In the case of platform control, Apple seems to be the best target of these discussions. It is however not a black/white discussion. I would argue that Apple is in effect one of the more open platforms. At the other end of the scale one can think of gaming platforms, such as the PS3, WII, Nintendo-3DS. And nobody complains of the lack of openness of the latter. The problem is that the iOS-platform reminds people of the PC (or Mac), which is (are) at the other end of the spectrum.
The Android-platform was poised to be an open platform. However Android reseted a development environment and many independent Android-platforms have been created. Each Android-platform has it’s own controlling corporation, which determines who can publish on their platform, how it works with platform upgrades etc. I did not follow all the details, but the Android-world seems to have become less open than iOS.
The degree of openness seems also related to the user experience offered and thus to the target user group. Consumer Electronics has always been a closed environment. For me, Apple succeeded in creating a fairly open consumer experience and thus offering high end computing to a much larger user group. Windows or MacOSX never succeeded at this. With all platforms allowing access to Internet-services and having a very large amount of apps, I am not much worried here.
I am much more worried about service control. There are multiple services which seem to control to much content and to many users. Facebook and Twitter come to mind here. Facebook (the mini-Internet) can be circumvented, which I did. I am not a Facebook user, so not a specialist. There are however Facebook-service which are reaching into the rest of the Internet. I think of the like-button, which give Facebook to much control of public appreciations. The same is true of the Google +1-button.
The control of Twitter is even more worrisome. A single provider that controls a worldwide notification network! Attempts by US congress to control users here clearly indicates that things need to open up here.
What I am missing is are attempts to standardise services in an IETF-way. We could use a set of standards on which we could base a like/+1 network. Or a client-server or server-server set of specifications on which we could base a Twitter-like network.
And a key ingredient of such a standardisation drive should be a common set of MicroContent-definitions, which would allow us the interchange, save, import, export, backup all kinds of MicroContent. Do not let a corporation control your MicroContent either.
]]>I agree with him that linking is essential. The (perma-)link is the basis of MicroContent as well. Dave Winer says that you would otherwise get closed data silos. He prefers to stay in the web. And I agree there
I wonder however whether the two (apps and web) are incompatible. I am not up to date with MicroContent in the newest (mobile) apps. However on my Mac, MicroContent applications are for me the way to consume data. It is my preferred way to follow the new, either through NetNewsWire for rss of YoruForuku for twitter. And naturally these contain browser-links, which open in my browser. For me the web-browser is an unfortunate in-between, I would rather go directly to the corresponding rss-item.
So it all depends how app-developers view this and whether they allow links, or not.
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At it’s heart Google Plus is a blog aggregator / reader, and a lousy one at that. I much prefer to read my blogs (i.e. RSS-feeds) in NetNewsWire. Google Plus uses the Combined View layout of NetNewsWire. It is a layout that I do not like, it is not efficient enough to my liking. I like to skim headlines and go from headline to headline quick.
But it is also the way people use Google Plus. Some write original posts and thus G+ becomes a blogging service. Others republish their posts from their blogs and it becomes just another venue. Others use it as a bookmarking service, where they post URL’s with (hopefully) a small comment. And yet others use it as a photo publishing service. And again other use it as a microblogging-service.
It is nice that G+ is so diverse, but your blogging service could have done the same. For me it becomes to much. I have to inefficiently wade through posts in order to find a gem. I prefer the short messages of Twitter, where I can quickly scan and decide whether I want to dive in. G+ forces me to see all.
The discussions of G+ are an interesting feature. Normally I do not engage quickly into a discussion, but on G+ I tend to react more often. I am not sure that I want to do that, time is short. When I read a blog in my newsreader, I hardly ever descend to the blog-webpage in order to react. In my Tweet-reader I react much more often with either replies and/or retweets. This makes a lower quality channel. And my blog(s) become a higher quality channel. And it is up to the reader to chose the quality level they want to follow.
I do the same when following people, I decide what part I want to see of them. Some I follow on twitter and other on their blogs. I also can decide on the nature and type of content I want to follow. A granularity that G+ does not give me.
What is left is the whole circle thing of G+. I do not see the value of it. I never really used it the last days. I do not use it to filter my stream. I either follow somebody or I don’t. The same goes for posting: I always post to public and I leave the decision up to the reader to decide whether he wants to see it.
And finally there are some fundamental things about G+ that I do not like. I want to own what I publish. Of everything that I write a copy stays on my machine and my backups. I publish myself on my own blogs. And I republish with some service providers. I want to get my data out of a service. And I want RSS-feeds so that I can decide how I consume the content.
Well, I will follow G+ for a while more, engage from time to time, follow some people in my RSS-reader and see whether things change.
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I sure agree with him that a lot is lacking.
]]>But let’s first look at the MicroContent in this service. I would like to call the blog-MicroContent, a blog-post. This post consists of a piece of text with a permalink. Note that there is no title for a post. One can add a photo/image, a video and/or an URL to a post. An URl is in addition extended with a title, a desription and an image. See this post as an example of this.
And that is about it. There exists a photofeed-page with photo’s of the people you subscribe to, but the photo’s do not appear as separate items with a permalink. There is potentially other MIcroConten, such as the photo’s, the attched links, personal profiles, comments, ratings (+1’s), network, etc.
As a MicroContent application/service it also lacks all kind of features. I could try to apply my client checklist to this service, but I already see that it would rate very low, so why bother?
So what leaves me to comment on are the aggregation features. From left to right on my screen. The stream-circle filter is nice if you have feed overload or want to focus what you read. Sparks: another feed directory? Chat: OK. In the middle with have the stream of posts of my subscriptions.
I like the comments in the stream, the ratings and reposts. But then I talk about the user interface. Strange that we still do not have an Internet standard, which can work which support this kind of aggregation possibilities. And finally on the right I see my subscription list, suggestions (very unuseful), hangout (videochat).
I guess the innovative feature is the user directory and management of circles. I am underwhelmed. What is wrong with the creation of folders? Or is the drag&drop; an invention? Or is it the wording? Circles sounds easier than folders.
In conclusion: I am underwhelmed. I do not see where the progress.
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There have been already many good articles explaining the iCloud and describing the differences between the Apple, Google and Amazon approach to the cloud. Check out my Delicious icloud tag to get started.
What I get out of the iCloud is the idea of a data-centered approach. Apple talks about documents, but you might also think of MicroContent data. This data is centrally stored in the Apple iCloud and pushed to any of your iDevices. Any changes to the data locally on an iDevice is uploaded and distributed between your registered iDevices. So from a user point of view you no longer have to worry where your data is, you just have it.
So far so good. This basic idea however leaves various questions open and we will see how these are filled in.
The first is how conflict resolution is solved. This happens when the same data has been changed on different devices. Which version is then the good one? The suggestion is that Apple will decide which version is the best one, the truthful one. So no pop-up windows where the user has to decide. And if you do not agree you can revert back to another version.
The iCloud is really an Apple realm. It only concerns the data for your iDevices. it is unclear how this will include a windows PC. As no synching with iTunes is necessary anymore, no backup is necessary neither, iTunes on a PC is no longer needed. Or will this be limited to audio, video and images only?
In a larger context one wonders whether there are possibilities that non-iDevices can be included in the iCloud. I would guess the answer is no. Getting things out the iCloud and into the iCloud will still be called exporting and importing and left to an iApp.
There is still some discussion whether Apple will add a web-interface to the iCloud. However the discussion seems to be linked to a MobileMe replacement service, which is a publishing question. What if you want to access your iCloud data on a non-iDevice through a web-browser?
The data in the iCloud will be mainly personal, it is all about your data and having that available to you in the easiest possible way. Would we like to synch that data with other clouds, which ones? The Google cloud? Undoubtedly services will appear that do this for you.
Finally what about publishing data for others. Will the iCloud offer web-hosting, just like MobileMe? And how transparent will this be? Will there be links with other services, like YouTube, Flickr, etc? Or will this be handled through the iApps? This integration can be interesting and it is where MicroContent can surface.
At the moment we just have to wait.
]]>Before moving to Internet services, let’s look at some regular services.
Public transportation, such as bus, train or plane transport can be seen as fundamental. Disallowing access to transport implies that one can not well function in a society. Not being able to go to work, hospital, etc. is surely a punishment.
For shopping services one can argue the same. Not being able to get your groceries will surely put you in trouble. And not being able to pay for your groceries as well, which brings us to payment services. If you deny a bank account to someone, the person can no longer receive his wages, pay for his bills or use a payment card in a shop. This surely denies the person a good participation in society. Therefore transaction and banking services should be seen as fundamental services.
This argument of fundamental services is well defended in the NY Times editorial. And surely not everyone agrees with this. However by now we see some financial services as essential and worthy of protection by governments. So clearly there is a discussion of fundamental services that must be protected.
However does there exist the concept of fundamental consumer services? Services where businesses can not deny access? In some countries Internet Access are seen as a fundamental right, which can not be denied to its citizens.
I wonder whether these fundamental services are a new concept? This might be due to the fact that parts of society are now dominated by businesses and they can determine who gets access. In the past we did not have those large businesses. I can think of the postal services, but usage of their services is (was) pretty anonymous. Nobody knew who put the stamp on the letter. With the electricity service things already become unclear. Can they deny service to persons that they do not like? I think not. They can only deny service to persons that do not pay and even that might be hard in some countries. The same is true for telecommunication services. Depending on the country the minimal service is that one can call 112 (911), so there is a view on a minimal fundamental service as well.
Internet has complicated these things even further. If you want to see Paypal as a fundamental service, you should see Internet Access as a fundamental service. In a few countries this has happened, although in others three strike laws seem to go in the other direction. It seems no services on top of Internet are seen as fundamental. As Internet progresses I guess such a discussion will be inevitable. These services will be the same as the classic ones (mail, payment). And even hosting might be seen as fundamental for press freedom.
There should be a discussion on fundamental right services. These are services that are defined and protected by law. If a business offers a service in this category, then businesses can not deny access to customers. Only judicial intervention can deny access.
Examples of such services are:
And probably there are more.
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Fortunately there are now many mapping solutions that can help here. I mainly use the Google Maps and Google Earth products. Google Maps is great for describing trips made by road. Google Maps allows you to fix a trip to a road. But to create trips by foot, I prefer to use Google Earth, as it usually offers more resolution.
Unfortunately the Google products are a bit limited. If I want to add waypoints, I have to add extra locations. I can not clamp these locations to the trip. And there are no options to add any metadata in a structured way. I assume that there is no format that does this.
Adding images to a trip is even more complicated. I would like to drag geocoded images into Google Earth and clamp them as special waypoints to a trip.
I am still looking around for other solutions to create Trips MicroContent, but it seems that Google Earth will be my main startpunt. I start with the creation of a folder, add the trip to this folder and points for photos, waypoints, etc. Then I export the folder as KMZ-file for usage elsewhere.
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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.
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I have been playing with other types of MicroContent as well:
And I probably missed some streams now. I will add them later;
And naturally all this information can be combined into a single Lifestream feed, by using Yahoo Pipes.
As you can see privacy is not a big issue with me, although there is still a lot of information that is still not shared with the world.
]]>In order to get an overview of possible applications, I had a look in the Home&Learning; category of the downloads section at Apple. And I had a look at the wine tag at iUseThis. I found the following applications:
There are several applications on the iPhoneOS that support wine tastings. Cor.kz looks interesting as it has integration with CellarTracker. I noticed wineSnob, OpenCellar, Drync. And there are many apps that help you to buy a wine.
In conclusion, there is no service/application/app combo that fits my bill. For the moment I continue with CellarTracker, Cor.kz and WineXT.
]]>My lifestream consists of blogs, tweets, bookmarks, pictures, wine tastings, book readings, movie/DVD viewings, music listenings, holiday trips, collections, recipes, social networks, applications (what did I forget?).
In order to log this, I use a combination of software and service solutions. I like to keep things to myself, i.e. on my computer, and there are things that I like to publish. I like to have access via internet, via multiple devices and via dedicated applications.
I like to be independent from services and applications. So any app or service should support import and export options. The same is true for publishing, so I self-publish as much as possible.
]]>I think it all started with the Address Book application. This standard address book already existed during the NeXT-period. This application allows a user to manage contact information about persons. For each person (or business) the application creates a card. These cards are stored in a data silo (AddressBook.data). This data silo is a closed one, i.e. I am not able to look into it, but through the AddressBook application. As other applications also like to use address information, Apple created an API in order to get access (and change) this data. So what one sees here is a closed data structure, which is only accessible through Apple created and authorised API’s. Note that in NeXTstep this silo was more open, i.e. one could see the individual cards as separate files.
With the introduction of MacOSX a more structured approach towards file organisation was chosen. We saw the introduction of standard folders for Pictures, Movies, Music and Documents. This approach is also inherited from NeXTstep, but has been extended to more file types. Naturally the corresponding application such as iTunes and iPhoto stored their data in these folders.
However there is no guarantee that users did indeed store their corresponding data in these folders. When starting iTunes for the first time, it asked the user if it should consolidate all the music files of the users. This implied that all the files iTunes could find would be copied into the iTunes music folders. And there is still a preference for making a copy of music files when importing. And iPhoto has taken a similar approach to images. In addition iTunes and iPhoto force a detailed folder structure.
In the beginning we only had open silo’s. Users could still access the individual files through the Finder. A drawback of this is that users can corrupt the database. So for iPhoto Apple closed this hole (I am not sure at what version of the app this happened). They hid the photo file structure in a package, which is not easily accessible. In the file browser a user will see just a single file for the entire library.
With the closing of the images folder structure a real data silo has been created. As images are no longer easy to access through the browser, another access method is required. For their applications, such as Pages, Apple introduced the Media Browser. Through this Media Browser window users can access the data silos of iPhoto and iTunes and the Movies folder.
Unfortunately this is only a limited access to the images and music. It could be extended to the whole pictures and music folders. Also the usage of this media browser approach seems to be limited to applications created by Apple. As a solution to this Karelia introduced the iMedia Browser. With this iMedia browser one can access the entire pictures and music folder.
The number of microcontent types which have a corresponding data silo is slowly growing. The iMedia Browser added the microcontent type links. This window pane maps the bookmark folders of various web browsers. Also iTunes added a whole series of subcategories for ‘music’ (audiobooks, movies, iTunes U, applications), which diluted the idea of the music folder. However with time the iTunes app enlarged the coverage of this data silo to other MicroContent types. I am not sure whether this is a good thing though.
In addition to these Apple data silo’s, we have also application specific silo’s. Thus an application such as MacGourmet has it’s own database for recipes, which is not sharable with other recipe applications.
With the advent of the iPhoneOs we see another closing step. No longer a file browser is available to the users. There are only application specific data silo’s. No longer the user can mess with the files. If an application would like to use another data silo, it has to go through Apple defined API’s. This access method might entail a privacy risk, which need to be closed. This security risk also exists under MacOSX, but seems less relevant because less application are installed.
It seems that Apple has created some other data silo’s, but it is unclear which without access to the developer tools. Hardcore users are able to access the folders and files on the iPhone. The usage and access to this folders is deemed illegal by Apple.
The iPad seems to extend the idea of data silo’s to any document type. The idea seems to be that each application has it’s own silo. Naturally the iPad knows the standard MicroContent types as pictures and music. But we also see YouTube Video’s and iBooks. This is a fairly logical extension. However they also use the idea for more generic document types, such as presentations. The application suite iWork for the iPad also supports a media browser, so there is a method to mix MicroContent types.
For users I guess this is all a good development. Things will become much easier. I hope however that an extra method, such as tags, of organising files will introduced. I have doubts whether the current approach is sufficient when there are lots of files (or should I say MicroContent Items?).
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I always wonder if it would be worthwhile to creat interface guidelines for MicroContent clients. Especially for the iPad these seems more and more relevant.
]]>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…
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This beckons the question of what is unwanted or illegal information and whether you can or should do something against it. What is illegal in one country is not illegal in another country. The ‘Right to be Forgotten’ exists in one country, but not in another (cf). And does this imply that this information is removed from archives as well? Or only by online access? Aren’t we rewriting/forging history then?
historic information is often unwanted, as it has repercussions for the present. Your new employer finds your kinky pictures on Facebook. Your present employer finds your CV on the Internet and fires you for disloyalty. And probably you are unable to prevent want is published on the Internet. So cleaning is just not possible. One needs to find another tactic.
The tactic I prefer is to take one’s reputation in one’s own hands. Create a blog, show who you are, get involved. Your information will drown any defamation present on the Internet. Make sure that the top 100 answers in Google are really about you and under your control. And hopefully people do not search any deeper.
And if you want to publish filth, use an alias that can not be tracked to you. This might need some education and is maybe a business opportunity.
But most of all, employers, journalists, governments, etc, must be educated on the use of data they find on the Internet and learn to put things in perspective. Or we will just end up with grey, boring people in important positions.
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The question is however the relation between MicroContent (the drops) and Google Wave. And I am inclined to concluded that there is no relation at all. The most important aspect of MicroContent, the permalink, seems to be missing in Google Wave. Google Waves is all about creating, sharing, editing and extending waves. These waves seems to be very large documents, which can be distributed to multiple readers and authors. It was not clear from me whether I could use parts of a wave in another one. This would imply referencibility and an important MicroContent aspect.
The other aspect is structure. Out of the box there does not seem to be any, although one can add it later on (example with forms in the video). However a piece of text can be split and be edited by multiple persons, so each piece of text could be seen as a piece of MicroContent. One can also add links, images and videos to the text to create rich text. The editing by multiple persons reminds of a Wiki, which did not have much to do with MicroContent either.
The examples of Twitter integration show that #googlewave can support MicroContent and add new levels to create mashups and threading. In order to be a good MicroContent environment also importing and exporting should be supported, which seems to be already partially done through the api’s. So for a final assessment we have to wait. It looks very interesting and can give a new idea to documents and wiki’s.
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Since a long time I am a user of Twitterific. It is a simple client that seemed a nice fit to Twitter. You get a small icon in the menu bar, which changes colour once a new tweet arrives. Clicking on that icon unhides a special window, with a sequential list of the latest tweets. Each tweet shows an icon, the name of the author and the tweet itself. Authors and url’s have a different colour and link to the Twitter-site. Each tweet can be acted upon, such as a reply tweet, etc. Twitterific also interacts with Growl, so that each new tweet is presented on the screen for a short time.
Twitterific is really a downsized MicroContent Client. The new Twitter clients however show that a real full-sized client for Twitter has its rightful place on the Mac.
The first Client is Tweetie. The first thing that stands out is the sidebar with four options. With this the user can select his timeline, reply, direct messages and search. Very nice if you want to zoom in. I think I will like the search option. C licking on a tag will create a new tab with a corresponding search. Thus the tabs will show your history. The same happens if you click on a @username. This client also supports multiple Twitter accounts. It is also very easy to post images.
And then there is Nambu, which brings Twitter in the real MicroContent Client age. This Client has a real sidebar (list view pane) with categories (Twitter, Links, Nambu, Search). The Links category shows all tweets with url’s that I have recieved and sent. The Nambu category seems to be related to a Nambu url shortener and picture uploader.
The search category has a standard list with the most used words in tweets (current/today/this week). I do not know how long ‘current’ is. But Susan Boyle is on top in all three trend periods. The most important category is naturally the Twitter category with standard subcategories: home, mentions, direct, sent, favorites, people and groups.
Tweets are shown in standard inverse time order with the user icon, twittername/full name, tweet time and the tweet itself. One can easily reply, retweet or private tweet. (and can I recognize other Nambu user tweets?). Nambu indicates which tweets are unread. As all tweets seemed too be stored locally, it is possible to delete all tweets, read tweets, set all as read, etc. It also easy to follow/unfollow. Very nice is the possibility to translate tweets easily. It did work well for japanes and korean tweets.
A tweet is parsed such that hashtags, links and users are found. Clicking on a hashtag creates a search list for that hashtag (sweet). Clicking on a username opens a new window with the tweets for that user. It is then easy to follow or block that user. Interestingly shortened urls are expanded, so that you can see where they point to.
The people category can show information of your social network (followers and following) on an image grid. Hovering over an icon shows the information on that person. Groups allows you to define a group of people from the ones you are following, so that you are no longer overwhelmed. This again shows feed. (I guess people should be moved to a separate category).
Nambu is a very interesting Twitter client. I will continue using it.
Nambu should work on its menu bar. That is now totally beyond logic. There is also a secondary tool bar. This tool bar is different for each list. I get however the impression that it could be part of the main toolbar.
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This is a great service if you want to get rid of disambiguation. each service offers a profile page. This is basically a page with links to your profiles elsewhere. Each service also offers badges with this info. I prefer the Retaggr badges here, nicer styled.
Find my profile on Profilactic here. Now I have to signup and checkout all these services.
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This is a very interesting application. I do not understand why they use the weird interface, let me at least select another, standard one.
I have a feeling that the standard way of finding files, the Finder, is slowly morphing into something else with all these addon’s and applications. Time for Apple to step forward here.
These services also call themselves identity aggregators, but I find them to fall short in this respect. By the way I am talking about Naymz and LookUpPage.
As a free service they do not offer much, one could better create a profile at LinkedIn or Xing.
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But a user should also create a good presence on the web. The key in all these services is having a unique name. If you do not have a unique name, create on through a unique middle name for instance. Also use unique usernames across the various social networks. And when publishing something: use your unique name/username, so that it can be found.
]]>A search for me gives the following results:
So all in all this service gives very good results. It is a bit geared towards the US. More social networks could be added.
Unfortunately if you search for someone who does not have a unique name, you are in trouble. There is no way to split the results into multiple persons.
]]>The service allows you to refine a query based on ages, locations and gender found. Refining by concepts found seemed to focus the web-results. But can we get rid of the irrelevant Intelius-results?
All in all, the service is just not good enough. It would like to see a more extended profile of a person. And I would be able to really zoom in and suppress erroneous results. It does not seem to work now.
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A search for a person leads to results in several categories:
The user can create an account on wieowie. This allows him to specify a social network like information profile. And this is shown in addition to the public search results. One can also add profile pages, which one might have on some social network sites. They could add more here, now it only supports linkin, schoolbank and hyves. There does not seem to any integration between search and profile. Seems a missed chance.
Also in this service there is no way to remove ambiguity for persons with a non-unique name.
]]>Search for myself does give good results. The pictures found are fairly correct, they are of me, published by me or my name appears on the web-page of the image (worst results). No email addresses of phone numbers of me or found, the service could improve here. There are on results from Amazon, which could be better as well (look in the books).
The weblinks are correct, although not always relevant. There should be a difference between profile pages and general web-pages. The blogs section is not very good. What is the difference with a generic web-page? And what is a biography-page? It does not give good results. I like the tag-cloud, although it could be better (the ‘tinyurl’ tag is now very large). A list of my profiles on social network is complete and shows some doubles. It should add other networks as well. No video’s can be found by me, nor my Twitter account. The list of documents found is correct
All in all this service could be smarter, it should use the usernames found on the web. I like the categorization of information found. Things however remain a black box. It is unclear where some information comes from, nor can one add other information sources. It should be an intelligent mix of information provided by me and found on the web.
A problem appears when you search for someone, who does not have a unique name. How should I zoom in?
]]>The results of a query are very US oriented, so it has limited appeal to me. Also here one finds integration with the Intelius-service.
Clicking on my name one can zoom in a bit further and see some (11) services, where I have registered. Also links to web-pages (6), where I am mentioned ar listed.
I tried to sign up for the service in order to correct some information, but never managed to get signed up. I gave up, a pity.
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The idea of whitepages has been pushed to include mobile phonenumbers and email-adresses. However it seems that this never caught on and the directories that used this remained limited.
In the US the idea of whitepages has been extended to include any public record. The Intelius service seems to have monopoly on this information, but much information is behind pay walls. The Intelius data is syndicated by many third parties and you see it on many sites. Interestingly each syndicator reveals something that others keep hidden.
Google also incorporates phonenumbers, but you have to use a keyword such as rphonebook:. And it only works for the US.
These are good solutions if one needs a phone number quickly, but remain a bit limited.
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So there must be better methods / services to search for my face. MicroContent search should come to the rescue here.
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For completeness I look at the position of my most important ramblings on Internet: my blog. For me my accounts on other services should follow, but I guess those are not important to everyone. I should add some obscure page and see where it appears.
For relevancy I just locate the first irrelevant result, i.e. a web-page where my name does not occur. There are many pages that do not offer interesting information on me, but I will not discuss those.
Google results:
One can repeat this with other search engines, but it does not change the overall picture. The main lesson is that it works very good, but do use quotation marks to indicated the entire name. I am lucky that I got a worldwide unique name, so there are very few irrelevant results. Irrelevant results arrive from changed pages and from spam sites, that inject names into the Google index.
However is this good enough? In this way you do not find my images, the music I listen to, my email addresses, telephone numbers, etc. I guess one could add specific keywords to get this information, but there are better solutions.
]]>So I want to do queries with for example: lastname=“leene” and firstname=“arnaud”. And that is where the problems begin. Search engines do not know the concepts of lastname and firstname. And even if they did know, the data is not encoded for these concepts. We are talking semantic search here.
I am still talking simple queries from the standpoint of a genealogical researcher. As a research I would like to add dates (birth, death, residence), places, family members, roles, etc, etc. Fortunately there are many genealogical services, where one can ask such queries. Unfortunately the search realm of these services is limited.
In the field of free text search there seems to be not much progress. Fortunately social network sites and MicroContent come (a bit) to the rescue. And it all centers on identity.
And one should judge the results of queries on their relevancy (what percentage of the results are relevant to the query?) and completeness (do the results include the answers that I need / expect?).
]]>This year I nosed around several social network services, such as LinkedIn, Hyves and Schoolbank. This provided me with a lot of new information.
It is getting more easier and easier to find information on persons. We are not here yet however. As this subject is related to semantic searching and MicroContent, I thought it worthwhile to write something about it.
]]>This application installs itself as a preference-pane, which seems second best location. The best would be an installation within iCal itself, but I guess iCal does not support these kind of extensions.
In the preference-pane the user can specify which of the calendars must be published (read and/or write access) and one can subscribe to published calendars on the network. It also allows for publishing and subscribing to Google calendars. Makes you wonder about interference with Calaboration.
And the preference pane allows you to reset the things, start afresh and resolve conflicts. Which shows that syncing remains a difficult business.
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Then one can create an event in either iCal or Google Calendar and the two calendars will be synchronised.
I do not know how well it works, but it made me thinking about replication, duplication and synchronisation of MicroContent. Should dive into this a bit.
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All I know that it is not available on MacOSX. It was available on NeXTSTEP, but got lost in the transition. It was mashing avant le lettre in some sense.
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The idea is great, but it is not yet robust enough. I was only able to get an workflow run twice. And some other activities are in the pipeline (I hope). The Dropipe application ended with an error message. It can be that the service is now overloaded due to its exposure on ReadWrite web. So I will come back to it later.
The documentation still needs a lot of work. It is totally unclear what some services do.
Bento is called a personal database system and can (and should) not be compared to a full fledged relational database application. And this is also the challenge for the developers: what functionality can be added without becoming to complex. I have the feeling that quite a lot can still be added without becoming to advanced. It should have not become more complex than one of Apple’s iApps.
In my first testcase I created a flat database, such as a collectioneur might use. In my case the collection consists op bottle caps. I have a version of this database online at Listphile. As you can see there, a record consists of a title, a description, an image, links, etc.
It might seem that I have a lot on comments on Bento (and that I am not happy with it). The contrary is true. It just inspires me and I see many growth directions. The list here are just some ideas that I would use right away. It can become more complete without being much more complex. It does not have to be as simple as iTunes, but can be complex as Keynote. Anyway, I put my money where my mouth is and acquired the application.
]]>Bento allows the user to create any MicroContent Type he likes. In Bento each MicroContent Type is called a library. The user can create as much types as he wants. Each Library consists of one or multiple fields. One can select from field types text, number, choice, textbox, media, time, date, duration, counting, rating, address, phone number, email address and URL. This shows the database origin of Bento. As nothing is preset, one can add any field, one can say that Bento supports Wild MicroContent.
The nice thing of Bento is that it can link to other MicroContent Types. These links are called Lists. Out of the box Bento recognizes File Lists, Message Lists, Address Lists, Event Lists and Task Lists. These Lists are by the way linked to the Finder, Mail, AddressBook and iCal applications. These fields are truly Lists as they can be linked to multiple Items.
Also nice is that one can export definitions of MicroContent Types, called Library Templates. So sharing of MicroContent definitions is thus easy for Bento users.
The main Bento screen is very straightforward and reminiscent of other MicroContent Clients. On the left one has the Libraries pane. Each MicroContent Type is indicated by booklike icon. The libraries such as Address Book, iCal Events and iCal Tasks are preset. For each Library it is possible to create handpicked and smart lists. Thus the small icon labelled ‘beer’ indicates a smart list from Capsules.
Below the libraries pane one can see a field pane. This pane allows to add and remove fields. The visibility of this field pane can be suppressed. Also the visibility of the entire library/field pane can be suppressed.
The top right pane is the standard Items pane in table format. One can drag columns around, set the sorting on a column. The nice thing of this implementation is that it works like a spreadsheet. And one can suppress the visibility of this pane.
This brings us to the view-pane. As expected this shows an individual Item. Each field is presented with its label. Note the Bookmarks and Tags Lists, which are presented as Item-panelets. Everything in Bento is editable. There is no separate edit-mode. Thus any field can be changed as needed. Some fields come with preset buttons, for external linking, etc. Below the view-pane one can see controls to add/delete/import/export/print Items.
Above the view-pane buttons allow to change forms or to change to items-pane. The layout of the view-pane is known as a form. And the user can define as many forms as he like. And this is another important feature of Bento. The user can design the view-pane form. Thus he can set which fields should appear on a form, where they should appear, etc. There is no separate design-mode either, anything can be changed, resized, etc. at will.
Naturally Bento can still be improved. I would like to seem integration with other applications, such as iPhoto, iTunes and iMovie. I would like to see some standard libraries for MicroContent Types such as bookmarks, blogs, recipes, etc. I would like to see support for tags as a field type.
Instead of the table format for the Items pane, I would like to see support other formats, such as a grid format for images. I have mixed feelings on the instant editability and designability. I would like to see some locking mechanisms to prevent errors.
The import and export facilities are reminiscent of a true database: csv and tab-delimited files. I miss XML support, such as RSS and OPML and a Internet publishing facility.
All in all a very good application for those who like to keep lists or have the need for a simple database. I guess I will be buy it.
So what does blip.fm add. Basically it just allows to add a microblog comment to each song that is played. I already record some of these things on various microblogs, so this does not add much.
So what is left, is the social component, the DJ. I wonder whether this adds something over last.fm. So I can’t be enthusiastic at the moment about this service.
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The Photo Browser Window shows the images that can be found in the iPhoto-database. The window is limited to a Lists-pane (at the top) and an Items-pane (at the bottom). The size of the window can be changed to view more or les images in the Items-pane.
The Lists-pane shows all Lists, handpicked and smart, Events, etc that are also found and defined in iPhoto (no Albums though). The Events-list even changes the content of the Items-pane to mimic iPhoto’s behaviour. Thus moving the mouse over an events image will present the images pertaining to that event.
And finally there is a search facility (title, description, keywords and rating) for quickly finding images. The window also supports videos, but these have to be in the iPhoto supported format.
The only thing that I miss is access to the Pictures folder and the image scaling.
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The Items-pane shows the bookmarks of a selected list in table format. The user can determine which fields must be shown. In addition to the bookmark fields, the user can also show the visit date, the visit count, the added date or the last visited date.
The most interesting part is the Lists-pane, as this is not totally compatible with other MicroContent Clients. The History-list is a folder with the recent browsing behaviour, so not really a bookmark thing. The Tags-List is really a group that contains preprogrammed smart folders for each tag. Each tag-folder contains the bookmarks that have been tagged as such. The All Bookmarks group is really the entire library of bookmarks. This group contains three other lists/groups: the Bookmarks Toolbar group, the Bookmarks Menu group and the Unsorted Bookmarks group. These three groups are fixed and one can not add other groups on this level.
When adding a bookmark one can chose on of these groups or any folder in these groups. One can also drag&drop bookmarks from one group to another. The Bookmarks Menu group has two predefined Smart Lists: Recently Bookmarked and Recent Tags. I assume that ‘recent’ means the last 10. These Lists can be d&d’d to other groups.
The Bookmarks Toolbar group has smart lists for Most Visited and Latest Headlines. It is again unclear what Most Visited means. Latest Headlines refer to Items in a RSS-feed. This seems to be part of the Live Bookmarks feature of Firefox.
All in all a pretty reasonable implementation of a MicroContent Client, but it is not match for WebNoteHappy. The tag-feature is nice, but the approach will break down with hundred of tags. I miss XBEL-support. And I can not create my own smart lists. And it is just to slow for many bookmarks.
On the other hand the integration with the browsers allows to create smart folders such as ‘most visited’. I do not like the split between Toolbar, Menu and the rest. In this way there is no entire library. I understand why it was done in this way, it seems simpler. The integration of the URI-bar with the bookmarks library is very nice. This allows to make very clever URL-suggestions and can indicate whether the URL has been bookmarked yet.
The user can create multiple ‘newspaper pages’, add feeds and assign a feed to a pane. The location of the panes and the format for each pane is set and can not be changed.
At this stage of the application I have mixed feelings. I appreciate the possibility to see multiple headline in one glance, so I can quickly scan news. Depending on how interesting a feed is I can increase of decrease the amount I see. So it should be much quicker scanning and reading. If there is something interesting I can drag it to a shelf for later reading.
I however miss some control. How can I see whether I read an article or not? Why can I not edit my RSS-URLS? My RSS-feed did not show anything, I was not able to figure out what went wrong. The import feeds from NetNewsWire is nice, but with hundreds of feeds imported shows that tthe current feed management solution is not the right one.
However the application shows an interesting new visual apporach to MicroContent. And one that I do not yet have fully my head around.
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And take your data out, do not trust services, replicate your data as much as possible, do it yourself.
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