Category definition

Trips MicroContent

A long time ago I started a blog with walks that I made. Unfortunately it was a lot of work to keep this blog updated, so nothing happened for 5 years. I moved my attention to Google Maps and started keeping a record there of trips by foot or by car. Initially this was for experimenting with maps, etc, but I realised that I could do more with it. So time to start rethinking the subject.

First: what are we talking about. I do not have a nice definition, but Trips MicroContent captures a sequential movement by a person, such that it can be repeated by another person. Sounds pretty abstract, but that makes it more interesting.

And this can be seen as MicroContent. It can be contained in a single file (KL for instance). And this file can be published on Internet, so it will get a permalink (an URI). It has a title, description, etc. In fact we could write up a XSD for it. Such a KML can be viewed in a local MicroContent client (Google Earth), uploaded to a MicroContent Service such as Google Maps. And there are many other services that accepts this file format.

Without being exhaustive a Trip MicroContent contains fields, such as a title, a description, transportation means used, participants to a trip, date executed, duration of trip and most important a sequential list of geographic locations. This list shows how the trip was executed. Some of these locations are special and are called waypoints. Such the begin- and endpoint is a waypoint. Also locations where the participants used directions to go another way are waypoints. If photos or videos are taken during a trip, then one could define these as waypoints. The possibilities seem limitless.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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Microcontent are NOT files

I always had the feeling that the iPhone was much more a MicroContent device than a regular PC. However I was not able to grasp why I felt this way. Thanks to this article by Dan Moren, I know now why: the iPhoen has abstracted away the idea of files. There is no longer a need for file browsers. We now only have MicroContent clients.

The iPad will extend this idea even further. Each file will be part of it’s own application. This is very similar to the idea of MicroContent. As you see I am reluctant to call this MicroContent as we are talking about large and complex content (presentations, spreadsheets or documents) if we talk about the iWork apps. One of the similarities are the visual aspect. Microcontent is visually easy to comprehend. Apple stresses always this visual aspect as well when they talk about presentations or spreadsheets.

I still have to ponder this a bit more…

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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Golden MicroContent Triad

I have been looking at the game consoles Wii, Playstation 3 and PSP lately. They all support MicroContent in some way. And then only a selected set of MicroContent Types: images, audio and video. I started calling these three types the Golden (MicroContent) Triad. These three types are what MicroContent is all about, but we never thought of them as MicroContent. I did not either. Possibly because we take them already for granted. I always used these three types in my definitions, but never put much emphasis on them. I believe now that I should look at MicroContent starting from the Golden Triad.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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QTsaver

Martin's post reminded me to have a look at QTsaver again. I think I never commented on it before. The main reason for that was that I did not know what to think of it.

QTsaver allows you to do free searches based on Yahoo and Google. It then throws up the sentences where the search queries occur. I like this way to present the results of a search query. It is much easier to find the sites that are interesting. And it is nice to have a list of quotes around a subject. But that is what I find the trouble of the results as well. It lacks the context. I rather see the whole article or even the web-page, than some quotes.

By the way QTsaver calls it self a "micro content search engine". In my formal definition these quotes are not MicroContent. But never mind the definition, it is a nice experiment to see what happens when we dig down into MicroContent Items.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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Focus is everything

Further pondering on the definition of MicroContent, I realised that I should refine it a bit. It is possible to take a very broad view of the definition, such that any file, including macrocontent, would fit. And when you start talking about PDF's, Video, Applications, etc. as MicroContent you know you took a wrong turn somewhere. I had already in my head that I took a wrong turn, but was not able to find that turn. I think I got a bit further now.

One turn is related around the divisibility of MicroContent. In my definition this characteristic states that one can not further divide a piece of MicroContent without losing the meaning of the MicroContent Item. The other turn revolves around the focus of MicroContent. In my definition MicroContent should have a clear focus, a single meaning.

Let's look at a large PDF-file, say 100 pages. Such a file might have focus, it might be a report around a well defined subject. However there are undoubtedly many subjects in such a large file, that one should talk about multi-focussed Content. In such a large file the conclusion is what it is all about. One should take that out of the PDF-file. This suggests that such a large file can be cut up into multiple Items. A conclusion is something that can be read and grasped in a short time-span. So the shortness of the message of MicroContent is of importance.

Look at a HTML-file. As it is a file many characteristics of my MicroContent definition do fit. However it goes wrong again with the focus and divisibility. Often a web-page contains many MicroContent Items, which dilutes the focus. As it contains multiple Items, it can be cut up, one can divide it.

A total different beast is an application that can be spread around with an appcast. An application has focus as it serves a single purpose and it can not be divided up into parts. However an application has no message, it is not content, it can not convey something to the viewer.

In this way we can go through various files to see whether it is MicroContent. Seeing whether there is focus is key, the message should be small, one should be bale to get the message in a short time-span, say 5 minutes. Anything above is no longer MicroContent. Thus a 2-page PDF might be MicroContent, whereas a 20-page PDF no longer fits. The same might be true for a blog-item, which spans many pages and which no longer has a clear message.

I rather have a clear demarcation between Macro- and MicroContent, but that is unrealistic. There is a grey line. And only through vague words like focus and meaning one can try to put an Item on either side of line. And in case of doubt we should not be fundamentalistic and say that any file has the potential to be MicroContent.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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MicroContent or not?

That is the question.

I had the opportunity to present a definition of MicroContent at the beginning of the conference. And some people referred back to me when they were talking about the Content they are using with.

Thomas Grüebler and Magnus Rembold from Germany were busy creating an education environment for theatre students. In this environment they used video's of three types (theory, discussion, practice). And the environment forced the users to watch the video's in a certain order. First the theory video, then the discussion video and then the practice video. And naturally this implied also video sequences. In the discussion video that followed the theory video, that theory should be discussed. And similar for the practice video's.

Naturally they called these video's MicroContent, as I did in definition talk. However it is not that clear cut. Their video's are not self-contained. Although one can watch the video, the full meaning is not transmitted. Pieces are lacking. These video's are samples, fragments. But interestingly they offered multiple tracks through these fragments in order to highlight certain points f the theory.

The company led by Daniel Purlich from France is busy creating small pieces of content for teaching purposes, which they call knowledge pills. One could compare these pills with a long WikiPedia page, although they seemed to have cut it into multiple pages. And this pills were specifically created for education purposes and have therefor a much different structure than a WikiPedia page.

Naturally he likened these pills to MicroContent. I did not yet check it out, but I do not think I would call these MicroContent. The fact that the content is divided over multiple web-pages, no longer makes them self-contained. It will be difficult to exchange and share pills. But one could call that a format problem. If they would have selected the PDF-format, they could sell their pills through the iTunes DocumentStore. Or start a PDF-casting feed.

The other thing is they structure. When they talk about structure, they mean the way the pill is written. One should first have an intro, then the theory, then examples, etc, etc. This is what I usually do not mean by structure. It has for instance no use to offer a search into the intro field only. Whereas in structured content, search into separate fields might be essential. So not all structure is MicroContent structure. Anyway if they add useful metadata (and especially tags) to their knowledge pills, I will be the first to call it MicroContent.

The lesson for me is that I should be more clear about what structure means in the usage of a MicroContent Item. And it is easy to mistake samples/quotes/fragments for MicroContent.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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MicroContent cloud

When doing my presentation on MicroContent usage and management, I realised that Thomas Vanderwal's infocloud maps well on how I describes the various Lists with a MicroContent Client.

In a MicroContent Client you see various Lists popping up:

• Local Lists - these are lists like the library and any pre-programmed or user-defined List;
• Connected Lists - these are connected devices in the broadest sense of the word, such as a CD that is my computer or an iPod that is connected;
• Shared Lists - these are lists that can be found on the local network. That can be music of colleagues, images on other families computers or music of people in the audience;
• Remote Lists - these are lists that are found on the Internet, such as feeds or the MusicStore;

This seems to map reasonably well on the infocloud. However what I present here is a technical viewpoint, it shows how we use various devices. It is the way we are familiar with the world. The infocloud shows that there is another viewpoint or axis as well. I would like to call it the 'degree of closeness'.

The personal infocloud would then map on Local and Connected Lists. But if we have multiple computers or a music library in our network, we are talking about Shared Lists, but which are personal. And one should include this to Remote Lists as well. If I have a wishlist on amazon, create other MicroContent on Internet and pull that in via RSS, I should talk about the personal cloud as well.

One can see something similar with the local infocloud. If I understand Vanderwel's definition well, then I should talk here about resources that I know, people I know. One can find these back in Shared Lists, when we accidentally connect on a local network. These are the RSS-feeds that I explicitly add to my feedreader. I wonder whether I should add the feeds that I get from my newspaper and television station should be in here as well. Those two are familiar to me, so are in a sense local. Also Apple's MusicStore will fall in this category.

The global infocloud then maps on my Remote Lists. We are talking here about resources that I do not know (yet). Any search that I do will fall in this category. However the fact that I know Google or Pubsub to do search, makes them familiar and might be part of my local infocloud;

Another way to defined the personal, local and global is the familiarity with the MicroContent Items. In the personal cloud I know the Items that are there. In the local cloud, I know the lists, but I am as yet unaware of the items they contain. And in the global cloud I do not even know the lists.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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MicroContent and context

Jeff Jarvis raises the interesting question whether content can live without context. This is not only relevant for content, such as books, but also for MicroContent. My definition of MicroContent is that is does not need context. I should add to this sentence "to be understood". The idea of MicroContent is that it can be read, used, created and exchanged without any context needed.

But naturally as soon as you link to a MicroContent Item, add an Item to your playlist, find an Item, etc, you already have created or used context. But that is not part of the MicroContent Item itself. It seems that people need this context. That is what the web and thus also the MicroWeb is about. So I guess I agree with him, without context no (Micro-)Content. The pointer in your head to the book on your shelf is already context.

[Inspiration Jeff Jarvis]

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition • general
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MicroContent Client Checklist v0.8

I realised that I need to have a checklist for evaluating MicroContent Clients. In fact I already work with such a checklist for my MicroContent Client article, but it was a bit hard to use. So I have here a first go at such a checklist. By the way, the checklist is geared towards clients running MacOSX, but I assume that it can be readily translated to other platforms.

I divided the checklist in several categories. And each category might be divided into subcategories. Each category is defined by a question. This should allow to quickly check a client. For an extended explication of each Check, see my MicroContent Client article.

• MicroContent (10) - to what degree does the client support MicroContent Items?
  • Structure - does an Item contain structure, i.e. multiple fields?
  • Multiplicity - are multiple structures supported?
  • Flexibility - can the user extend the structure?
  • MicroWeb - can links be made to other (external) Items?
  • Merged - does an item consist of user and externally supplied information?
  • Pick-list Fields - does an Item have pick-list Fields?
  • Title - does a MicroContent Item have a title?
  • Description - does a MicroContent Item contain a description?
  • Tags - does a MicroContent Item contain tags?
  • Rating - are ratings supported?
• Interface (10) - does the client have the characteristic layout?
• View-pane - is there a View-pane?
• View-pane styles - are multiple styles and/or templates for the View-pane supported?
• View-pane Window - can one see an Item in a separate (full screen) window?
• Items-pane - is there an Items-pane?
• Items-pane Views - does the Items-pane support multiple views (tabular, thumbs, calendar)?
• Items-pane Sorting - does the Items-pane support sorting on specific fields?
• Items-pane Fields - can one set the mapping between columns and fields of the Items-pane?
• Lists-pane - is there a Lists-pane?
• Browser-pane - is there a Browser-pane?
• Pane layout change - can the interface be set in multiple pane layouts?
• Item functions (8) - functions for managing individual Items.
  • View - can the item be viewed?
  • Create - can one create a new Item?
  • Edit - can a user edit fields of an Item
  • Mark - Can an Item be marked?
  • Search - Is there structured search?
  • Persistence - can one set the persistence of an Item?
  • Delete - can an Item be deleted?
  • Download - can one specify the downloading (enclosures) of an Item?
• List functions (15)
  • Local - are there Lists where the Items are stored locally?
  • Connected - are there Lists where the Items are stored on connected Devices?
  • Shared - are there shared Lists where the Items are stored on the local network?
  • Remote - are there Remote Lists, where the Items are found on Internet?
  • Handpicked - are there Handpicked Lists?
  • Smart - are there Smart Lists?
  • Recommendations - are there Lists whose Items depend on logic defined by the Client?
  • List Metadata - is their metadata for each List?
  • Directories - Are there Item directories?
  • Add - can the user add a List?
  • Edit - can the user edit a List?
  • Show - can the show the Items on the List in a continuous format?
  • Refresh - can a user refresh a Remote List?
  • Remove
  - can a user delete an Item from the List?
  • Delete - can the user delete a List?
• Groups (8) does the Client support Groups?
  • Local - are local Groups supported?
  • Connected - are connected Groups supported?
  • Shared - are shared Groups supported?
  • Remote - are Remote Groups supported?
  • Directories - are Directories supported?
  • Add - can the user add a Group?
  • Edit - can a user edit a Group?
  • Delete - can a user delete a Group?
• Import (6) - does the Client allow for importing Items?
  • Classic - can one import from tab-delimited or csv files?
  • Standard - does the client support standards for importing?
  • Proprietary - is there a proprietary format for importing?
  • Application - can one import from other applications that contain the same MicroContent type?
  • Bookmarklet - does the Client come with a bookmarklet?
  • Drag&drop - is drag&drop importing supported?
• Export (13) - does the client allow for exporting Items?
  • Classic - can one export to tab-delimited or csv files?
  • Standard - can one export to a standard (if available) file format?
  • Proprietary - is there a proprietary format for exporting?
  • HTML - can one export to HTML files?
  • Print - can one print an Item?
  • Feed - can one publish in a feed-format?
  • Local - can one export locally?
  • Connected - can one export to connected devices such as the iPod?
  • Shared - can one publish the library on the local network?
  • Remote: .Mac - can one publish to .Mac?
  • Remote: FTP - can one publish to FTP-sites?
  • Remote: RPC - can one publish through a RPC interface?
  • Drag&drop - is drag&drop local exporting supported?
• MacOSX (11) - is the client a good MacOSX application?
  • Look&Feel - does the application has a standard (Cocoa-like) look&feel?
  • Menu - does the application support the standard Menu?
  • Toolbar - does the client support a Toolbar?
  • Alt-click - does the client support the various clicks in the interface?
  • Ctrl-click - does the client support ctrl-click for context sensitive menu's?
  • Drag&drop - does the client support drag&drop in the interface?
  • Services - does the client offer a function in the Services menu?
  • Dock - does the client support application specific (non-standard) dock functions?
  • Spotlight - does the application support Spotlight searching?
  • Dashboard - does the client have an accompanying widget?
  • AppleScript - does the client support AppleScript?

Note that this list can also be used as a rating system. Each subcategory scores 1 point. Thus a Client may get 81 points.

Categories/tags: MicroContent • client • definition
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MicroContent Lists

I have been thinking about Lists lately. I started a separate Tiddler in my MicroContentWiki article. I am not sure I use the right word for it. I did see however many other words for this, so I standardised my terminology on this word.

Other words that I have found are Playlists (iTunes), Weblogs (MarsEdit), Albums (iPhoto), groups, collections, stacks, groups, folders, bags, sets, etc. But in the end these words all point to the same concept: multiple MicroContent Items that belong together for some reason.

A complicating aspect is that now sometimes Lists are also called a MicroContent Item in their own right. I do not agree with that approach. This however implies that there is need to enumerate the possible Lists and the reason for creating Lists in the first place. And that must be more than just saying that there exist ordered and unordered lists (as in HTML).

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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Consolidating

Categories/tags: MicroContent • definition
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WikiPedia on MicroContent

Stephan Mosel created an entry on MicroContent in WikiPedia. I think it is to early to do this, maybe in 5 years time the definition is stable enough. See also the definition on web 2.0. So now you have to fill it Stephan.

Categories/tags: definition , microcontent; definition;
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MicroContent domain

I had a talk with Seb Pacquet about all the aspects that are relevant to MicroContent if you want to cover everything. I realised that I might also use the tags on this blog to describe that domain. I notice that I am building up a tree with multiple branches.

• information branch - the first branch describes the information contained in MicroContent Items. This branch defines the various MicroContent types and the meaning of the types. This implies thus also the meaning of each field of a MicroContent type. And I guess that the definition of MicroContent itself also falls in this branch. Related tags are: definition, type, review, blog, etc;
• invocation branch - this branch deals with the users of MicroContent. It describes the necessary processes, protocols and tools. Related tags are: services, clients, netnewswire, etc.
• provisioning branch - this branch is about the creation and publishing process of MicroContent Items. It is about how the how author creates Items, how and where the Items get published. Related tags are: blogsystems, formats, structuredblogging, rss, xhtml, clients, ecto, etc.
• development branch - this branch is about developing new MicroContent types, Related tags are xsd, etc.

I have to go through my tag-cloud in order to see whether I can map all my tags to this domain tree. Probably one can set-up other trees at well, but I have the idea that this tree is able to cover everything. The last three branches have sub-branches whose order is determined by the life-cycles of those branches.

Categories/tags: definition
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Expanding MicroContent

During the MicroLearning conference Sebastian Fiedler wondered whether my definition of MicroContent was also applicable to physical types of MicroContent. I had no idea, I guessed it did. The only way to find out is to look at physical MicroContent and check it against the attributes. For this experiment I used a collection of post-it notes, which were clustered on a window after a brainstorm session. Each post-it note contains a single brainstorm idea.
 
It will be clear that each post-it note is a MicroContent Item and that the window on which the post-it note are put, is the MacroContent container. The main field of a post-it note is what a viewer sees. Something can be written on front and even back of the note. This image is the main field. The ordering of the Items on the window is the design of the container. In my definition a MicroContent Item will have the following attributes: small, self-contained, addressable, structured, flexibility and single. I will go through each of them.
 

• small - a post-it note is certainly small, even if one tried to put a lot of text on it. There just not a lot of space to write on. And in the case of brainstorm ideas, they are also focussed;
• self-contained - the post-it notes are also self-contained. It is easy to put them in another place on the window. That will not change there meaning;
• addressable - the idea of this attribute is that one should be able to find an Item back. It might be better to call this attribute referable. A post-it not is certainly referable. For a human it very easy to pick out a specific Item. Each post-it note just looks differently. One only would get into trouble when two post-it notes are exactly the same, but then exchanging these Items does not matter;
• structured - the structure of post-it note is very simple, it is just one field: the image of the note. There are however some possibilities to add structure. One could use different coloured notes and/or different shaped notes. One could also divide a note in multiple areas and put specific content in each area. Each area would the work as a different field to a human viewer;
• flexibility - a post-it note does not have much flexibility in the changing of it’s structure. The only thing I can come up with is changing the shape of the note, by cutting pieces of it;
• single - this attribute is about reusability of the Item. Reusability is mostly a digital attribute as copying data is very easy. However in this case one can easily take a post-it note of the window and re-use it in another MacroContent container. This will unfortunately change the original container;

It looks as if the the MicroContent definitions are transferable to meat-space. Only the re-use attribute can be strange. However I did not define this attribute as copy-ability, so it does not break the definition. I am not sure how far this transferability can be stretched, but it shows that also MicroContent has a history in the physical world.

Categories/tags: definition , microcontent; definition;
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MicroContent definition thoughts

Stephan Mosel google’d around for definitions on MicroContent. He says that defining MicroContent is not very hard. I still have mixed feelings about the definitions (including mine). The definition still does not convey what MicroContent all can be. So I reverted to defining MicroContent by example. Also because I think a lot of people have a to narrow view of what MicroContent can be.
 
I am still looking for the attributes of MicroContent. At the moment I have the following list:

• small - read micro. This is still a troublesome attribute, as MicroContent items seems to grow and grow and can become pretty large. But it is good to focus on smallness. MicroContent can be small and that is worth to note in itself;
• self-contained - this attribute I like much better. It means that MicroContent can live on its own. It does not need to have context. I am not sure whether I exclude an MicroContent types by this, such as Discussion Forum Items. In a Discussion Forum has a strong thread between each Item in a discussion;
• addressable - I think that this one is important. This is Marc Canter’s demand. Each piece of MicroContent must have a unique permaUri. That allows for syndication in all kind of forms. This implies that MicroContent can be autonomous;
• structured - MicroContent should have structure. This can be extremely minimal (title, permaUri, description), but ideally more fields are defined;
• flexibility - MicroContent should not be rigid in it’s structure. The user should be able to add fields at will, or fallback to a minimal set. Flexibility also implies that there shouldn’t be any rigid schema’s underlying any MicroContent type. It should be like OPML, but with a good reference to a dictionary;
• single - this attribute I am not sure about. I believe that each MicroContent item should have it’s own file (or resource). There seems to be a trend to embed multiple MicroContent items in a single piece of MacroContent. If you see the number of different MicroContent items (and types) people add to their blog-page, it has become a petri-dish for all kinds of MicroContent. It will become harder and harder to extract the MicroContent item you want. I am afraid this will hamper the creation of the MicroWeb;
• computer data - I reference this in my definition, so I should include it here as well: we talk about computer readable data;

This list seems to imply that I need to update my definition.
 
Notice that I evaded the data/metadata dilemma. What is data for one is metadata for another and vice-versa. I get the impression that there is a grey zone between the two. I rather use the word metadata in the way that I learned it: it defines the fields and format of a MicroContent type.

Categories/tags: definition , microcontent; definition
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