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Category general
General discussion and comment on MicroContent news around the blogosphere.
10 Mar 2007
[Inspiration Loic LeMeur]
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05 Jan 2007
2007 Wishes
The first week of January is traditionally a week for predictions (widgets, microformats, etc). Most of these predictions are nothing but wishes for the immediate future. So I thought to add some of my thoughts where I would like to see some progress.
- Microformats - I like to see some more progress here. It seems a bit slow going at the moment. I did not see any impact on my personal interaction with Internet. So I start to wonder whether there will be any benefits at all for the end-user. It will take a while;
- RSS - is still going strong and getting better with mRSS. Like to see better adoption though. I still have to visit web-sites for viewing video's, whereas I would like to view them either in a News-browser or a media browser;
- Publishing - MicroContent from the computer onto the net is still a pain. I like approaches such as dot.tunes to publish audio on the Internet. This idea should be extended to other MicroContent Types as well;
- Integration - I like to see improved integration between the local system and the publishing services. One should be able to create a MicroContent Item on a PC and then automatically publish with a service provider. WebnoteHappy does this very well for bookmarks and integrates with del.icio.us. It is a bit different from the publishing approach, but works well;
- Widgets - These should be on this list although I have mixed feelings about them. They are all about mashing MicroContent from multiple sources. Widget break the silo's. But they are only a start. One should be able to make a division between hosting an publishing. I would like to control my own silo, do my own hosting. Then I can federate the data to whom I want: the publishing. Widgets are about the publishing part of this equation;
- Living room - I am starting to get interested in MicroContent in the living room. At first this will be mainly video and audio. I would like to see MicroContent on my PC accessible from the living room. People have been working for ages on this, but there was no adoption. I blame this on the hardware in the living room. Where are the Internet enabled televisions? It seems that the consumer electronics industry does not see it as a priority. But with Youtube and other IPTV initiatives this might change. The Living room should open up to the world;
- Identity - Also a subject that is very slowly evolving. Hope to see some progress here. This is for single sign-on and portability of my social profile;
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19 Oct 2006
MicroLearning 2007
Stephan Mosel sent me an invitation for the MicroLearning 2007 conference through OpenBC. This great conference should be publish in a Microformat as well. Thus MicroLearning 2007 will be held on 21-22 june 2007 in Innsbruck Austria
If you have a microformat enabled feed or web-page reader, you can pick it up.
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19 Sep 2006
MicroContent divide
Martin Linder reports his visit to the Alt-C conference. He notices a divide between MicroContent users and non-users. Nothing new here. We already noticed this at the last Microlearning conference. The question is whether this is worrisome or not.
I do not think so. There always will be an avant-garde that is trying out new things. Some things will stick others will not. The things that will slowly be adopted by the main stream. I guess we see this now with blogs. Just see the stats from Technorati.
And then there is a difference between lurkers and contributors. Some only view MicroContent created by others. Nothing new here either. Just calculate how much blog items you see per day and many you create yourself. The same is true for podcasts, images, videos, etc.
The more MicroContent Types there will be, the larger the chance that there is just that MicroContent Type that you like to contribute yourself. Whether that is a blog item, a puzzle or a knitting pattern.
Naturally the threshold for creating MicroContent must be as low as possible. Creating images with digital cameras or a phone is a first step. Getting the images then onto the Internet is a next step. Moblogging makes this already easy, but it should be even easier. The same is true for videos and audio. The advantage of images and videos is that automatically a lot of metadata has been added (still waiting for the geographic locations). The user has to add only a little information by himself, such as the title. Any other MicroContent Type requires more effort from the user and thus makes the threshold higher. One should adapt to the activities that the user already knows. Thus adding RSS to a Mail application might be a good idea.
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17 Aou 2006
Hybrid Analysis 2: Presentation
The second thing that I noticed with hybrid client applications is that they use HTML in order to display the entire item or a single field of the Item. This has two advantages: styling and linking. Styling is that the user can change the display style by just changing the style sheet that is used. And more adventurous users might create their own styles. These styles make use of elements defined by the application developer, which might refer to multiple fields of a MicroContent Item. The usage of HTML also allows the author of an Item to add certain style elements, such as tables. But most importantly it allows for the addition of URL's, Javascript, etc. Thus the Client behaves just like a browser, but only shows a single MicroContent Item. and through the usage of links one can go from a MicroContent Item to a web-page.
The poster child example is NetNewswire. This application allows the user to specify it's own styles, but more importantly links. This is great if one wants to view YouTube videos inside the RSS-browser.
Another example is MacGourmet, which allows a user to manage recipes. Although this application is missing the linking to Internet stuff, it adds an interesting twist. The application allows the user to create links between recipes in the database. The application thus supports a form of the MicroWeb: links between individual MicroContent Items.
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10 Aou 2006
Filemaker not
Intex Publishing created several applications for managing collections and other records. In principe very interesting as they could be MicroContent applications. However after downloading and trying them, I was very disappointed. The interfaces are very Un-Mac like and I was not able to figure out how some features worked. I banned these apps from my system. I expected Filemaker based apps to be better.
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10 Aou 2006
Desktop apps are dead?
According to Marc Canter:
“But Chris” I asked. “Desktop based OSes are completely dead! How many of those 4,200 WWDC Apple developers are making any money off of being Mac developers?” “Dude - its all up in the cloud nowadays - nobody is gonna tie their app or service into a specific Mac desktop OS!”
I *totally* disagree. If I just look at MicroContent Management, the relevant desktop apps are much much better than any comparable web-service in terms of functionality offered. And with further integration of these apps with Internet through API's, the desktop apps are only getting better. And even more progress can be made to the desktop app world, keeping it ahead of the web. And this is an opportunity for app developers. There is still much to, which is not yet done by Apple. But it requires more work than Yet Another Web2.0 App.
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08 Aou 2006
MicroContent look at Leopard
Unless you have been hiding, you will have noticed that WWDC of Apple is on and that Steve Jobs gave his keynote on Leopard. As Mac-follower I tracked the keynote on Macrumors and noticed some MicroContent related stuff.
MicroContent layer
Apple is moving (consciously?) to a MicroContent layer. This is already the case for Images, Audio and Video. Keynote for instance has the ability to add pictures, audio or video from the iPhoto, iTunes library or specific folders through a browser windowlet. This windowlet is also available in non-Apple applications such as Sandvox. And Karelia added a third MicroContent Type (bookmarks) to this windowlet in Sandvox. These bookmarks are pulled from Safari. As I use WebnoteHappy to manage my bookmarks, I have to import these into Safari. With Leopard Apple seems to add yet another MicroContent Type to this layer: todo's. Leopard Mail allows the user to create todo's, which then also turn up in iCal. And other applications can also contribute to this todo database and I guess can also read from this database. Thus yet another MicroContent Type for this layer.
Systemwide Creation
There shouldn't be just one application to create a specific MicroContent Type, but multiple. And these multiple applications should be able to contribute to the MicroContent layer, so that all Items are available to any application. This is not yet the case. The best way to fill this layer is by adding Item to folders such as /Pictures, /Movies and /Music. Unfortunately after that one has to import the Items into iTunes and iPhoto for better management of this MicroContent. With Leopard Mail a new way will be introduced. Just select a piece of text in a note (their example), click on the ToDo button and a new todo is created. Then change the due date, iCal category and priority of the new todo. They say that this feature will be available to any app that wants to use it. I think I would like to have this for any other MicroContent Type. Select a date to create a, select a URL to create a bookmark, select an ISBN-number to create a review, etc.
Systemwide Mashing
With the addition of stationary to Leopard Mail, Apple has introduced mashing to this app. When a user creates a new mail item, he can select a stationary to go with it. A stationary can be seen as a mashup format. In the video example on Apple's web-page this format consists of a title field, a text field and three image fields. The user can fill these fields through the image browser and by typing. For each mashup format the user can switch styles in order to change the layout of the mashup. I wonder whether this approach can be extended to other applications as well and thus introduce a system-wide mashup feature. And i expect that these mashups will not be limited to just text and images.
Mail Client confusion
With Leopard Mail Apple will add two other MicroContent Types to the Mail client. They have added ToDo's and Notes. And probably they changed it even more with stationary: any MicroContent Type can be added as stationary. At least when this feature is open for third parties. Notes are just pieces of text that a user can create. By adding these to Mail, Apple says that these Notes can be accessed from anywhere. I assume that these are then sent to your home address, in order to have them go through the POP-server. So that makes them some kind of special mail. ToDo's are however really a different MicroContent Type that has been added to the application. The Items-pane has special columns (priority, due date) that correspond to this MicroContent Type. I am not sure why these ToDo's have been added to this application. The only reason that I can think of, is that Mail is an important source for todo's. And to make things even more complicated, Apple has added RSS to Leopard Mail. One can subscribe to RSS-feeds in the Mail app. So a user gets even more choice for following the news. I no longer know whether I should call this a Mail Application though.
Widgets Galore
And finally the introduction of DashCode allows an end-user to create his own widgets. The widgets can tap MicroContent from rss, photocasts or ipods. And I assume that any other MicroContent Type can be added later by developers. Especially interesting is the clipping widget that takes a web-page as source and extracts a specific MicroContent Item. This allows a user to follow a part of a web-page and thus De-mashing a web-page. I wonder how that works.
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26 Jui 2006
The Lifelog Pod
KDDI allows a user to log any event in his live. I assume that we will see more and more of this. We will log anything in our life. Waiting for a 24/7 videolog of my life, tagged and geotagged.[Inspiration Jim Downing @ Smart Mobs]
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17 Jui 2006
Social Network Portability
Marc Canter discusses some issues on social network portability
Moving her links, photos, blog posts, etc. is not the issue. That’s easy. She clearly owns all that stuff - lock, stock and barrel. She move it anywhere she wishes - with no ramifications on anybody else. [NOTE: We’ll cerainly want to give her control over exactly what can move - where.]
But when she moves her list of friends (and in a related issue - her Groups) to SNS-B - she needs to bring along the emails of those friends - or else they’re really not ‘there’.
On one hand - we want to move our friends with us - on the other - they deserve the right to say - “NO - don’t move me.”
What do you think?
Well, I agree that this is a very heavy issue. It seems that the moving the simple MicroContent, such as links, photos, etc is not difficult. I guess there are probably some issues, but they are easy compared to the MicroWeb issues: the links between all the MicroContent Items. The message here is to host your MicroContent on an open hosting provider. And maybe you should not mix a hosting with a social network provider.
I see a conflict between the concepts of social network and a service. A social network service seems to be a closed thing and I wonder it can really be open. My friends are in my local address book and some have an identity at a a social service. So if I want to know what they are up to within a social (network) club, I visit that club. In the case that I no longer want to be a member of a club, I cancel my membership. I surely would like my friends to go along and I will send them an invite. But to move all my conversations within the old club with me sounds odd. Why did you not converse outside the (old) club? What was the benefit of the old club in the first place? So use your normal mail service if you want to carry out conversations.
I guess you should publish your public network in your FOAF-file at a FOAF-hosting service. Any social network service should be able read (and update?) that external FOAF-file. Thus the FOAF-file can grow to something that is independent of any network.
And email should be seen as simple MicroContent. In the case you used a private email service, you should be able to move it to another email service. This has some interesting consequences for email addresses, but that is where the FOAF-network should be able to do the translations. And you can only move the emails that you have authored. So the interesting situation might arise that your email discussions are fragmented over multiple private (Social Network) email services. So I guess I am saying that I am against private email services and that they should open up and use the open public system.
Probably I am thing to simple. I am just very critical of Social Network Services.
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10 Jui 2006
Prefab and the Blog Template
Thomas Vanderwal compares housing prefab with web-sites prefab. I agree with him that prefab reduces the cost, in terms of money, time spent and required knowledge, of creating a web-site. I am not really fond of prefab, but it has some advantages. And with the coming of Sandvox, I dives into prefab as well.
It seems that web-sites designs are going for the same floor-plan. The two columnar layout seems to be the most favourite. The three column design seems to have a come back due to the widescreens. A single column design is not very widespread. In the two column design one sees a major and a minor column. The major column can appear at the right or left part of the screen.
The major column contains the actual MicroContent Items, such as a blog-item, a photo, a video, etc. The prefab designer has control over the number of Items per page and the order of the Items. The number of possible designs seem to be limited to the type of MicroContent. I differentiate between a tabular design, with one Item above the other, a rectangular grid design, for images or events, and a geographic location design, for Items with longitude and latitude. From a prefab standpoint it seems that there is not much freedom here. The MicroContent Items determine the possibilities.
The minor column contains indices, blog-rolls, links, etc. In Sandvox these are called pagelets, but they are also called widgets. It is in this space where most of the action is. However the action is with the rectangular area of the widget. Which widgets are visible and their order is set by the designer. It is like deciding what kind of rooms you want in your house.
And finally there is the visual aspect of the web-page. Although many blog looks very similar, this more due to a lack of choice in the blogging-system catalogue of designs, than a real lack of choice. An application such as Sandvox comes with 32 designs, Blogger has some 31 designs, etc. And there are many more out there, but that puts more burden on the designer, he has to dive into CSS.
So one indeed sees a drive to prefab. And with the definition of more and more MicroContent Types this will increase. Not only the layout of a web-page will be standardised, but also each building block. Fortunately this standardisation of building blocks will improved the visual aspect. With standard building blocks and thus standard tags, we will be able to choose from many more designs.
And I am not sure it will look like prefab anymore. Just have a look at all the designs at the CSS Zen Garden. I think we can go well beyond a prefab look.
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08 Jui 2006
Remix and Remixability
Lev Manovich discusses some cultural and historical aspects of remixing. He stresses that remixing is nothing new, but it is the way that cultures evolve. Only the quantity of remixing is changing now. And that is basicly due to the tools.
A very nice overview. I like the idea that remixing allows the creation of new paths for content, where it was previously fixed into set paths. The idea that "content must not be locked into the design in order to make remixing easier", is nice.
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11 Juin 2006
Physical permalinks
I talked with Roger Fischer of Kaywa about the QR codes he has been playing with. Basically the Q-codes are two-dimensional bar-codes. These bar-codes can contain various-kineds of data, such as an URL. Using a mobile reader, such as a mobile phone, one can extract the data and do something with. Thanks to three prominent dots in the code, the recognition process is much more easy than other codes. Roger showed various examples from Japan, where it seems heavily in use.
This approach would allow us add URL's to any physical object, by adding this QR-code. One can see this barcode as a format. The question is more what one should encode in it.
- Physical Permalink - this could should be some unique ID, which refers to an object in the physical world. A sticker with a QR-code should be placed on that physical object. And when we blog about that physical object, then we should include the same QR-code. I am not sure what should be encoded in the code, but surely there will be some ideas out there. One could see blog items about physical objects as reviews;
- Internet Permalink - the QR-code that I added to this blog-post is in fact the permalink of this blog-post. So if you print out this blog-post and forget to add the URL to the post, it will still be available. This might be useful when you start mashing with your scissors. When you always keep the QR-code with snippet that you are mashing, then you can always get back;
- Address Card - in practice the QR-code will be mostly be use as Address Card. The URL contained in the code will refer to the company web-site. The URL could also point to a product-page, a campaign-page or whatever.
The code that I used initially turned out to be wrong, the app required a serial number before I worked. There is however a QR-code generator on the Net available, which created the image I show here.
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10 Juin 2006
What is MicroLearning?
Martin Lindner showed a quote of me from several years back, in which I said that I do not know what MicroLearning is. Time has changed a lot since, so now I have a better answer. I would say "a MicroContent based mind-change".
I am now pretty well able to explain the word MicroContent. At the conference some people talked about learning as a product. Learning is not a product, but a service. And the serviced object is the learner. In services some change should happen, there should be a difference between before and after. In learning this is the state-of mind. If the service is well delivered, the message in the MicroContent Item is now in the mind of the person, so the state of the person's mind changed. And depending on the message this can be a small or large change.
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09 Juin 2006
MicroContent Ownership.
In the discussion yesterday the ownership of MicroContent came up. Why should we give / store our data with Yahoo, Google, etc? I just saw that Marc Canter also includes MySpace in this list. But many sources can be added to this list.
One part is to be sure that your MicroContent is not locked in. You should be able to get it out or even delete it (datalibre). And not all providers allow you to do that. And you might think of other problems with these mammoth service providers.
So I think we should go to a distributed solution, to an edge solution. This might be using your own hosting provider, which is separate from our ISP. And it is up to Aggregator providers to take it all in and create some new with interesting value.