Category articles

Ajit Jaokar talk

Key is understanding the terms, such as web2.0. He uses o'Reilly as basis: web as platform, harnessing collective intelligence. Mobile Web 2.0 just at the device to Web 2.0. (how many web enabled mobile devices are there?) However standards on mobiles are still lacking. Widgets might help here. Widget Widget Web. Web is breaking up into small pieces. Widgets seem to be the web-pages of the future.

Ajit sees intertwingularity as key. One should not look at information as a hierarchy, but as network. Web 2.0 is pushing content out.

The idea of widgets as the new web-page for mobile devices is a nice eye-opener. I think I like that. I would call a widget then a MicroContent Client, but then for specific devices. The widgets I looked at from a MicroContent Client perspective are extremely simple clients from a functional perspective.

So I guess the idea that Apple sees Ajax as key for apps on the iPhone is a very important step. Are widgets easy to create? Ajit thinks yes, it however seems still difficult to me. Still waiting for widgets. (Check out widsets.com for creating widgets). Should become very easy. Problem is however that installing widgets is still difficult.

Is iPhone a walled garden? Yes and No. Yes form an app point of view. No from a a web-view. Widgets might feel like as apps. If the iPhone supports nice bookmarking, the user might not see the difference.

Problem are the adults, digital divide here. Is a societal issue. Losing the elders? What is the influence on social issues? But I guess we talk about the whole Internet here and how it changes society.

Services as Facebook might lead the field towards widget adoption and aid in adoption. Japan and Korea are not an example for Europe or US.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client • widget , microlearning2007
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iLike

I installed the iTunes add-on of iLike. This app add-on records what I am listening to. You can get an impression on my home-page at iLike. I think iLike got this from the relevant iTunes XML-file.

The iLike add-on adds itself to iTunes as a drawer (under MacOSX). It does not work as a real drawer as it is impossible to close totally. The drawer presents songs related to the song that is currently playing. By clicking on a song a user can hear a sample or see detailed information on the artist/song. There is also a list of related songs that one can download. These seem to be songs by relatively unknown (new) artists. The quality of the recommendations seem OK, although a bit straightforward.

I like to see recommendations. However I am not sure about this approach. The user must watch the screen to see the recommendations appear. I much prefer a Pandora or Last.fm approach. I like listening to the recommendations.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client • type • audio
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Hybrid Analysis 3: API’s

API's are the usual suspect for creating hybrid applications. The idea is that an application communicates with a server on the Internet. An API would allow an application to get/retrieve or post information. And nothing new here, as this idea is the basis of many classic Internet service.

I guess the poster child should be email here, with the SMTP and POP/IMAP protocols/API's. Email API's are based on formally defined standards. And there are more of such standards.

Recent API's however sidestep a formal process for standardisation, and just publish their API's. And when such recent API's get traction, they might turn into de-facto standards. There are several examples for such API's.

A good example is the MetaWeblog API for posting blog items to blogging services. I guess that one could call this already a de-facto API. Under MacOSX applications like MarsEdit or Ecto support this API.

Another example is Del.icio.us, with applications like WebnoteHappy or Cocoalicious. These applications retrieve and post bookmark Items to the del.icio.us service. This could become a de-facto API when other bookmarks service support the same API. But for the moment I call it a closed API.

A drawback of API's, is that the application developer has to implement a closed API for each service that he wants to support. Once an API becomes de-facto, the application developer can create functionality such that the user can add any service that supports the API.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client
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Hybrid Analysis 1: Feed enabling

Following Marc Canter's words, I will start to call the client applications that incorporate Internet in some way hybrids. For me it was logic that modern clients should incorporate Internet. On my Client Checklist there were several points related to this. However as this Internet-enabling of clients might not be obvious to everyone, I will discuss the possibilities is several posts.

The first and most obvious example of hybridising, is to support iCal, RSS or Atom in client applications. Examples of MacOSX-X applications that do this are NetNewsWire, iPhoto, Democracy, iCal and iTunes. The basic idea is that the application can read RSS-files and incorporate the data in the RSS-file, as it was it's own. The use will no longer see the difference between local and internet MicroContent. The user can vie and manipulate the data as he wants.

The only difference between the mentioned applications is the supported MicroContent Types. NetNewsWire supports blog posts and in a very limited sense enclosures. iPhoto supports image enclosures in feeds. Democracy supports video enclosures in feeds. iCal supports events in iCal feeds. And finally iTunes supports audio and video enclosures in feeds.

One can find another feed type in Google Earth for locations. And there are probably more examples of other feed types.

Using these examples one can point to some features of a feed enabling. The user can or remove feeds in his Client. The Hybrid Client should regularly check the feed in order to check the availability of new Items. The user should have control of this feature. The user can not edit Items in a feed (other than making a copy).

One can extend this feed idea to any MicroContent Client. Think of recipes, bookmarks, etc.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client
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Puttings things in core

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client
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Disagreement discussion

Marc Canter reacted to my disagreement. And I am afraid we agree again.

Arnaud Leene disagrees with me - I disagree back. My gut tells me that Steve Gillmor is right. Office is so dead. So is any software that is susceptible to virus’, has to be paid for - up front - and not desigend to work on the web - is dead. There are - however - a new generation of hybrids - of course.

When I speak for myself, then indeed Office is dead. I only use it when I am forced to. However in the office, Office will still live for a long time. I an office environment a hosted solution is much more preferred. I think the Cost of Ownership will be much smaller. And then the pricing structuring can be different as well. Subscription of services is much more flexible and will really reflect actual usage. And so the costs can be much better managed, which is preferable in a business environment.

Where are we heading with viruses? I can not believe that services stay free of viruses. As soon as things are getting more complicated, scripting interfaces are added, etc, then one opens oneself to hacking. With many Internet services we just did not get that far yet.

I like however Marc's last bit: hybrids. I absolutely agree. At the moment we have two worlds: local and internet applications. Local applications run on the local platform and do not require an Internet connection. Internet applications run in a browser and require an Internet connection. Modern applications should be hybrids that incorporate Internet (or the Web) and take full use of the local operating system. I have to look into this. What kind of hybrids do we have at the moment? And what is the best way to go?

So, after some clarification we seem to agree again.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client
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Living in the web

Martin Lindner gives his personal feelings why he prefers services over applications. He wants to be out there, he does not want to be locked into his desktop.

I understand those feelings, I must say that I have the same ones. I want to be in contact as well. However I prefer applications over services, desktops over webtops. One of the main reasons for me is the better functionality of applications. I find services often annoying as they do not allow me to do certain things.

I do not think that I am locked in, getting all the news, remixing it and putting it out there again. I am using the browser less than before. I had to visit Martin's web-site in order to see his whole post. And often there are similar reasons to visit a web-site. The MicroContent is locked into a web-page. By reading and writing on the MicroContent level I have the feeling that I can be more efficient. I do not have to see all the fluff on a web-page, I do not want to see all that irrelevant context.

Anyway this is an interesting difference, which warrants some more analysis.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client
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RSS Readers

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client
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MicroWeb presentation

Categories/tags: articles • presentation
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Successful conference

As you might have noticed from the number of posts on this weblog, I got a lot of inspiration at the MicroLearning conference in Austria. I met a lot of interesting people, like Thomas Vanderwal, George Siemens, Norm Friesen, David Smith and others. A very nice group of people.

On day two I was pretty tired as I did a lot the two days before. I had to log off a bit and digest the experiences of the earlier days. I had to get the ideas out of my head on the weblog. My ideas are further fine-tuned and sharpened.

In short a very useful conference.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • presentation
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MicroLearning 2006 - presentations

Today I was very busy preparing my speeches and interviews for the MicroLearning conference. Yesterday I presided a workshop on Web 2.0. So pretty busy, but my part has ended now.

The workshop was pretty good. It made me realise again that I am on the bleeding edge. A lot of people in audience do not use Web 2.0 yet, no blogging, no rss, no microcontent. So that is good to realise.

In the presentations I tried to stay practical and show what MicroContent is in practice. And how one can manage and mash MicroContent Items in practice. And I got some ideas what we like to see in the future around MicroContent.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • presentation
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Desktop RIA’s

But having a highly specialized app - that runs on “your desktop” is also a good thing. It can always beat out a browser based experience.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • articles • client • general
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MicroContent presentation - new version

Categories/tags: articles • presentation
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MicroContent presentation

After re-reading my presentation on MicroContent, that I presented at the MicroLearning conference last year, I decided that I could do better. I can split my message now over two sessions, so I have more time to explain things. So I decided to devote the first session to the what of MicroContent and take more time explaining and pointing out things. I finished my first version now.

Categories/tags: articles • presentation
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MicroWeb braindump

For my presentation at MicroLearning 2006, I created my first braindump on the MicroWeb. You can find everything already on my blog, but is is very fragmented there. So it is nice to have a story line in this presentation. That is the nice thing of a conference, you are forced to create a story.

The goal of this story is to show the "how" of MicroContent. How will consumers use MicroContent in practice? What tools will they use to digest, create and publish MicroContent?

The coming week I will polish the presentation a bit, which will imply removing and adding some things. And I will create my presentation sheets.

Categories/tags: articles • presentation
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