There are moments when the importance of events become clear. This morning is one of those momemnts. I’ve been listening to Adam Curry and the Daily Source Code since January of this year. And I’ve been listening to Gnomedex (courtesy of Chris Pirillo’s feed) every day of this week – except yesterday. I had to work at Arrowhead Staadium last night. We were doing the last fundraiser for my daughter’s AAU basketball team. So I missed Adam’s closing keynote. I was bummed. But my kids and their success are far more important than even the most monumental of technical achievements.
Well, I got up this morning and what did I find? DSC 200 captured Adam’s keynote. So I was able to hear the keynote even though I couldn’t catch Chris’ feed in real-time. Now that’s the value of podcasting. I can catch the important news/content w/o sacrificing the other more important things. I can have my cake and eat it too.
So as I’m listening to Adam kick off DSC 200 with a Sgt. Peppers mashup, I realized that I needed to stop the stream so that I could formulate a couple of the preceding sentences. And now that I look at what I’ve written, I need to clean up some of the punctuation – and spelling. So I’ve paused the recording and I’m typing away.
This is so reminiscent of what Adam does on his Source Code podcasts. You’ll hear his phone ring. He’ll tell the audience to wait a few minutes. Then in one second, he is back to talking. Obviously, Adam has stopped recording, had an hour-long coversation with someone else (or spent an intimate moment with his wife) and then he’s picked up where he left off. So broadcasts can be shifted in time at both ends. Both in production and in replay. Now this is the real value of podcasting.
But audio misses one important element: video. We don’t get to see what’s going on. Usually, that’s not very important to me. I’m legally blind (not totally blind). So whenever I go to conferences, I listen rather than watch. So I have attended Gnomedex in the same way that I would attend any other conference; I’ve heard everything I would normally hear.
But I have missed one key thing: Scoble is dancing to the mashup. Now that’s gotta be a vision. Umm, maybe it’s better that I didn’t see this! 😉
-CyclingRoo-

As we have all been suspecting, Microsoft is going to unleash a whole lot of things at Gnomedex. Yesterday, Microsoft released a new beta of its AntiSpyware software. I’ve installed it on all of my Windows systems. And it seems to be working great. But more software and more news will be upon us shortly. Robert has hinted that an “across-the-board” sweep of RSS and tagging functionality will be announced today.
I, for one, can’t wait. Many of you will quibble with Microsoft on matters of technical merit. And those quibbles might becomes anguished wails when it comes to Microsoft’s aggressiveness (usually at the expense of others). But few would argue with one simple fact: when Microosft gets on board with a particular technology, then that technology has received the virtual papal imprimatur. Up until now, Microsoft has been tacitly involved in both RSS and tagging. Microsoft has sat by while Apple has stormed many beaches (or will shortly with iTunes 4.9). With today’s announcments from Microsoft, I expect a whole lote of “cool tech” will become part of the mainstream.
Of course, much of my speculation is dependent upon the means by which these features will be distributed. If Microsoft offers RSS and tagging features as purchasable upgrades to exisitng products, then it will take the next PC purchase cycle (i.e., the next couple of years) to make these features ubiquitous. But if these features are integrated into existing versions (via service packs???) and available via Windows Update, then these capabilities will become ubiquitous in a very short time.
So the gauntlet is now thrown down. Which big company can bring cool new features to the forefront faster. WIll Microsoft bring RSS and tagging to the masses first or will Apple bring podcasting to the masses first. This should be an interesting lesson in channel management.
-CyclingRoo-

It’s official. The public beta of the new Technorati is now over; Technorati has been updated with a totally new look and feel. In his announcement, David Sifry notes that this “… has been primarily a user interface refresh and facelift.”
And what’s my opinion on the changes? Well, I like the facelift. The front page seems more inviting – especially with the goofy superhero motif. 😉 Of course, I’ll have to play with some of the new functionality to really make an informed assessment. But it does look like searching other tag-centric services (like Flikr, furl, and del.icio.us) has been improved.
And Technorati now supports watchlists. This is not a new thing for me as I get some of this functionality from my RSS reader (Sage). In addition to the functionality from Sage, I am really loving 24eyes. The 24eyes dashboard gives me a great “heads-up” view of the daily news. And it’s a hosted web site that I can access anywhere on any browser on any platform. So the new Technorati watchlist functionality is not immediately needed by this user. But for those who don’t have an RSS reader, the Technorati functionality should meet most of your needs.
-CyclingRoo-

When I was a young boy, I learned about all sorts of clouds. There are cirrus clouds and stratus clouds, cumulus clouds and nimbus clouds. Then there are the hybrids. There are cirrostratus, nimbostratus, stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.
Well, in the world of neologisms, there are tag clouds as well. And as noted before, I have decided to take up tagging as a passtime. With the aid of TagCloud, I have created several clouds that I can use to see what my favorite feeds are yakking (and tagging) about. I have created a cloud for my technical feeds and a separate cloud for my political feeds. With these clouds, I can quickly check and see what the “buzz” is with my favorite bloggers (and their readers).
I can see some incredible value for these kinds of things – especially for web researchers. I can quickly check the trends in the blogosphere and then use this to launch into additional quereis. In many ways, the tagging community is creating a very interesting “snap poll” for the Internet’s “card catalog” system. Of course, the success of such facilities is entirely dependent upon the adherence of the tagging populace. Success is based upon ample tagging. So folks who tag like mad could easily skew these tools.
For example, in checking out my “wonk” blog, the most tagged item is “Howard Dean” and not the conflict in Iraq. OK. This means that Howard made the buzz. But the value is simply as a quantitative marker to the number of times his name was used as a tag. The Republicans want to keep this guy “in view” because he’s such a loon. So all the conservative wonks are blogging about him. Hence, his rise in stature (or font size). It’s like an instant poll on how many people are talking about a subject – not their subjective feelings on the matter.
Again, there are some very interesting implications – especially for marketing. But this will only become important as more and more people begin to tag. That will happen when it gets the “cool” factor. That has happened. But it will also require the software to become much more accessible. Who knows? Maybe Microsoft will help us there. Again, I can’t wait to hear what Bill is going to annoucne at Gnomedex.
-CyclingRoo-

When I was a young boy, I learned about all sorts of clouds. There are cirrus clouds and stratus clouds, cumulus clouds and nimbus clouds. Then there are the hybrids. There are cirrostratus, nimbostratus, stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.

Well, in the world of neologisms, there are tag clouds as well. And as noted before, I have decided to take up tagging as a passtime. With the aid of TagCloud, I have created several clouds that I can use to see what my favorite feeds are yakking (and tagging) about. I have created a cloud for my technical feeds and a separate cloud for my political feeds. With these clouds, I can quickly check and see what the “buzz” is with my favorite bloggers (and their readers).

I can see some incredible value for these kinds of things – especially for web researchers. I can quickly check the trends in the blogosphere and then use this to launch into additional quereis. In many ways, the tagging community is creating a very interesting “snap poll” for the Internet’s “card catalog” system. Of course, the success of such facilities is entirely dependent upon the adherence of the tagging populace. Success is based upon ample tagging. So folks who tag like mad could easily skew these tools.

For example, in checking out my “wonk” blog, the most tagged item is “Howard Dean” and not the conflict in Iraq. OK. This means that Howard made the buzz. But the value is simply as a quantitative marker to the number of times his name was used as a tag. The Republicans want to keep this guy “in view” because he’s such a loon. So all the conservative wonks are blogging about him. Hence, his rise in stature (or font size). It’s like an instant poll on how many people are talking about a subject – not their subjective feelings on the matter.

Again, there are some very interesting implications – especially for marketing. But this will only become important as more and more people begin to tag. That will happen when it gets the “cool” factor. That has happened. But it will also require the software to become much more accessible. Who knows? Maybe Microsoft will help us there. Again, I can’t wait to hear what Bill is going to annoucne at Gnomedex.

-CyclingRoo-