Library clips

Megite is getting into the related/recommendation game with their new discover engine.

As we all know megite is a memetracker, it tracks the hottest news and surrounds it with discussions and related links.

This is different to Technorati link search, which will only list sites that link to the site in question, plus it is up to the user to type in a URL, whereas megite will feed you the hottest URL’s of the day.

Then there is Sphere which allows you to enter a URL and it will display related items, but this again is up to the user to type in the URL.

This is why a memetracker is so great as it will tell you the hottest URL’s and you can even limit the news sources to your OPML subscription list, or even to one feed.

Now megite is offering the best of both worlds as it now allows a user to enter a URL or even a keyword and discover related links.

Here is the popular topic “community“.

Here are related links to my blog, the great thing is that I can limit this list of links to a topic.
So it not only discovers related links, but also topics.

When I entered a blog post URL, it didn’t discover topics (like an auto tag type of thing), only related links…a natural idea is to compare a hot URL on megite and compare it to the same URL in their Discover engine.

eg. Microsoft makes its biggest acquisition ever
megite - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=450
discover - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=450

technorati - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=450

blogpulse - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=450

sphere - http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=450

I do a lot of roundup posts as there is just too much to cover, but Buzka deserves a post of its own, ‘cause it’s kind of nifty and it’s local to me, being a Perth based company.

I found Buzka on TechCrunch via an authored post by Duncan Riley, who is Perth based, it’s great to have an insider representing our locality.

So what exactly is Buzka?

It’s social bookmarking, only you don’t tag your bookmarks, and it doesn’t look like del.icio.us for a change.

It’s more like a place to create and share your own private or public lists (called Spots) of anykind, usually on a topic, but you could use it to list a collection of:
- popular blog posts from your blog
- a blogroll
- your favourite podcasts or episodes
- your web office documents
- your favourite video clips
- etc…

Via the website or a bookmarklet you can add a bookmark and description to multiple Spots, your own and others (if you have been invited).

You get a user space, and each list you make has it’s own URL.

Here is a random user space, it’s divided into:
- Your own Spots
- Your contributed Spots
- Your Friends
- Groups
- Your comments
- People can leave you messages

So it’s basically “a social network for bookmarks collated in a list”, not sure why they have left tagging out of the design, this will come in handy to filter through lists in the future.

Here is a Spot on Perth Dining, notice on the left sidebar is the list of folders and bookmarks in this Spot, and the rest of the screen is a web view of the actual webpage.
I really like the idea of navigating web page collections from a sidebar, the first web page you will see at a Spot is the first bookmark.

You will notice that these bookmarks can also be organised into folders, kind of a list within a list, so within the Perth Dining Spot we have the sub-Spot of Big Night Out. At first I didn’t think this had a permalink, but if you right click on the name of the folder and open a new window, you get a dedicated page for a folder within a Spot, eg. Perth Dining > Cafes.
NOTE: Not sure if a single bookmark has it’s own permalink.

You can view the contents of a Spot a few different ways:
- Titles
- Titles with descriptions
- Thumbnails
- Headlines (not sure what this is?)

From a menu or links you can also jump to the about page of a Spot, leave and read comments, email a friend the Spot, and see what other Groups this Spot is shared.

Here is an example of a Group Spot, you will see:
- Spots that have been contributed to the group
- Group members
- the addition of a discussion forum

What a great idea for a simple Community of Practice, even better that a user is not restricted to a group, but can simply contribute their spot to a Group…the discussion forum is the group specific tool.

Really a group is a little more than a collection of Spots, or would Spots under a tag be more of a collection of Spots. I suppose a group is a moderated tag in a way, the group members decide what Spots are allowed in the Group, unlike an unmoderated tag which could get loaded within so many ambiguous and junk Spots.

My post on blog communities and Technorati community groups ponders on formal groups compared to tag dumping grounds.

I’ll be adding this post to my social list collection…hmm maybe my social collection post could be a Spot.

Another thing I noticed is that you can edit a Spot by drag ‘n dropping nodes in your Spot using an Outliner, or even create new folders…this could be an alternate view for a Spot, and even output to OPML.

Here’s my first Spot called Perth Web 2.0 services.

Since my Spot is a list of services, I’d like to create my own metadata like: review (point to blog posts that have reviewed this service), and features…maybe this type of content can be included in the description field.

See more more aussie web 2.0 stuff here.

Just listened to a great podcast (as always) from Social Media Today with Maggie Fox on Twitter for business use.

I’ve posted about the different ways some people are using Twitter, which the group in this podcast also covered, but with more of an enterprise perspective.

HEADLINES

eg. breaking news, feeds, links

ANNOUNCEMENT

As a new media to get communications to people straight away using SMS
eg. the recent High School killings in Virgina could of benefited with an SMS broadcast or swarm over email…same as a hurricane or any emergency that requires an immediacy of communication.
Same goes with an emergency in the enterprise, after all the enterprise is a world of its own.

NETWORK

In the podcast it was mentioned that people dismiss the idea of Tweets about what your doing eg. “eating chocolate icecream, got it all over my face”.

But Luis states that this is a point of social connection, and especially relevant if your network are your family and close friends. Personally I love sharing and hearing about these moments in life…we don’t have to be engaged in a conversation, we are getting briefings as if we are always together.

And of course there are the benefits of locations updates, although there are many other mobile web or SMS services geared to this feature.

How many times have I wanted to ring my brother when something funny happens to share the moment, I rarely do, and ringing is synchronous, whereas I’d like to just share those briefings as they happen.

When I do get round to ringing him I have lots of stuff I want to share but can’t recall, plus if I do the fun of the moment as passed anyway.
I could just SMS him as it happens, but what Twitter does is augment this into an SMS network, where whoever is plugged in is informed, post to one spot and it gets distibuted to people who want to know about you.

Check out musings on Twitter for an observational take on the ways or personas of Twitter.

Luis mentions that Twitter and blogging don’t clash, as their structure and form induce a different type of content and delivery. He mentions he looks at his Twitter feed before his blog feeds, because we can know what’s immediately happening.
Blogging is more authored published pieces, where as micro-blogging is spontaneous and brief and is delivered to you intimately (phone in your pocket).
Twitter also has the tendancy to be more personal than blogging (I suppose there a lots of blog diaries), and we try to get to know each other more with blogs with blog tag memes. So I think Twitter is just another unique piece in the web 2.0 pie that expresses who we are and assists us in our knowledge sharing and productivity…just like blogs,bookmarks, photo’s, videos, etc…

COMMUNAL

People at an event sharing a Twitter space; following this will help you netwok with people, find locations, basically know what’s going on according to attendees, you can be informed of happenings all over the place.
Imagine a big music event, friends could be sharing a Twitter space or just use it as the ususal network and be notified of stuff that’s happening, no need to talk, that’s committment, we just want to tell everyone where it’s at with one SMS.
NOTE: you could use a broadcast SMS, this is costly and is no different to email, we all know the richness of sharing content on a social network.

COMMENTATOR

Perfect for an event again, micro-blogging stuff as it happens, more intitmate than TV coverage at an awards ceremony.

GROUP

Similar to a communal Twitter space, and similar to your Twitter network, but more just a closed groups of members (your own little world), great for team communications, being connected on the road, etc…also see Loopnote, Jyngle, Swarm It and others.

BUSINESS USE

Apply the above scenarios to the enterprise; blogging is about announcing, communicating, sharing, productivity, there is lots about how this benefits the enterprise. Twitter is a micro-blogging network, so it’s a bit different has you can only share brief content, so it’s more about location, presence, status, updates…
I see this as very useful especially for business travel or for people who are never at their desk, or I suppose for geographically spread teams.

The mobile nature makes it more pervasive and immediate, I can use it in a cramped train as long as I can reach in my pocket for my phone, whether by SMS, mobile email or mobile web…its power is in connectivity, really our phones have become an extension of ourselves.

PRESENCE

How many times do you want to know where someone is, or how many times do you want to inform others about your status, or the latest business communication. Post once, many can tap in makes this information so easy to reach.

Twitter presence relies on you publishing a post about your status/presence, and others can pull it to themselves, so all you are doing is posting, you are not actually pushing it, people subscribe for it to be pushed to them.
Otherwise you can look at the mobile version to see the latest presence post of a work colleague.

But how can it be more like an IM presence, see Hictu which is an IM presence social network, which of late have also included micro-blogging.

Twitter presence is detailed as you are leaving a post, whereas a presence indicator can be a colour or a couple of words indicating your status…you are not posting but just clicking a setting. Others could be notified by SMS each time you change your indicator status, or just get on the mobile web as see your profile.
Both The Swarm and Talk-now have this idea, even the idea of a calendar social network, as a calendar also may signify presence or status.

What I’d like to see for a presence social network is:
- micro publishing and direct messages
- location (plazes)
- status indicator
- contacts
- calendar

Luis Suarez also has a post on Twitter for the enterprise, he has an inclusion of Q&A.

Related:
Identity triad : status, presence and content

ipolipo - most web calendars have public pages, and calendar sharing with people allows to schedule meetings without ping-ponging emails.
Well ipolipo allows this same benefit for the MS Outlook desktop client, what it does is create a web version of your calendar, this way it’s easy to schedule meetings with people outside your business.
NOTE: you don’t need ipolipo to share calendars or availability within the same company, it’s all part of Outlook.

Monitwitter - get a Twitter notification when your website goes down, basically “what is your website doing?” [via KS]

View.Do - yet another how-to video site

yourminis update - remix yourmini widgets

Bligets - social lists…not to be confused with Blidgets