our schools across the country, but minus a few cross-campus visits every year, our ideas and innovative approaches to teaching our content often stay within our schools. While teachers are famous for working hard, we need to start taking advantage of technology to work smarter. Here’s where blogging comes in…

There are these brilliant inventions available for free on the web now called AGGREGATORS. Many of you may even be using one and not know it (think iGoogle). They have the power to organize all your favorite websites and blogs on one convenient page (that can also easily be set as your homepage) and feed you new updates as soon as they’re posted. This allows you to see new blog posts to all your favorite blogs in a matter of seconds, all on one page. Now bear with me here…

Picture if a lot of the brilliant minds leading successful schools across the country, and teaching in successful schools, started blogging. Doesn’t have to take much time, even small posts with random thoughts about school culture, middle-school social life, and brilliant misunderstandings that hit you mid-lesson and you wish you had prepared for. Now teachers nationwide open up Internet Explorer (or Firefox or Safari for all you brilliant Mac users) and see your post pop-up. Maybe it doesn’t relate to them or doesn’t interest them, so they ignore it. But for many blog posts, there will be many teachers who are immediately intrigued by what they see and venture to read the whole post. Now they add their own comments to the post, and BAM! A discussion is born. So easy, and SO beneficial to everyone involved. The blogger now has an audience outside their own school. The reader now has resources and conversation bringing in different perspectives. Either way, we’re communicating with each other, and continuing to think about how we can do what we do better. Isn’t that what we’re all about?

While it’s easy to set up, and you’ll quickly fall in love, the bigger picture of cross-school communication can’t happen in a meaningful way until we get more (ideally 100%) of our teachers aggregating, and many of our leaders and teachers blogging. So here’s where to start:

http://www.netvibes.com (if you want to check out my public aggregator to see what it looks like when it’s set up, here’s the link to the one I use in my classroom with my kids. http://www.netvibes.com/saltinerockstars Saltine Rockstars is the name of our Tech Team, and the tab called Saltine Rockstars is a collection of all their blogs… I HIGHLY encourage you to check them out and leave comments… they need help understanding there IS a real audience out there! There’s also some education blogs on there to get you started… I’m working on making a public aggregator for KIPP this weekend, so I’ll put that up here when it’s created)

Here’s a quick video to show you how to actually subscribe to blogs/websites once you’ve set up your aggregator/reader. This one is showing Bloglines (another aggregator), but it works the same way:

In Class 9 we’re going to talk more about aggregators, how they’ll help you grow as a teacher, how they’ll make classroom use of blogs more efficient, and how to set one up.  After that, you’ll have a chance to set up your own!

Check out the Class 9 Lecture by downloading it from the Box.net widget on the left side of this page.

All assignments for this class are also included on the Class 8 section of the class wiki.

Google News

Rupert Murdoch has his sights set on bringing down online news aggregators like Google News, or at least on making them pay to link to news articles.  I say he needs to pick his battles.

The role of websites like Google News in the downfall of advertising revenue and user traffic has long been discussed, but are websites like these really the issue?  They are, if anything, driving traffic to the websites of news organizations (Users are re-directed to the original article when they click to see the full story).

I can only assume the possibility that people are going to Google News instead of straight to Newsday’s or the Wall Street Journal’s website angers Murdoch.  If that’s the case, instead of making scapegoats out of aggregators, news organizations should create their own, better system.  They can figure out ways to distribute possible revenues and they’ll be able to promote their own stories in their own system

Murdoch must recognize the fact that Google News offers a broad view of the top stories of the day.  There’s a WSJ article here, a NYT article there and an LA Times article over there.  I can only imagine this irks a man who seems to fancy monopolies.

To me, sites like Google News offer a wide array of what the media is discussing each day.  If the news media has a problem with it, they should do what they used to do so well:  engage in an all-out war for aggregators’ viewers.  How they do that is up to them, but misplaced anger is not the way to go.

C’mon in!  Grab a cuppa Joe, find a comfy seat on one of the large overstuffed chairs and browse through the endless options of digital magazines.  You can flip through the pages of this one, take a few off the rack and curl up and devour them completely or you can wander aimlessly from topic to topic and title to title. 

This is the genius behind my new favorite site (well, okay, one of them, but it has all my other favorite sites there so it has to by my most favorite): Alltop.com.  It is like a giant magazine rack of all my favorite places on the web.  Alltop aggregates all my favorite sites about my favorite topics all in one convenient place on the web.  No more going from link to link on my blog roll.  No more crowding my favorites tab on my browser.  Yeah, and I’m still trying to figure out how RSS feeds work so Alltop solved that one for me too.  I just go to Alltop.   It not only does this for me personally, Alltop provides this service for millions of other people all over the web.  Alltop would be glad to be your online magazine rack as well. 

Think of it this way.  If you are a magazine lover or a newspaper nut you understand how these treasures can accumulate over time.  In my living room and around my house I used to have a pile of newspapers here, a stack of magazines there and when I had a coffee table the thing was continuously piled with magazines, newspapers and books about the things I was interested in and the author’s I was currently reading.  Then, I got rid of the coffee table, piled the papers in a neat wicker basket and the magazines in a cool container or two, by topic and genre, so they could be displayed facing forward for easy access.  Alltop does (exponentially, I might add)  in digital world what I just did in my living room.

I suggest you go check it out and see for yourself.  You can see the badge in my side bar and the link is first on my blog roll…or it should be soon.

While you’re there if you like my blog, suggest Welcome to Cabs Place! to Alltop.  I’d really love to show up there, because, well, then it would just mean I was hanging out with all the other cool kids!  

Enjoy!

On Wikipedia 

Here is link to an article from the Wall Street Journal  that covers a gathering of Wikipedians.  It details the joyous, acrimonious and sometimes sanctimonious ways of this hodge-podge group who make no money, but are devoted to this incredible resource.  Wikipedia is also an example (as noted in this article) of an online phenomenon can exist without a profit motive. Wikipedians Leave Cyberspace, Meet in Egypt

On mavens, nodes, connectors and social network analysis, here is a nice brief introduction. http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html

 For our purposes the terminology is less important; what is important is thinking about ways an organization can identify, understand and reach the “super-connectors” within a particular social media context.  And we want to figure out ways to encourage them to share.  

As you may know, maven is a word that comes from Hebrew via Yiddish and refers to someone who is highly trusted and knowledgeable in a particular field.  Mavens accumulate knowledge on a topic and are the individual others seek advice from.  In recent times, the term maven was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell  in The Tipping Point.  He indicated that mavens are distinct from connectors, but work well with them. Connectors can spread the ideas and suggestions of the maven through their large number of contacts.  What I’ll call “super connectors” have such wide and boundary-spanning networks that – if reached and convinced by something – can go far in taking something “viral.”

Now a little about Flashmobs

Looking at MashFlob, a flash mob community, (yet another niche social media network) you can get some ideas about another form of social media. http://www.mashflob.com/
 

Traditionally, (if a flashmob can actually BE traditional!) a flashmob is a gathering of a large group of people, face-to-face, in a public place.  The groups gather and then disperse fairly quickly.  Groups are gathered via texting, email, voice message – and social networks such as Twitter.  Purists wouldn’t consider mixing the idea of a flashmob with a publicity-related event for an organization. However, we can.

And in addition to the pranks and meaningless mobs and performances, there are important political activities (Iran, Ukraine..)  and flashmobs that attempt to do good.  Let’s continue the brainstorming on this – how might an organization use this form of social media to its benefit?   Ideas?

Social Media Aggregators again

We talked about a variety of social media aggregators including Netvibes, Pageflakes, iGoogle, Friendfeed, Ping.fm… Here’s another type http://www.shozu.com/portal/index.do

Trying to put aggregators into more concrete categories, the primary functions are:

Gathering together information from wide variety of media posts and feeds (all of them do this)

Organizing that information in ways that are more productive for user (especially Netvibes, iGoogle, Pageflakes)

Disseminating your posts to different audiences at one time. (FriendFeed and Ping.fm)

Let us know about other interesting aggregators you may come across.

RSS logo

And that’s what’s interesting, RSS has been around since 2001 thanks to Dave Winer who came up with the standard. Yet even with a beautiful Common Craft how-to video (below) to show us the way, it’s not something that has ever really come into common usage or common terminology outside Tech Land (if you really want the usage figures I can dig them out to show you).

But, if I say “Google Reader” or “keeping track of your favourite blogs, websites n’ stuff in one place”, you’ll have an idea of what I mean. RSS (Really Simply Syndication) is the thing that often powers those types of services. You’ve probably even seen the orange icons around the place, like the one above.

Cue that Common Craft video, which points out how useful this all might be:

Since 2001 RSS aggregators have been equated with new ways of consuming news on the web, described in terms such as ‘River of News’.

NOTE: At this point readers should be aware that updates to this form of RSS are every 15 -30 minutes or so and not in real time.

And what does that river look like?

For the purposes of this post I visited my Bloglines account – something I’ve not done for months. It’s laid out a bit like an email reader. I have 132 feeds within 10 folders and 16,933 unread posts. And that’s with Blogline’s limit of 200 posts per feed. That’s a lot of reading, and not necessarily very focussed reading at that.

Which is possibly why the likes of Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook and other social networks, where members recommend links to each other and information is in smaller digestible chunks, have subsumed RSS aggregators. The real-time nature of these services also enables conversation and discussion around a posted item.

So, why am I writing about all of this now?

This week real-time RSS has been the talk and excitement of Tech Land as WordPress launched this capability for it’s .com and .org options by implementing RSSCloud. This down-to-earth blog post by WordPress explains more.

To read the RSS feeds of WordPress blogs in real-time at the moment you will need to download either Dave Winer’s River 2 or LazyFeed. I’m sure in time others will follow.

The question is: will you?

And for those running websites with RSS, the question is: should I enable this?

Whilst I can’t answer the first question, other than guess probably not given previous evidence of RSS readers and usage, I can possibly answer the second question.

Ian Betteridge (via Twitter, note) pointed me to this post by Rogers Cadenhead, who questions issues of scaling and firewalls. He gives the following example:

I publish the Drudge Retort, which has around 16,000 subscribers, including 1,000 who get the feeds using desktop software on their home computers. If I add cloud support and all of my subscribers have cloud-enabled readers, each time I update the Retort, my cloud update server will be sending around 1,050 notifications to computers running RSS readers — 1,000 to individuals and 50 to web-based readers.

That’s just for one update. The Retort updates around 20 times a day, so that requires 21,000 notifications sent using XML-RPC, SOAP or REST.

Imagine that for my 132 feeds in Bloglines.

WordPress’s backing shows that this is something to take seriously. But without further development, the decision will be down to server load and money versus the opportunities that real-time updates might bring for your offering, taking into account those who use your website.

Now that you’ve been finding, reading, and commenting on blogs, you’ve probably realized that it takes time to go from blog to blog every day to read posts.  If you read news on more than one website, you have the same problem.  Fortunately, with an RSS feed aggregator, you can read all the blogs and news in one place.

This video by Common Craft explains “RSS in Plain English”:

I use Bloglines to keep up with the latest posts on blogs and other sites each day.  Some people like Google Reader.  Others prefer start pages like Pageflakes and Netvibes.

To learn how to use Bloglines, watch Russell Stannard’s videos here.  If you’d rather try Google Reader, you can start with this video and then watch “More From: expertvillage” by clicking on those words on the right side of the screen and select the video you want to watch next.  You can also search YouTube for videos on how to use other aggregators.

I will be also be publishing and updating this information on a wiki.  Future lessons will cover creating blogs and using other types of social media.

Earlier Lessons:

Lesson 1: Defining “Social Media,” “New Media,” and “Web 2.0″
Lesson 2: Understanding Blogs
Lesson 3: Understanding Tags
Lesson 4: Finding Blogs
Lesson 5: Commenting on Blogs

This is a good place for us to start the conversation about social media aggregators.  Check it out.

தமிழ்ப் பதிவுகளில் ஏற்கனவே 1-10 பட்டியல் போட்டது போல் அடுத்த பத்து போட்டு பார்க்கும் ஆசை. அடுத்த பத்து வலைப்பதிவுகளுக்கான 10 காரணங்கள்:

1. முதல் பதிவு முழுக்க நேம் ட்ராப்பிங். இது ட்ரீம் ரைட்டிங்.
2. எப்படி இட ஒதுக்கீடு? அடிக்கடி எழுதவேண்டும். தினந்தோறும் எழுதும் ஆர்வத்தில், செய்தித்தளங்களை சக்களத்தி ஆக்கிக் கொள்ளாமல், கருத்து கனகாம்பரங்களை மட்டும் வெறும் முழம் போடாமல் இருக்க வேண்டும்.
3. அப்பொழுது பத்ரி. இப்பொழுது சன்னாசியின் இடப்புறத்தில் இடம் இருக்கிறதா?
4. போன தடவை லக்கிலுக் உரல் காண்பித்து கூட்டம் கூட வைத்தார். இந்த முறையும் அந்த மாதிரி செய்யத் தகுந்த எவராவது ஒருவருக்காவது இடந்தர வேண்டும்.
5. எமக்குப் பிடித்தது 3 மேட்டர்: சினிமா, அனுபவம், இலக்கிய அரசியல். இதைப் பற்றியெல்லாம் யார் ரெகுலரா எழுதறாங்களோ… அவங்க.
6. தொடர்புள்ள பதிவு: முந்தைய 30 இட்டதில் இருந்து உருவலாம்
7. சென்ற பத்து பதிவர்கள் எல்லோருக்கும் தெரிந்தவர்கள். பலர் அச்சு ராசியும், புத்தக லக்கின ஜாதகமும் கொண்டவர்கள். இந்தப் பட்டியலில் பலரும், எல்லோரும் அறிந்த எக்ஸ்க்ளூசிவ் இணைய எழுத்தாளர்கள்.
8. யாம் படிப்பது பெறுக இவ்வையக விரிவு வலை.
9. இன்று செப். 2; அப்படியானால் இரண்டாம் ஸ்டேஜ் பதிவர் ரிலீஸ்.
10. உரிமைதுறப்பு: ‘மன்னன்‘ படத்தில் ரஜினி கேட்கும் கேள்வி: ‘ஒண்ணு பெருசா? ரெண்டு பெருசா!’

எந்த வரிசையிலும் இல்லை.

• செல்வேந்திரன்: Selvendran
• R P Rajanayagam: ஆர் பி ராஜநாயஹம்
• உண்மைத்தமிழன்: Unmai Thamizhan
• “சாத்தான்”குளத்து வேதம்: ஆசிப் மீரான்
• மாதவராஜ்: தீராத பக்கங்கள்
• Latanand: லதானந்த்
• வினவு: வினை செய்!
• மடத்துவாசல் பிள்ளையாரடி: கானா பிரபா
• டிசே த‌மிழ‌ன்: DISPASSIONATED DJ
• குமரன் குடில்: சரவணகுமரன்

A couple of developments on the news aggregator front today that will have a chance to play out over the next days.

Item number one: for 12 years, Slate Magazine (owned by the Washington Post) has run one of the oldest “aggregators” of news content through a section called, “Today’s Papers.”  It’s gone, as noted in this morning’s Times, and replaced with something that Slate’s editors hope reflects the changing news cycle. The Slatest will be updated three times a day and also highlights the Twitter streams from columnists.

Check this screenshot and look how Slate is filling out the page to bring in revenue on the thrice-daily updated page:

The move is designed to fit better with the new news flow that is not contingent on just morning papers, but on an ever moving cycle that goes far beyond those daily headlines. As Editor David Plotz wrote in an announcement post earlier today:

Overnight, newspapers launch the news. They publish stories clarifying the events of yesterday; they break their own investigative stories; they print zeitgeist-defining feature articles and op-eds. The morning brings Phase 2, when Web media reacts to the news. Bloggers and other sites respond to the news that broke overnight, and newsmakers push back against or try to exploit these stories. Phase 3, the buildup, comes in the afternoon, as the events of the day unfold—congressional action, a presidential gaffe, turmoil in Asia. The media break this news, and analyze how it fits together with yesterday’s top stories. Opinion makers try to shape how the day’s events will play on the night’s cable shows and in tomorrow’s newspapers. The next morning, it all starts over again.

I’m a Slate fan, so I like the move from both a content and awareness of the news cycle standpoint. I think with smart sponsor recruitment, there could be a marginal amount of revenue for the Washington Post Co. if they continue to be non-intrusive with placements while providing good real estate to advertisers. This is a decently captive audience that is just narrow enough that a spotlight on the right group could sink in.

Is the future of the media something closer to Slate than WaPo? Blue sky notion: if you take WaPo’s bureaus and tuck them into the outward looking Slate model, you would have something closer to where the newspaper/journalism world needs to get to online. To me, it seems very much like a battle of the brands and institutions that is keeping the line drawn very clearly in the sand. Dealing with an ad is a small price to pay for me to get a nice overview of content, and this is a lot of rich content from dozens of places.

On the other end of the Internet media sphere, there’s a new little feature buried in Google News. “Interesting Reads,” as first noted by Google Operating System, is beginning to populate the server in a new way: recommend news items from the search giant. It’s certainly a hodge-podge of things from New York politics to Facebook, but there’s an outside chance that this becomes a lot more (Google’s Meme tracker, or even, agenda setter?). From GOS:

It’s not exactly Arts & Letters Daily, but it’s an interesting departure from Google’s goal of aggregating and clustering news stories.

As some commenters noted on that post, though, this is still very much a beta and potentially a big step for the Google beast to try and set the zeitgeist intentionally instead of letting it happen by way of search trends. While some joke that Google is a media company by accident of collecting, this would be a prized possession of links and what is displayed may trump even Twitter trends as Google says what should be discussed, not what is being (or has been) talked about recently.

Just remember, don’t be evil…

Bullish on local news

Bullwhiz is back. Again.

The Little Rock-based gossip e-mail, which began in Internet-infancy era of the early 90s and was read and fed by journalists, PR officials, politicos and business leaders, has gone through several incarnations and curators and now has been reborn as an Arkansas news aggregator.

You can check it out at Bullwhiz.com. The site is basically a collection of RSS feeds from several Arkansas news sources, including ArkansasBusiness.com and the Arkansas News Bureau, and prominent local blogs like The Arkansas Project, The Tolbert Report, Blake’s Think Tank, Capsearch and Under the Dome. (Tolbert even gets his own video feed!)

And Arkansas sports news even gets a nod, with feeds from ArkansasSports360.com and Razorbacks Central.

The site’s a far cry from its previous existence, what appears to be an Arkansas version of popular news aggregator Digg. Before that, it was on Google’s Blogspot platform. We’re not even sure who’s running the site now (we’ve sent an e-mail with inquiries). Former Bullwhiz editors include its founder, Arkansas PR pro Paul Johnson, and local businessman Charles Durnett, who died 2008.

We hope to have more answers soon. Meanwhile, you can follow Bullwhiz on Twitter @Bullwhiz.

More

A brief history of Bullwhiz/Briefing Notebook – Paul Johnson via Arkansas Times

Bullwhiz without a moderator following death of Durnett – Arkansas Business

This article originally appeared in the August issue of The Digital Journalist, www.digitaljournalist.org.

Aggregators: To Be or Not to Be.
By
Ron Steinman

Yes, I realize news aggregators offer a real service but I also see them, through no fault of their own, as a real danger. So also does the AP, but for different reasons. It wants to stop aggregators from using its news stories without a proper license, as some Web sites do already. Access the attached URL for the story, as it appeared July 24, 2009 in the New York Times. A.P. Cracks Down on Unpa#1DC4DC. I understand and sympathize with the Associated Press. I wish them well. No one should get someone else’s hard-earned content for free, a continuing problem for all journalism, especially print. However, my take is somewhat different. It is less about the aggregators and more about those who use them. In a way, the two ideas overlap.

By all estimates, there are now more than a billion personal computers in the world. More than three billion people have cell phones. Three billion people! This is staggering. Think of all the advertising space on those small screens waiting to annoy most everyone. Or, maybe, not. Maybe it fills the emptiness of a person’s day. This means that online viewing is rising very fast. When and where it will stop, if ever, no one knows. Add to all these numbers a serious estimate that I believe is too low, that in the next six years we are likely to see another two billion people with mobile computers, meaning the next generations of cell phones, PDAs, mini computers and the like. Despite these numbers, we should remember computer saturation is not nearly complete. Many in the world still do not have computers nor do they have access to a computer. Many who do, do not have broadband or DSL. Broadband probably covers no more than 30 percent of those who own computers. Many who do own a computer do not spend significant portions of their day online. I assume they have lives that exist beyond the small screen. At least I hope they do, though these days one never knows. All these computers and computer-like devices require information or else their purpose will fail.

This is where the aggregators come in with their purported purpose to make life easier for anyone seeking knowledge or at least a sense of theeir world. With this in mind, here is a snap quiz. No, not written; answers will be by a show of hands.

How many read a newspaper? Not many, I suppose. How many read a news Web site? Note that I did not say how many get their news from a Web site. They are different questions. Too many people these days think that when they see a headline they are getting the news. Nothing is further from the truth. The growth and belief in aggregators is fascinating and dangerous. Do aggregators really work or are they a lazy person’s way of getting only a taste of the news. Do people actually read what they see on their screen or do most of these headlines simply pile up and then fade away by the end of the day or whatever news cycle you are on? Chances are that if a person aggregates material from too many Web sites, he or she will never get to read anything. Who has the time?

Using an aggregator as a collection agency, is having someone else do the work of assimilating, finding and presenting information which, with a bit of effort, a person could find for him or herself. Aggregators are not the problem; it is the people who swear by them that are. People delude themselves thinking the aggregator serves as an easy way to organize and absorb news content. Using an aggregator for your only source of news indicates that you cannot think for yourself. True, some sites allow visitors or members to make their own front page with stories they believe are important for them. It could be sports, movie gossip, Michael Jackson, even Washington politics. Sometimes an individual’s choices are weak, misinformed and skewed, more often than not based on simplicity and emotion, rather than complexity.

An aggregator enables you to get as many headlines as you want from as many different sources. That does not mean you will understand what is going on in the world. Editors in print and on the Web create headlines to grab the reader’s attention. However, one must read beyond the headline to understand what the story means.

Aggregators often link to other sites without prior consent. Though the aggregator gives credit, it presents material created by other sources as if the information is its own. The reader gets free information. The organization that collected the news suffers because it receives nothing in return for its product. The aggregator gets a free ride on information collected and parsed by another person or organization. I do not believe the average person subscribing to an aggregator knows the difference. News aggregator Web sites exist to save people the time and effort they might expend if they surfed the Web to get the information without help. If something new pops up, the aggregator collects it and then disperses it to its clients. If you understand the Internet and how it works, none of this is new. We call these applications RSS readers, feed readers, feed aggregators, newsreaders or search aggregators. The problem is that none of them create anything.

As smaller and smaller screens dominate our lives, meaning PDAs, cell phones and mini-computers, who will supply original content? If the majors in old media continue to fail and decline in output and influence, what will take the place of the hunters and gathers of news? Surely not what some are calling “hyper local news sites,” Web sites devoted to local news, often well meaning and with purpose, are struggling as much the big boys to get advertising and stay alive. Citizen journalism, a serious attempt to complement traditional news, does not work unless there is a crisis such as the Iranian election. News cannot live on the work of amateurs or a lucky photo of an event snapped with a cell phone.

Of course, and this is not a revelation, it comes down to the most serious challenge the news business faces today. Simply, how does any news operation survive? Everywhere you turn, serious thinkers are giving this serious thought, seemingly all the time. There is no easy answer. However, if the means of collecting and then disseminating the news fails, the aggregators will also fail. They will have either a limited product to put in its feeds, or, worse, no product at all.

I do not use aggregators for anything except as a marker to point the way to a more extensive look at the news. I trust only myself to ferret out a story, even if it takes me longer to do so than it takes for me to read a headline sent from an aggregator. As long as I can breathe, I would rather do the work myself. I trust myself more than a powerful piece of software or even a set of smart people sitting in the dark in front of powerful computers pulling information and sending it to me electronically. Yes, I know, it is all about time. But time is really all we have and how we delegate those seconds and minutes will be the key to our survival. I really mean that. Except, the young rarely think of survival. They think they have too much living to do.

Making things worse and only adding to the many nails already in the coffin of old media, we have the vaunted London Times on its Web site, Timeonline making hay with a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley. His name is Matthew Robson. He is making pronouncements about all media that has many fawning over what he has been saying. This is what he says about newspapers. “No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news sumarised (British spelling) on the Internet or on TV.” That should about do it for our current generation. If those youngsters already living in a digital world of bits and pieces find the text is too much for them to consider, we have to feel sorry for the world they will inherit. Aggregators will become more powerful and more the norm. In fact, all information will come via an aggregator. Hope for the future of journalism is out the window. And there will be nobody around to say, “I told you so.”

Financial Times paywall as a model:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/business/media/17ft.html?_r=1&8dpc

Don’t get me wrong. I love free stuff as much as the next guy. Free is my favorite brand. One can enjoy almost anything if it is free. You’re in Whole Foods and they offer you a piece of organic free-range sugar-free soy-based gluten-free joy-free whatever? Hell, yes. It’s free. You enjoy every nasty bite!

I also love free media. I love nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, vanityfair.com, hulu.com, realclearpolitics.com … you name it, I’ll read it, watch it, try it happily, for free. But I’m also one of these mythical ‘content-producers.’ I get paid to make stuff that people will watch. So all this free stuff makes me nervous. Not as nervous as those wonderful, ink-stained wretches at the Kansas City Star or the Boston Globe perhaps, but nervous.

That’s because I truly do not think that any of the executives running these companies have any clue how they are going to make money 5, 10 years from now. Take Hulu. In what world do you, faced with a declining market share, thinning margins, fragmented and hard to reach consumers, give away your most precious commodity for free??

In the magazine world, Conde Nast has apparently hired McKinsey to re-think their business plan. How many millions do you think they’ll spend on consultants to state the obvious? Let me take a whack at this for them for, well, free. Charge for your product. Period. Full stop. Otherwise, you will cannibalize yourself to death.

It is simple. Here’s how you do it. When someone buys Vanity Fair at the newsstand, inside they find a number and a password. It lasts for one month. For that month, they get unlimited access to vanityfair.com. Web exclusives, extra photos, live chats with authors, archives. The password expires automatically after a month. Do this for every title, then restrict access to everyone else. If aggregators want to link to you, fine, make them pay. If they don’t, and figure out a way to link anyway, sue them.

Then go after subscribers. Would I pay Conde a premium for access to thenewyorker.com, vanityfair.com, and the print version of one of the two? Of course I would, unless they were giving it away for free! Then, I’d cancel my subscription to both magazines and read them for free online. Duh! It’s free!  That’s what they are doing right now, and yes, I’ve canceled my subscription (except to the New Yorler, which Broken Tail likes to read the old-fashioned way).

The argument against the newspapers doing some version of this is that they will be killed by free competition. That assumes, of course, that their product is interchangeable with lots of other news sources. In that case, they deserve to die. In the case of the Times, people say, if they pay wall their product then everyone will just read the Washington Post for free. In this case my answer is, adjust your business plan to account for fewer readers, and let the Post wither on the vine like you’re both doing now. Ten years from now, they’ll be dead or will have joined you behind the pay wall after burning through a ton more cash.

The Times seems to be toying with the idea of becoming a non-profit. Think this is a good idea? First, you might want to ask the folks at Newshour with Jim Lehrer (no money), NOW on PBS (furloughs), or Worldfocus (furloughs) how easy it is to do this. Good luck with that …

The Times famously failed with TimesSelect.  Many say that this proves it is impossible.  I disagree and argue that they just didn’t do it right.  That’s an argument for another day.

Of course, there are forces working against a re-imagining of the news media business. Among them, network news divisions that bleed money but are supported by morning shows, which make enough to make returns respectable. Then, of course, there’s the Huffington Post and its ilk. The folks at Huffington, in a nod to paid journalism and its purveyors, has launched their ‘Investigative Fund.’ How charitable to the poor ink-stained wretches who still need to make a living in journalism! But what is Huffpo’s stock in trade? Publishing material that they get for free from self promoters, people hawking books, or other media (like yours-truly) and / or people comfortable enough that they can spend hours writing for free. Good for them, and for Arianna who is making a mint off of people working not for slave wages, but even cheaper — i.e. free!

There’s that word again.

ps. i do not plan on charging you for reading this post.

pps. check out mark cuban on this, too: www.blogmaverick.com (free) and Mike Simon (The Wire) in the Columbia Journalism Review (you may have to pay to get that one)

இப்பொழுது போட்டி முடிவில் வென்றால் கூட ‘நான் ஏன் வென்றேன்?’ என்று காரணம் விசாரிக்கிறார்கள். எனவே, தமிழ்ப்பதிவுகளில் டாப் 10 சொல்லுமுன், அதற்கான நியாயங்கற்பித்தல் பட்டியல்:

1. இன்றைய தேதியில் யாருடைய பதிவு அனேக இணைய வாசகர்களால் மொயக்கப்படுகிறது?
2. எவர் எழுதினால் தமிழ்மணம் துவங்கி ட்விட்டர் வரை இரத்த பீஜனாக ரணகளமாகும்?
3. உயிர்மை போன்ற இலக்கிய குறு பத்திரிகை அளவிலும் சரி; குமுதம் போன்ற பெரு சஞ்சிகை வாசகர் ரேஞ்சிலும் சரி… ரீச் உண்டா?
4. அலெக்ஸா தர வரிசை எண் கணிதம்.
5. கூகிள் பேஜ் ரேங்க் என்ன?
6. பத்ரியின் பக்கவாட்டு பட்டியலில் பெயர் பெற்றிருக்கிறாரா?
7. கூகிள் ரீடரில் எவ்வளவு பேர் சந்தாதாரர் ஆகியிருக்கிறார்? செய்தியோடையை ப்ளாக்லைன்ஸ் மூலம் வாசிக்கும் எண்ணிக்கை எவ்வளவு?
8. ‘புதுசு… கண்ணா… புதுசு’ மட்டுமில்லாமல், பச்பச்சென்று பார்த்ததும் கொள்ளை கொள்வதில் மேகன் ஃபாக்சாக எவர் உள்ளார்?
9. போன புல்லட் பாய்ன்ட்டிற்கு நேர் எதிராக கே பாலச்சந்தர் போல் வயசான காலத்திலும் சின்னத்திரை, மேடை நாடகம் என்று பழைய காவேரியை பாடில்ட் வாட்டர் ஆக்குபவரா?
10. என்னுடைய இதயத்தில் இடம் உண்டா?

இப்பொழுது ஆகஸ்ட் பத்து. தமிழ் வலைப்பதிவுகளின் தலை 10: (எந்தத் தரக் கட்டுப்பாடு வரிசையிலும் இல்லை)

1. http://ariviyal.info — அறிவியல்
2. என். சொக்கன் – மனம் போன போக்கில்
3. twitter prakash — icarusprakash
4. Charu Nivedita – charuonline.com
5. ஜெயமோகன் – jeyamohan.in
6. எஸ். ராமகிருஷ்ணன் – :: RAMAKRISHNAN ::
7. லக்கிலுக் – யுவகிருஷ்ணா
8. ரவிசங்கர் -- ரவி
9. writerpara – பா. ராகவன்
10. இட்லிவடை – IdlyVadai

முந்தைய பதிவுகள்:

1. March 10: Top 10 Tamil Blogs

2. Top Tamil Blogger Templates

இந்த இடுகைக்கு ஊக்கமூட்டிய பட்டியல்: Surveysan -ஆக்கியவன் அல்ல அளப்பவன்: பதிவுலகில், இந்த ஃபாலோயர்ஸ் கணக்கில், நல்ல மகசூல் பெற்றிருப்பவர்கள் சிலர்

Maury Brown is the most recent to address the growing “problem” of aggregating websites. In case you are new to the Internet, these are sites that simply collect and link to other sites, contributing little or no original content.

Brown outlines the unhappy reactions of those who are producing original reporting— mainly, newspapers.

Now, this dilemma is not new, but one particular part of Brown’s piece interested me. In discussing MetsBlog.com, a blog devoted to (you guessed it) the New York Mets and one of the most popular of the so-called “aggregating” websites, Brown mentions that many Mets beat writers resent the site’s popularity.

Recently, though, Matthew Cerrone, the blog’s founder, tweeted this response to critics: “WFAN just cited a newspaper report on air. I tried to click the link, but it was radio, so I guess I can’t read the original report.”

Basically, news sources have been piggy-backing on each other for years. The only difference is that now it happens a lot faster.

This debate is actually starting to sound a lot like one we had at NPI last month over a similar issue— we were concerned over literary/creative originality, while this debate is about journalistic integrity.

Now, the debate in journalism is obviously different— saying something first is much more important in reporting than it is in literature (in some cases, it’s the entire point). At the same time, though, the debate seems to hinge on a similar point: Namely, at what point has someone contributed enough “original content” to effectively appropriate it?

In the case of reporting, though, the problem is almost inverted. Ideally, we don’t want them adding any “original content” (in journalism, they call that stuff “fabrications”); we just want the facts. Obviously, though, the first person to report something should get cited, but when does something make its way from “breaking news” to common knowledge? I’m sure someone was the first to report on how Bill Clinton freed two journalists in North Korea, but by now it’s basically common knowledge. Citing one individual source for common knowledge seems silly*— and that happened two days ago. 

*In high school, as a way to stick it to English teachers who were Draconian about citations (which is basically every high school English teacher), I always planned to turn in a paper with a footnote after every word that included every recorded usage of that word in the O.E.D., to prove that it was impossible to ever truly put something in “my own words.” Unfortunately, high school John S was too cowardly to ever actually do this.

Technology has so dramatically decreased the lag-time between one person knowing something and everyone knowing it (Brown himself has a joke about re-tweets counting as plagiarism), that I wonder if “breaking a story” is eventually going to be one of those outdated achievements, like driving across the continent, or owning a cell phone. In yet another way, then, the face of journalism is changing forever.