Newsfeed (RSS) Readers

I have had a little time over the last few days to experiment with desktop newsfeed aggregators and readers. I have been using one for about a year and have no real complaints, but decided to see what else was out there.
Looking at the functionality of readers led me to some thoughts on what makes a satisfactory reader; for me the reader should have:
* the option of viewing in 2 or 3 panes (list of feeds, headlines, and content)
* importing of feeds, a library of existing feeds, add feeds easily
* the ability to organise feeds into folders (they almost all do this)
* a display filter to show e.g. 'last 7 days' or 'only unread messages'
* obvious icons/toolbar
* flexibility in setup (individual feed settings for how often updated, etc)
* ability to bookmark, highlight or flag individual stories for future reference
* ability to move some stories to a separate folder for future reference
* a 'watching' facility that will highlight stories as they arrive if they contain one of several words

I have settled on GreatNews for my new reader; I may change again but GreatNews meets all of the above criteria. What it doesn't have, and what may even be the reason for another change in a couple of months, is a button to 'Move to next unread message' - a very strange omission!

>>Technorati tags: RSS; newsfeeds
>>Posted in: iNG

Experiment in social tagging

I've been working with Wanabo while they have been working on improving their blog tagging - as originally implemented by me on December 14th. Now I have added a tag cloud to my website: IAL Web - the same one that appears at the top of the right-hand column, of the actual blog - and both link to posts in the blog: iNG.

The idea is not simply that this is an index to postings, but that readers of the blog can enhance the tags themselves, by adding tags to postings that will help them retrieve items in the future, or which they believe will help others. This is an experiment in social tagging, messy information, or social information management. Feel free to join in!

>>Technorati tags: Tagging; Blogging
>>Posted in: iNG

Christmas shopping costs more online

If you want to save money on your Christmas shopping, ditch the Amazon, eBay and online gift store accounts and start hoofing around your local shops. That is one of the findings of the 21st annual PNC Christmas Price Index at http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/pressrelease.htm

The index shows that the cost of Christmas for True Love - made famous by the song 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' - comes to a whopping USD 72,608 for all 364 items bought offline compared with an Internet shopping cart total of USD 123,846.62. The extra costs are mostly due to handling and shipping charges. The greatest differential was for Ten Lords a Leaping: USD 10,947 online compared with USD 4039.02 paid for their services using more traditional means of recruitment.

Overall the index has gone up by 6 per cent. Avian flu and energy prices are major contributory factors the report claims.

Jason Farradane Award goes to Michael Koenig

The Jason Farradane Award, sponsored by Kompass, was awarded to Michael Koenig at the Third Annual International Information Industry Awards Dinner, which took place at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on 30th November during the Online Information 2005 Conference.

The Jason Farradane Award is presented by UKeiG to an individual or a group of people in recognition of outstanding work in the information field. For only the third time, the Award was presented in recognition of a lifetime's work, specifically - as the citation stated - for innovative and significant contributions to the field of Information Science, particularly in the areas of Library and Information Services and Production and Knowledge Management. The winner, Michael Koenig is currently Dean of the College of Information and Computer Science at Long Island University - one of the first of the new breed of "I Schools", but his contribution spans both academe and the world of commercial practice, in the domains of pharmaceutical information services (Pfizer) and commercial data services (Swets, ISI, Tradenet).

The Jason Farradane Award is currently sponsored by Kompass, and as Michael Koenig was unable to attend the dinner, Rod Kain Information Sales Director for Kompass, presented the award to Gary Horrocks, Chair of UKeiG.

For more information on the Jason Farradane Award and UKeiG go to http://www.ukeig.org.uk/awards/farradane.html

Jux2 is back

Jux2 is back having been sold by its previous owner on eBay for over USD 100,000.

Jux2 is a meta search tool that runs your strategy through Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves and presents you with a combined list. Nothing unusual or innovative in that, but what is really neat is that you can also look at just the unique results found by each of the three engines. And for Firefox fans there is a plugin for the search box that adds Jux2 to your list of favourite tools.

Big Brother knows all about you

I was interested to read the lead story in the December Information World Review, 'Government set to transform info'. So interested that I have emailed them suggesting that they do a much longer, investigative piece. Especially, as I then noted a story in the Daily Telegraph, "New database to hold details on every child" ... so it starts!

It all sounds quite bland, especially as half the IWR article is about the digitising of old birth certificates, but the sharing of information is big issue, the subject of a consultation a couple of years ago by the Lord Chamberlain's Dept/Department of Constitutional Affairs, and of real concern with respect to data protection issues. The consultation process involved interested bodies (e.g. CILIP and the man and woman in the street), and we were told that our concerns would be noted but not necessarily acted upon!

The issue is whether we - the public - want to have our not necessarily correctly-keyed or stored information shared between departments. Should the NHS have access to police records? Or the police to medical records? Or should the social services and the passport office and the DVLC share? (Its hard enough getting a dentist appointment without being refused one because I have a parking ticket!) What if my record - as so often happens with credit-check information - contains a wrong post code, which happens to be that of a known child molester? Now this is no longer just an error in a medical record but the police beating at my door. You see what I mean?

The issue is that there should be checks in place that enable citizens to check the accuracy of data at no cost to themselves. And will this happen: No! In fact I doubt that even the most fundamental issue - the transparency of the system so that everyone knows (a) what information is held on them by whom and (b) with whom it is shared is in place.

>>Technorati tags: Data protection; UK Government
>>Posted in: iNG

Messy Information Aesthetics

I’ve been posting about messy information, so it was with some amusement that I came across a posting with ‘Information Aesthetics’ as the title! However, it refers to the design and layout imposed on information as it becomes tangible, and as such, does not relate to how information is made available and found. It did start me thinking…
The concept of messiness has to do with the unstructured and disorganised nature of much that is available on the Web – it is not indexed according to taxonomies and classification schemes, but in a messy way involving uncontrolled tagging by ‘amateurs’ or searching across the full text of documents, obviating the need for control and classification. Both approaches sacrifice precision for massive recall. Very messy! But very effective.
And nobody could say that the results offered by search engines are aesthetically pleasing. But if ‘messy’ is the heap of information leaves (rather than the structured tree of knowledge), search engines do impose some sort of post-hoc structure – a kind of tidiness or aesthetic.
It has been suggested by those that know (e.g. see the previous post in iNG) that the heap of leaves is going to become huge as all digitisation projects go ahead. I think we need some better ‘information aesthetics’ in the new generations of search engines.

>>Technorati tags: Social Information Management; tagging; Information Aesthetics
>>Posted in: iNG

Collaboration and Community

Nancy Garman, in the Information Today blog, suggests that if the new shape of knowledge is conversation through blogs and wikis, then we have to learn how to communicate. She makes this comment with reference to the “tech-savvy librarian bloggers” who successfully created an online community surrounding the Internet Librarian 2005 conference. There were blogs (including our own blog) at Online Information 2005, but they never coalesced into a community. Nancy also asked, “Are blogs collaborative?” - and it was probably their essentially mono-directional nature which prevented our little ‘outposts’ from getting together and becoming discursive. (Perhaps next year UKeiG will run a conference wiki.)

The problem is the old one of a lack of activists – even if hundreds of people read my blog, few will comment. There is no mechanism to get a really good debate going. So we may have the makings of a community – a conference community, a topic community, a community of practice, or even a profession-based community – but only a few members will be able to commune. Technorati may aggregate, but there is no ‘Conversati’ offering debate.

So… the difference between collaboration and conversation seems to be participation. And it may be that lack of participation comes down to technology.
Chris Armstrong (copy of post from iNG)

More on Awards

And on the subject of Awards...
Congratulations to UKeiG ex-Committee member and Chair of the Online Information Conference, Martin White on the Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Business Intelligence Service. Martin received the award at the Third Annual International Information Industry Awards Dinner last night at Royal Lancaster Hotel.

UKeiG Speaker gets Online Project Award

Steve Wood - a speaker at a recent UKeiG meeting on FOI was presented with the "Best implementation of a business blog" Award at the Third International Information Industry Awards Ceremony last night. This was held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, and hosted by Online Information 2005 and Information World Review. His blog is the UK FOIA blog, and his new (beta) wiki is at http://www.foi-directory.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Christine Baker

We enjoy it so much...

... that we are going to do it again! UKeiG will have a stand at the London Book Fair between the 5th and the 7th of March. So if you didn't come and see us at Online, come and visit us there! Our presence at the Book Fair will be linked to the e-content area, and will focus on e-books.
Chris Armstrong