Friday, November 30, 2007

Don't blame the dictionary it is like an 8-track of yesteryear

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Great Friday evening entertainment from the Blip.tv's 'TED Talks Channel" as Erin McKean a lexicographer who happens to be Chief Consulting Editor for American Dictionaries at Oxford University Press, redefines the dictionary in this 15 minute presentation.


Make fun of me for watching video on lexicography on a friday evening and i will pumble ya. Whatever... i am joining the Erin McKean fan club subscribing to Dictionary Evangelist and even her other blog 'A Dress A Day' (i need to start thinking about having a fun blog like this!).

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Tim Berners-Lee wants data portability

3 comments :
Via the Between the Lines Blog, a pointer to this short video clip of a question Robert Scoble asked of Berners-Lee (I am sure Robert will be posting additional video over at Podtech eventully). In it Berners-Lee clearly explains why users want control of their data and why service providers need to listen.

Dave Winer among many others are also calling for control of their data across the internet and one of the groups i am involved dataportability.org is making some traction in defining some of the standards for just that.

PS> boo on CNET for not allowing embeds of their videos .

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

But is the Google Intranet useful?

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Being a fan of intranets (how geeky does that sound?) i of course had to click through on on this "What the Google Intranet Looks like" article via Techmeme. A good "investigative" piece more so then an in depth look at how an intranet is used in an enterprise, but i guess it is always hard not to sensationalize the internal workings of Google.

I wonder however if 1 in 3 Google employees like the results of this study find the intranet “not useful” ?

If you want some decent case studies on Enterprise intranets IntranetBlog.com provides a good resource that gives you a peak into the intranets of multinational global companies. Many intranet managers are also on the 'talk' circuit sharing their pains and successes and i use tools like SlideShare to find examples of intranet case studies so i can see what companies in different sectors are up to.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Standardista –n. slang. One who supports web standards

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Earlier today i was alerted via Twitter that today was Blue Beanie Day, a self organized effort to show support for web standards and accessibility when Standardistas (people who support web standards) where encouraged to wear a Blue Beanie to show their support for accessible, semantic web content.

It seems that the event is in honor of Jeffrey Zeldman’s photo on the cover of his book, ”Designing with Web Standards”. Being a fan of online flash mobs and certainly a supporter of web standards i of course joined in at my earliest convenience.

The call to action however is a timely one and part of another 'movement' that is going on around 'Standardized Data Portability' that i am involved in via the dataportability.org group. The concept behind the call for a standard way to port ones' data is that "As users, our identity, photos, videos and other forms of personal data should be discoverable by, and shared between our chosen tools or vendors". Our data should be ours to share between services that we chose to share the data with and the group advocates an open standards stack for sharing and remixing of data.


On Read/WriteWeb today, Marshall Kirkpatrick acknowledging Blue Beannie day and providing his thoughts on standards also made mention of the efforts of dataportability.org . And over the last few weeks they are others beyond the current contributors, (Chris Saad, Ashley Angell, Paul Jones, Chris Messina,Ben Metcalfe, Daniela Barbosa (that of course would be me) , Phill Morle, Ian Forrester, Shashank Tripathi, Kristopher Tate, Paul Keen, Brian Suda,Emily Chang, Danny Ayers) who are also getting on board to call for the utilization of existing formats that have been identified as part of the standards stack that can and should be used together to create true open social applications.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Users Generate but eventually someone will have to play Editor

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Via the Bivings Report and Jeff Jarvis last month some thoughts on Editor 2.0 in the online news media business. The conversation was started as we see media sites starting to allow users to tag content and organizations like the Guardian are looking for people with experience in the value of metadata (job post is no longer up so good luck to the lucky chap!).

From Jarvis's post the position calls for:
Guardian Unlimited requires a keyword manager to look after the labelling of our content online to ensure that it is consistent with the needs of the reader and the editorial values of the Guardian and Observer. The role requires attention to the demands both of a considerable content archive and of a fast-moving news operation, and involves work across media; from text to cartoons, video to podcasts. It would suit either a journalist with a particular interest in archiving, or someone with a background in information science who possesses a keen editorial sense.

Media room Editors that are responsible for adding metadata to articles are nothing new-like the ones at The New York Times. As media sites begin allowing user generated tags it will certainly add immense value for their readers as well as for their own editorial staff since they can learn new terminology that their readers are using much quicker then the traditional methods. Media sites whose core business is to deliver news content however need a robust yet flexible standard taxonomy that drives the type of news that is being published. A combination of both types with 'Editor 2.0' editorial purview will allow a rich display of aboutness of the news content outside of the standard tags clouds and lists we are used to seeing when sites open up tagging to users and i am looking forward to seeing some of these implementations.

Interested in discussing a similar topic of Folksonomies and Taxonomies but focusing in the Enterprise space? Perhaps you can join us for an upcoming round table event.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Using Dapper for Dynamic Ad creation - Semantic Advertising

2 comments :
On a perfect foggy walk kinda day this afternoon i listened to the newest podcast episode of the Bungee Connect Developer Network. I got turned on to this podcast show last week when i listened in on the episode on the OAuth initiative, which included Chris Messina, Larry Halff and Eran Hammer-Lahav and so far have enjoyed all four podcasts i listened to.

One of the podcasts i listened to today was with Jon Aizen of Dapper.net. Dapper provides a no-fee tool for making almost any structured web site data accessible via a REST API. On my last review of Dapper when it was first launched, i mentioned that it needed some UI work and it looks like it certainly has advanced in the last year and a half so it is probably time for me to dig in again. Starting with this short 'how to' video it is obvious that the UI is more intuitive and i spent about 30minutes playing around this evening and was able to create a dap that i might be able to use for a project i am doing (more on that in another post!).

During the podcast Aizen goes through some of the uses of Dapper and provides a very good overview of what the service is all about for both users and publishers. However that wasn't really news to me- the New DapperAds Semantic Ad Technology however was. At about minute 24 of the podcast Aizen provides an example of the power of Semantic Ad Technology with an example of a online grocer, using Dapper to dynamically generate Ads on recipe sites. So when someone for example is looking at a pumpkin pie recipe on a recipe site, the online grocer can by having a dap associated with the ingredients dynamically create a shopping cart of all the ingredients needed for that recipe.

Although not as complicated as the online grocer example Aizen gives, this Screencast of a simple Dynamic Ad creation in which in a couple of click a gaming website can quickly embed Amazon chicklets based on the game reviews that each page does provides a good overview of what they are looking to offer.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Digg and the Wall Street Journal - both building a new audience base

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If you haven't read the disclaimer on this blog because you are reading through a reader i would like to remind you that:
The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my past, future or present employer.

This week i was pleasantly surprised to see the Digg and WSJ.com announcement. As of this week, 'DIGG THIS' buttons are available on WSJ articles whether they are free access or premium access articles. The coolest part -i think- is that if a premium WSJ.com subscriber Diggs a premium article Digg readers will then have free access to the article which is a nice start to getting the WSJ brand out there outside of their current user base).

Sure- it is a short term feature because soon the WSJ.com will have free access to all thanks to Murdoch but none the less a move in the right direction. Many a times when i tell Bloggers i work for Dow Jones- the "i would link to WSJ.com more often if there was no pay walls" comment shortly follows so i guess this could be a nice short term back channel. (note: although i work for DJ i am not in the Consumer Media Group that the WSJ falls under)

So why build a new audience- because the old boys network is retiring to Boise and the new boys network is key to future media success (unfortunately i am not joking about the boys part!)

According to Federated Media the Digg Audience is :
  • 94% male
  • 88% 18-39 years
  • 64% HHI above $75k
  • 52% IT professionals, developers or engineers
  • 26% managers or above
  • 39% publish their own blog

The WSJ.com online readership is:
  • Average age: 48 years
  • 63% male
Senior Executives
  • 54% of Online Journal subscribers are in Top Management positions at their companies
  • 24% of Online Journal subscribers function as CEOs or COOs at their companies

Financial Elite
  • The average household net worth of Online Journal subscribers is $1,596,000 (print $2,489,200)
  • 41% of Online Journal subscribers have financial responsibilities at their companies

Opinion Leaders
  • 45% of Online Journal subscribers have contacted a public official on an issue
  • 77% of Online Journal readers read commentary or opinion online Media and Marketing Professionals
Affluent Consumers
  • The average household income of Online Journal subscribers is $215,600 (print 253K)
  • 96% of Online Journal subscribers use the Internet to purchase products or services. Of those, 67% have spent $1,000 or more in the last year

Residential Property Buyers
  • 88% of Online Journal subscribers own their home. The average value of each home is $471,000
  • 36% of RealEstateJournal readers are planning or in the process of remodeling or conducting a home-improvement project. The average cost of current projects is $29,276

With this Digg partnership, WSJ is reaching out to a very engaged media consuming audience, many who will become the affluent demographic that the current WSJ caters to and the WSJ advertisers covet- something i have been saying for a while that the Brand needed to do.

Anyway, i just signed up for a Digg account, something i have been meaning to do for a LONG while- #1 so that female demographic starts going up :-) and #2 so if i want to make a blog reference to a premium article in the WSJ i now have a way.

While 'digging' an article i found the 'Appropriate topics' to tag articles a bit limiting (like for example an interesting article about "participatory media" that i freed up and there is no 'media' topic under entertainment) but i realize that Digg can't be everything for everyone (yet)!