by davidleeking on February 28, 2006
Interesting post on the Social Software blog: Yahoo music exec says maybe DRM should be ditched.
I’m all agreed that DRM doesn’t work in libraries – if it disappeared, then iPods would work with services like Overdrive and netLibrary. But look at some of the thoughts the author has about how to assign value (if the thing being purchased isn’t the music itself):
- Linking music downloads to concert promotion/tickets
- Liner notes
- other branded multi-media beyond the music file itself
- superior quality to files found in the wild
Some of these ideas are leaving traditional types (that’d be libraries and record stores) in the dust. Example – Linking music downloads to tickets – where does that leave the library’s music collection, or future music purchases? Also – other branded multi-media… hmm… at least with this added value item, patrons could still come to the library to access the value-added thing via the web.
Most likely there would still be a way to purchase music that would make sense for libraries (ie., subscription-based services). Still…
Also – the article mentions that there was recently a conference called “Music 2.0″ – wow. Again, it’s not just libraries and Library 2.0 – many different industries are dealing with the same notions.
Library 2.0, Web 2.0, Music 2.0
by davidleeking on February 28, 2006
I’ve been getting ready for my first Web 2.0 presentation – should be fun! I thought others might be interested in my version… so here’s what I plan to do:
- Introduce the concept of Web 2.0 – definitions and descriptions
- Link it to Library 2.0, showing other links as well (ie., Law 2.0, media 2.0, etc) – just so attendees know they’re not alone in this learning curve!
- Explain RSS, RSS Feed Readers, and Blogs in a chunk – This provides a good intro to many of the essential elements of Web 2.0 – interactivity and feeds.
- Playtime – post in a blog, subscribe to it in bloglines, make a comment…
- Next chunk – Tagging, Flickr, and Bookmark Managers
- Playtime – look at my Flickr account, tag the photo I’ll take of them with my Treo, explore bookmark managers…
- Wikis – Define and explore – I’ll have everyone play around in a pbwiki.
- IM – define and explore – I might even IM someone using Meebo, so be warned anyone who’s on my buddy list!
- Last chunk – podcasting and videocasting – describe and explore. Possibly watch a videocast (if it downloads easily in the lab)
- Answer the “why would a library want to do these things” questions, and provide some easy “first steps.”
And, if you’re REALLY interested… here’s a PDF version of my Powerpoint presentation. Feel free to download it, use it, “borrow” the good bits (I certainly borrowed from others), etc. And – I’d love some feedback on it – let me know what you think!
Web 2.0, Library 2.0
by davidleeking on February 27, 2006
Michael Hyatt just hit a nerve for me – I’ve been thinking about this kind of stuff for awhile now, what with attempting to use the GTD system, career stuff, etc. Hopefully someone else will also find it useful!
He discusses a recommendation he’d make to an aspiring young person on how to “get to the top” (ok, I’m not terribly young… but still). His response? “responsiveness.”
He goes on to talk about playing tag as a child, and compares winning tag (making someone else “it” quickly) to a winning career strategy: “Just like the game, if you stay “it” too long, you lose. The only winning strategy is to respond quickly and make someone else “it.”
He then says “you are building your reputation – your brand – one response at a time.”
Lots more there – good stuff.
by davidleeking on February 27, 2006
You should be getting this feed – I just switched my feedburner feed over to the new RSS feed.
by davidleeking on February 27, 2006
Hello world – is this working? Just making sure…
by davidleeking on February 25, 2006
Testing, one two… is this thing on?
by davidleeking on February 24, 2006
This is an interesting article about the future of tag clouds (written by Joe Lamantia). Here’s how Joe sees tag clouds developing over the next 18 months:
- More people will recognize them and understand what they do (ok, that one’s a no-brainer)
- more support for “cloud consumers” to meet context needs (interesting…)
- attached controls or features and functionality that allow cloud consumers to directly change the context, content, and presentation of clouds. (wow)
That third point is pretty interesting. Right now, tag clouds are basicallly a visual way to search for a tag – and to see what tags are either popular or heavily used at a site. But the idea of being able to manipulate the content and the presentation of a tag cloud? I can see some pretty useful stuff coming out of that.
Reading on… Joe says “In the future, expect to see specialized tag cloud implementations
emerge for a tremendous variety of semantic fields and focuses:
celebrities, cars, properties or homes for sale, hotels and travel
destinations, products, sports teams, media of all types, political
campaigns, financial markets, brands, etc.”
OK – I look at Realtor.com alot (actually, my wife does more…). It has a normal, “traditional” search interface – you know – click a city, click the number of bedrooms, etc, etc. Integrating a tag coud-like search feature would be so much cooler, and probably more usable, too. For example – realtor.com allows you to “expand the search” for a house in a particular area by providing surrounding suburbs/towns to include. But if you’re not familiar with that area, you don’t really know what to choose. If you created a tag cloud feature to that search, you’d be able to see what most other people chose (assuming the tag cloud is based on popularity). Most likely, that popular choice is also a better area of town.
Now – think what you could do to our library services using tag clouds. Especially in our library catalogs! And not just on the end-user side, either. I’m thinking of a collection development librarian wondering which subject areas are the most popular. Instead of having to run a report and crunch some numbers, all the librarian would have to do is take a glance at the visually larger tags – then get more info if he/she needed it.
Hmm… I wonder what else would/could be useful in a tag cloud arrangement?
by davidleeking on February 20, 2006
I saw
this article a few days ago, and thought I’d share… Basically, the article discusses a Kansas City-area middle school that is experimenting with PDAs – as in, 600 PDAs (the school district spent about $180,000).
Their goal? To prepare their students for the 21st century! The article actually says this: “Many educators think that preparing students for the 21st century goes beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic – students must be technologically literate.”
How cool is that? A public school actually teaching kids skills that they’ll need TOMORROW – rather than skills they’d need today, or yesterday. I applaud them!
by davidleeking on February 14, 2006
by davidleeking on February 10, 2006
UrbanGiraffe rocks! I just installed WordPress on my laptop (took me MUCH longer than five minutes, but what the hey – I haven’t a clue as to what I’m doing). My ultimate goal is to figure out how to create my own WordPress theme – and installing WordPress was an amazing good way to start. Now I can hack away knowing I’m not really going to break anything. So if you want to play around with WordPress or with themes, check this guy’s tutorials out.
