Category Archives: Knowledge Management

The RSS Advisory Board has completed their task and are ready to have everyone take a look at their latest revised standard.
bq.It also has been through a thorough and open review process that included 11 revisions to the draft and 13 revisions to a companion document still under development, the RSS Profile. I proposed today that the RSS Advisory Board adopt the draft as version 2.0.9 of the RSS 2.0 specification. – Rogers Cadenhead It certainly has been a long time in coming. But hopefully a properly structured and thoroughly discussed RSS specification will be just what RSS needs to become useful again. In the meantime, though, I am going to stick with Atom.

Just two years ago, many people heard a word for the first time.
bq.At the core is an activity they call podcasting, a really simple idea with powerful implications. – Dave Winer And a revolution was born. But after Apple sent recently sent a cease & decist letter, there is some consideration about changing the name.
bq.I propose the word “netcast.” It’s a little clearer that these are broadcasts over the Internet. It’s catchy and even kind of a pun. – Leo Laporte Not everyone was thrilled by the idea.
bq.I don’t agree with Leo Laporte on his thought process on this though, we are too far down the road to change horses now and his suggested new name is ridiculous. – Todd Cochrane And some are wondering if it just too late.
bq.I’m not entirely sure this campaign from the Podcaster of the Year will mean much to the folks out there who don’t listen to podcasts, but changing the term could help the average Internet user to better understand what the term podcast (ah, I mean netcast) means. – Amber MacArthur I usually start off every explanation of podcasting by explaing how it is a confusing name and an iPod is not required. It may be too late to change, but I am not sure that things worked out for the best.

Back when Dan Libby created RSS, it meant RDF Site Summary. Later Dave Winer changed it to the less-technical Really Simple Syndication. Apparently, though, this still isn’t simple enough for some people.
bq.The technical acronym for RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”, an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the web. Now, to geeks and techies that means something special, but to everyday folks like you and me, what comes to mind is, “Uh, I don’t get it?” So, to make RSS much easier to understand, in Oprah speak, RSS stands for: I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place. How cool is that? – Stephanie Quilao Just think of what RSS might have achieved if Dan had used that explanation back at the beginning.

Once upon a time, there was Nupedia. Wikipedia was a successor that attempted to improve on many aspects of the project. Now Citizendium is going to attempt to do the same thing to Wikipedia. Like Michael Arrington and Eric Rice, I have had my own issues with Wikipedia, so I consider this a good thing. I have linked to Wikipedia a few times in the past, but as soon as the Citizendium site is up, I intend to direct everything over there.

I hadn’t heard this term before.
bq.Basically a Mobizine is a java application that runs on your cellphone and updates periodically with text, images, audio and video via a GPRS connection. As Steven describes them “kinda gimmicky, kinda cool…” and it seems like they’re the latest thing that certain magazines and tv channels are getting in to. – Colin Daniels Note: I met Colin at Gnomedex and I have been looking for the right post to link to. He covers new media in Africa which is not hampered by slow-moving monoliths that are trying to protect their antiquated infrastructure. If you want to see the cool new stuff that we may get here in the US in a few years, keep reading his blog.

Right from the beginning, there has been controversy over RSS 2.0. And last time, I checked it seemed more controversy was to be found. Have things got any better of late?
bq.Over the past 7 days my team of volunteers at Podcast Connect, have been reviewing all of the nominations for the 2006 People’s Choice Podcast Awards. This year we had some automated tools to help us with RSS Validation, and recorded site and show grading process. I have never been so utterly blown away by the sad state of affairs when it comes to Podcasters RSS feeds, and some of the crap we have been sorting through. Of 3281 nominated shows, the RSS Invalid rate according to FeedValidator.org was a shocking 78%. – Todd Cochrane Apparently not. Just for the record, Todd has always been a staunch RSS 2.0 supporter and defender. I look forward to seeing if his efforts in this area make things better.

While everyone knows that Cool URIs Don’t Change, the fact is that anyone who has been blogging for a while will find that many of their old feeds, while very uncool, are still being subscribed to. For instance, Bloglines lists 11 possible feeds for this site, and while there is more than one that actually works, a single feed in a single format makes much more sense. So I am going to try out Bloglines Publisher Tools to see if they can help with that. — Apparently, Textpattern is stripping out the code you have to insert in the feed so Bloglines can verify you own it. It appears a bit of hacking is in order.

A few weeks ago, Veronica Belmont nearly had entry removed from Wikipedia. After a surge in support from devoted fans, her entry was retained. On the other hand, Peter Rojas of Engadget is happy that his entry was removed and is hoping to stay out. I have a personal interest in this sort of thing ever since Todd Cochrane complained months ago.

bq.Every single thing that I have added has either been edited or deleted. – Todd Cochrane

I credit myself with Todd’s entry being saved as I rewrote and expanded it enough that when a later Wikipedia denizen came across it and shredded what I had written, at least part of it survived (although I think the flow was pretty much destroyed). I do really think Wikipedia has ceased to be truly valuable. Instead, it has become a haven for either self-styled wiki overseers or just simple flame wars.

When entries began to be permanently locked for what ever reason, a kind of momentum was lost that I am not sure they can truly regain. I still use it, but generally only to refresh my memory of semi-remembered things rather than for anything new.

bq.Librarians fear that many important records have already been lost. Each day the World Wide Web generates enough information to fill 17 million books. All told, five million gigabytes of data-enough to fill 37,000 buildings the size of the U.S. Library of Congress-are produced each year. “In history, whenever there is a great technology shift, you have great loss,” says Laura Campbell, associate librarian at the Library of Congress. “If we don’t preserve it, we will have lost the history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.” – Patrick White and Michael Hastings I wonder if the authors of this article are familiar with the goals of Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive. I notice that it is not referenced at all, and it would kind of seem relevant to much of what is being discussed. Personally, I am more concerned at this point about the “countless broken hard drives and corrupted floppy disks and other ephemeral storage media.” Mark Pilgrim recently made a point about his lack of success in maintaing access to his old documents. And he is a technically adept individual who actually had an active interest in making things work. There is a lot of data out there that could prove useful in the future if it survives that long. But I do think that the outlook is brighter.

Remember when I was excited about how our ILS vendor announced plans to offer RSS support? I happened to look at the catalog for the London Public Library and noticed some familiar icons prominently displayed. I checked and they pass validation with a few caveats. I am really looking forward now to our next upgrade (which should happen really soon).