Comments on: I am a portal…

By: Helene

Helene — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:51:38 +0000

I like your thinking. RSS does enable us to each become our own portals. Whenever I teach RSS and a newsreader class (BTW: The class title is "What the @#$* is RSS & where do I get a Newsreader?") to our staff, I find participants understand RSS better when I tell them this ...

RSS is the way information travels, it's a news stream of information that is constantly updated. For the information consumer (average user) RSS is invalable without a newsreader/aggregator to pull the newstreams together and make them easily accessible.

For the information consumer the newreaders(portal page) is the key tool to use. For the information provider, the tools that push/create RSS feeds (like blogs) are the key tool to use. RSS is just the newsfeed that ties the info consumer & info provider together.

I find this explanation really creates the lightbulb moments for our staff.

By: Mark Carden

Mark Carden — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:59:05 +0000

I guess RSS newsreaders are a lot like personalised news portals, but for me the key differentiators / advantages of portals are:
They are both designed by someone else and customisable by me.
They offer not just information but also the ability to carry out transactions.

By: Mark Carden

Mark Carden — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:59:00 +0000

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:51:10 +0000

I just made a presentation to our Management Team about a new vision for our public library’s E-Branch. I wanted to head off any question about whether this was “just the web site” we were talking about. So at the outset, I explained it this way:

A library isn’t just the building it’s housed in. It’s the sum of its people, services, collections, procedures, and so much more.

In the same way, an e-branch is more than a web site. It’s a collection of skills, technology, content, design, and more–brought together in one place (yes, a web site) to serve our users’ needs.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:51:00 +0000

A library isn’t just the building it’s housed in. It’s the sum of its people, services, collections, procedures, and so much more.

By: Helene

Helene — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:19:55 +0000

I like your thinking. RSS does enable us to each become our own portals. Whenever I teach RSS and a newsreader class (BTW: The class title is “What the @#$* is RSS & where do I get a Newsreader?”) to our staff, I find participants understand RSS better when I tell them this …

RSS is the way information travels, it’s a news stream of information that is constantly updated. For the information consumer (average user) RSS is invalable without a newsreader/aggregator to pull the newstreams together and make them easily accessible.

For the information consumer the newreaders(portal page) is the key tool to use. For the information provider, the tools that push/create RSS feeds (like blogs) are the key tool to use. RSS is just the newsfeed that ties the info consumer & info provider together.

I find this explanation really creates the lightbulb moments for our staff.

By: joshua m. neff

joshua m. neff — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:07:50 +0000

This isn’t horrible original, but I always explain RSS feeds this way: it’s like having a subscription to your favorite magazines, instead of having to go to the newstand everyday to see if a new issue is in. (For some reason, I’m thinking I stole that from Jenny Levine. But maybe I think I’ve stolen everything from Jenny Levine.)

But it really just boils down to the same thing: I am the portal, and I decide what information I’ll get, and when.

By: joshua m. neff

joshua m. neff — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:07:00 +0000

But it really just boils down to the same thing: I am the portal, and I decide what information I’ll get, and when.