Worker.digital.info

Why TrackBack?. » I didn't get it at first either, and nor has everyone I've mentioned it to.
What makes TrackBack so important is, I think, the following:
Imagine that I read someone like Jon Udell (which I do) and I find an item of his particularly noteworthy or relevant to me. I post it from my news page and add some editorial content of my own.
But if, like me, you are a relatively new blogger then maybe very few people read my item and nobody bothers to click through to Jon's original. My item never appears in his list of referrers.
This means Jon, likely, will not know that it exists. We could imagine further that Jon would have liked to know what comments I made but he never gets the opportunity.
TrackBack addresses this problem. It allows me as the author of an item to "ping" the original during the act of publishing. This ping does not require someone to read my item and then click through to his. Simply by publishing he is notified that someone has referenced him.
I think this is a very powerful idea and will help to get new bloggers into the space. For those with interesting things to say the time to migrate from the fringe to the centre will be drastically reduced.
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

[Curiouser and curiouser!]
My take (a first pass at understanding an amorphous structure and subject to change) -- This is potentially both useful and a major distraction. Someone like Udell, who has a near cult-like following and is doubtless linked by thousands of readers, will be swamped by public TrackBack pings -- rendering them almost useless. OTOH, people like me -- and Matt, and hundreds of others with small, faint voices -- can quickly discover who (if anyone) is listening. This is a useful service, one that could significantly shorten the time it takes to find one's audience.
But what I think is more important is the KM/klog aspect -- where employees who are well below the radar screen but critically important to actually getting a solution -- never get heard or informed. It seems to me the TBping has potential for real improvement here. I want to digest this more and respond further in a day or so.

See also: Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog | Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog | Blunt Force Trauma | Blunt Force Trauma | Blunt Force Trauma | Ernie the Attorney | Curiouser and curiouser! | StickyString | Blogging from the Barrio | Ron Lusk's Radio Weblog

Indexing the Universe

9:32:35 PM

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I've long been a curious tester of non-linear thinking tools -- mindmapping, concept maps, etc, and have an off-again/on-again relationship with tools such as MindManager and Personal Brain. I've had only a little exposure to XML Topic Maps -- first seeing them at a Seybold show a year or so ago -- and don't really know where they fit in the great KM schema. But if they manage to create a sharable visualization of how topics relate to each other I'm interested in seeing how they work.
Interestingly, I've found the UK and western Europe to be far more accepting of these alternative thinking methods than the US. This post originated with Ron Lusk but I found it via Matt Mower who, as luck would have it, is from the UK. I'll be following this train of thought closely...

The Tao of Topic Maps.
The TAO of Topic Maps. The TAO of Topic Maps introduces topic maps, “a new ISO standard for describing knowledge structures and associating them with information resources.” [Ron Lusk: Ron's K-Logs]

» Wow cool. More reading for tomorrow!

[Curiouser and curiouser!]

See also: Blunt Force Trauma | Information Universe - Indexing Technologies | Information Universe - Site Index | UNIVERSE (A Webby Indexing Node) | indexing of Type; question on Coq V7. | indexing of Type; question on Coq V7. | Moellering Library: Newspapers: Indexing , Abstracting and Full- | LexisNexis CIS Statistical Universe What?s New ? June/July 1999 | LexisNexis Government Periodicals Universe | Electronic Universe Continues to Expand

Check Out activeRenderer's FAQ.

11:32:10 AM

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Check Out activeRenderer's FAQ. I've added a number of topics to aR's Frequently Asked Questions. Among other things, I included an explanation of how to have liveTopics work with aR's outlined weblog style. [read more] [Marc Barrot: activeRenderer]

See also: