I just can't believe it! Here's what happened in the last 30 minutes:
- I read this post about the launch of the open source alternative to Twitter called identi.ca
- I saw that identi.ca is only one open source service among others published by a (seemingly small) Canadian company called Contrôlez-Vous (Control Yourself), they also offer an open URL redirector ur1.ca and an OpenID identity provider certifi.ca, seemingly launching new exciting services every couple of weeks!
- I saw that these services implement a whole bunch of open technologies and standards I've never heard of - Laconica, OpenMicroBlogging, OAuth, Yadis
- I discovered a Free/Open Service Definition
I'm overwhelmed by all these good news. So, what's next?
P.S. I was lucky enough to have visited the sites before they went down - supposedly due to high traffic - but surely this inconvenience should be seen as a sigh of success!
Upd. 6 days later: Identi.ca is a for-profit company, probably going to seek investment soon. Well... nevermind.
Donnerstag, 3. Juli 2008
Donnerstag, 26. Juni 2008
Knowledge for everyone
I am a big fan of Nina Simon's Museum 2.0 blog. Almost every post there is an instant classic for me. It is based on thorough research, it is clearly written and it happens to bring up new ideas exactly at the very moment I need them. This time, I can only recommend to read this post about Yahoo's guidelines for web design, which are not only a great tool for everyone planning to start a new website but are also published under the Creative Commons license! The most interesting part of these guidelines is for me the "Reputation" library. It is definitely more helpful and up-to-date than the average book on user interaction. Use it and your users will be happy! :)
Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2008
Communitycamp Berlin
on November 1- 2 there will be an online-community-centered barcamp in Berlin, which I plan to take part in. It's a pity this camp is still so far in the future, because I am currently very concerned with related problems and it is not impossible that my interest will cease by November. :) So, here's one topic I would speak about at this camp if it were today:
The Russian blogs and how German blogs can learn from them
- for me the most prominent difference between Russian and German blogs is that Russian blogs get commented much more often
- this has to do with the circumstance that Russian blogging culture grew almost exclusively using one platform: the livejournal.com site, which in my opinion has some features that encourage commenting
- among these feature are: 1. an aggregator for new posts by your contacts, 2. a threaded view for comments, 3. a possibility to restrict access to some posts only to your contacts, and 4. Email notifications for new comments in your blog or answers to your comments in other blogs
- so, this system leads the user through the whole process of the conversation in a convenient way: you know you are able to restrict access for some sensitive or controversial topics, you actually read what your contacts write, and you are notified when they answer to your comment in their blog
- this has lead to a more commenting-encouraging netiquette among Russian bloggers, even on other platforms than livejournal
- so, how can one achieve a comparable commenting-friendly infrastructure in the much more decentralized German blogging culture?
- obviously, similar technical possibilities are needed
- what can be done here? RSS feeds used with OpenID to restrict access? how can threaded views and notification become more common in blogs? or do they already contradict the German blogging culture because they haven't been there from the beginning?
The Russian blogs and how German blogs can learn from them
- for me the most prominent difference between Russian and German blogs is that Russian blogs get commented much more often
- this has to do with the circumstance that Russian blogging culture grew almost exclusively using one platform: the livejournal.com site, which in my opinion has some features that encourage commenting
- among these feature are: 1. an aggregator for new posts by your contacts, 2. a threaded view for comments, 3. a possibility to restrict access to some posts only to your contacts, and 4. Email notifications for new comments in your blog or answers to your comments in other blogs
- so, this system leads the user through the whole process of the conversation in a convenient way: you know you are able to restrict access for some sensitive or controversial topics, you actually read what your contacts write, and you are notified when they answer to your comment in their blog
- this has lead to a more commenting-encouraging netiquette among Russian bloggers, even on other platforms than livejournal
- so, how can one achieve a comparable commenting-friendly infrastructure in the much more decentralized German blogging culture?
- obviously, similar technical possibilities are needed
- what can be done here? RSS feeds used with OpenID to restrict access? how can threaded views and notification become more common in blogs? or do they already contradict the German blogging culture because they haven't been there from the beginning?
Dienstag, 10. Juni 2008
A random thought
Why does a twitter-like service have to be separated from a usual blogging platform like livejournal.com, for example? I'm sure it would be extremely easy to just give the user two templates from which she can choose - a 160-character template for twittering and a full-sized template for blogging. Then, tweets could be either mixed up with blog posts for reading in a normal RSS reader or separated for genuine twittering.
Well, actually livejournal could benefit greatly if it were expandable through add-ons, like Firefox. Then, everyone who needs extra functionality could add whatever she likes - twittering, filtering out of posts with certain tags, and so on. But livejournal is owned by a company, and this company is unlikely to adopt add-ons because they surely hope to be able to sell this extra functionality someday.
Well, actually livejournal could benefit greatly if it were expandable through add-ons, like Firefox. Then, everyone who needs extra functionality could add whatever she likes - twittering, filtering out of posts with certain tags, and so on. But livejournal is owned by a company, and this company is unlikely to adopt add-ons because they surely hope to be able to sell this extra functionality someday.
Montag, 9. Juni 2008
My reading list
In the last few months I stumbled upon several interesting blogs which all try to approach the central topics of this blog in some way.
Digital Scholarship in the Humanities
http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/
- so far, my favorite posts here are Strategies for Promoting Social Scholarship and Obstacles to social scholarship
Stanford Open Source Lab
https://www.stanford.edu/group/opensource/cgi-bin/blog/
- they have some videos of workshops that have taken place at the lab. This is great, it is like visiting the workshop in person. No, it's even better because you can pause, rewind and fast forward the speaker.
News - Project Bamboo
http://projectbamboo.uchicago.edu/news/feed
This "News RSS feed" is neither especially interesting nor especially inspiring by itself, but I'd like to follow the development of this huge interdisciplinary and interinstitutional project which really seems to be able to change the face of the education one day (well, at least in the US, we'll have to wait for 20 years more in Europe, I guess..)
Well, that's it for today, more to follow.
Digital Scholarship in the Humanities
http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/
- so far, my favorite posts here are Strategies for Promoting Social Scholarship and Obstacles to social scholarship
Stanford Open Source Lab
https://www.stanford.edu/group/opensource/cgi-bin/blog/
- they have some videos of workshops that have taken place at the lab. This is great, it is like visiting the workshop in person. No, it's even better because you can pause, rewind and fast forward the speaker.
News - Project Bamboo
http://projectbamboo.uchicago.edu/news/feed
This "News RSS feed" is neither especially interesting nor especially inspiring by itself, but I'd like to follow the development of this huge interdisciplinary and interinstitutional project which really seems to be able to change the face of the education one day (well, at least in the US, we'll have to wait for 20 years more in Europe, I guess..)
Well, that's it for today, more to follow.
Hello World!
This is my first attempt at writing a blog centered on a single topic - Open Source, Open Access, Creative Commons, Social Networks and more. Well, these are actually more than one topic, but anyway, you get the idea. Also, this is my first attempt at writing a blog in English. (I've written a lot in Russian and German, though).
I hope this place to become both my personal archive concerning the development of my projects and a place where related topics are discussed. So, here's the first link in this blog: a discussion with Mike Linksvayer regarding my idea of using a creative Commons NonCommercial license for a social networking site:
http://forum.creativecommons.org/topic/8
I hope this place to become both my personal archive concerning the development of my projects and a place where related topics are discussed. So, here's the first link in this blog: a discussion with Mike Linksvayer regarding my idea of using a creative Commons NonCommercial license for a social networking site:
http://forum.creativecommons.org/topic/8
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)
