ia/ - Weblogging

Technorati's new folksonomy

Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:59:32 -0800

Technorati engages in a bit of folksonomy with it's newly-launched tags.

Bloggers can place a link to the tags page, and Technorati will include it in its count.

A roadmap for enterprise weblog services

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 18:06:53 -0800

I recently presented a roadmap for providing enterprise information services related to weblogs (k-logs). This is in the realm of what I think Lou calls "Guerrilla IA" in his Enterprise Information Architecture talks. The presentation, given at Computers in Libraries, is aimed at Library/Information Services organizations in corporations, but is applicable elsewhere. It's really an untested discussion starter that proposes near term goals for supporting individuals doing bottom-up knowledge creation. It also discusses a mode of progress that aims at integration of many types of enterprise information in the long term. I'd be interested in getting feedback on these ideas, especially comments that point out weaknesses.

K-Collector v. 1.0

Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:29:19 -0800

evectors announces k-collector version 1.0, an RSS aggregator aimed at the enterprise market. If you haven't seen k-collector in action, it's worth checking out. The aggregator organizes weblog entries on four dimensions: what (subject/topic), who (as subject or author), where (events, geographic location) and when (date of publication). More about k-collector from their "About" page:

k-collector is an enterprise news aggregator that leverages the power of shared topics to present new ways of finding and combining the real knowledge in your organisation.

Weblogs are most commonly published by individuals and organised chronologically. This presents a challenge when considering weblogging in the context of business groups which might expect information to be organised in more meaningful categories. The k-collector architecture, and applications based upon it, deliver an interface targetted at business users.

The k-collector archicture combines clients for leading weblogging software with a server based aggregator and web application. WWWW is the first such application and is aimed at small business groups.

An author can associate posts with relevant topics such as project names, people, etc.. The server automatically shares each newly created topic with every other user allowing them to use those topics themselves. News topics are created in one of four intuitive categories: Who, What, When, and Where. The server then uses these categories and topics to provide an effective interface for navigating posts.

UPA NYC event: Making intranet weblog data usable

Fri, 19 Sep 2003 04:38:06 -0700

The presentation slides from my discussion on Blogging in Corporate America at the NYC UPA chapter meeting are available for downloading. I've also posted some rather short afterthoughts here.

Typepad Screenshots

Mon, 26 May 2003 11:20:52 -0700

The creators of the blogging application MoveableType are launching a hosted service called Typepad. There's now screenshots of the new UI, and it looks much cleaner than MoveableType's interface. Definitely a hotly contested race to see who can make blogging easy for the masses, with Blogger Pro being the other visible contender.

However much I like MoveableType though, I can't help thinking that Microsoft or AOL will be the one to take blogging mainstream.

K-Logging: Supporting KM with Weblogs

Mon, 21 Apr 2003 11:56:51 -0700

I wrote an article in Library Journal that may interest some ia/ readers. Here's the abstract from Ebsco:

Discusses a type of weblogging called knowledge
logging or k-logging. Information that can easily be put onto web sites; Organizations that can communicate knowledge easily with K-logs; Software that can be used for k-logging; Librarians who should provide content, share knowledge, and provide access.

Semantic search project for Moveable Type

Fri, 24 Jan 2003 12:34:14 -0800

From Ben and Mena

Maciej Ceglowski has built a prototype for a semantic search engine. To adapt it to function as a Movable Type plugin, he needs sample content that he can test against.

If successful, the search feature would let you do a keyword search, and get back relevant results even when there was no exact keyword match.
If you use Moveable Type, and you'd like to help out, send him some content.

Maciej is using latent semantic analysis to enable local search beyond keyword indexing. Sounds like an ambitious and exciting project.

Adaptive design for weblog software

Mon, 13 Jan 2003 12:37:36 -0800

Matt Webb's blog about adaptive and evolutionary design makes good reading for anyone interested in those concepts as they apply to software architecture and application development. Matt Jones is also linking to the blog.

I posted a short blog about the software ecology of Drupal on the Drop blog -- I've been spending a good deal of time talking to Drupal developers lately. I talk a lot about evolutionary design because I work in the the temple of Unix and C and the software ecology within my organization reflects that. I have learned to respect the wisdom of programmers that have spent decades using very elegant tools that have been refined over time. Webb's vision of the software ecology reflects the same -- small code components and an abstraction layer that are evolved slowly over time. The idea is that applications are developed separately to serve individual functions very well. The ecology is characterized by the slow evolution of software whose features remain shallow. The adaptability comes in the form of interoperability of individual applications across the software landscape.

I think it's good to reflect on this description of software development so that we understand, as contributers to the software selection process, what to consider when choosing software. Vendors of various content and document management solutions sell the concept of a platform that will serve as the panacea for your enterprise knowledge and content management and communication needs, but more important than the pitch is to understand how the platform and component pieces will allow for your solution to grow with your needs. As Gunnar has remarked in the Drupal discussion, the proof is in the pudding -- the pudding being the development team and I might add in the core software functionalities and solutions addressed by your tools.

Blog tool comparison table

Fri, 11 Oct 2002 14:56:40 -0700

This blog tool comparison table looks pretty useful, although it needs to update its MovableType data.