More Politics and Blogs

Thanks to blogroots.com, found a NY Times article on some broadcast media using daily diaries to spread the gossip.  They will go on my list.

Course, the look and feel reminds me of The Hotline, which started as a fax newsletter prior to the 88 conventions, summarizing political news from around the country.  The Hotline is now owned by the National Journal and is still delivered by fax though you can also access it on the web.

4:21:18 PM    

Consumers, email and rights

Should we place ISP's and such in the same category as utilities?

Service providers win one, lose one. California's governor signs one bill requiring e-mail providers to warn consumers before shutting down accounts but vetoes another requiring notification by ISPs. [CNET News.com]

12:43:42 PM    

 Random Thoughts

I have to collect my random thoughts into a coherent essay at some point (wonder if a bot could follow an outline and place those thoughts in that order?)  Anyway, as I move to a plan to implement klogs in the university system, I am struck at the different levels of conversation within the blog communities that I have observed (hmm… I am beginning to sound like Jane Goodall’s journal as she observed the ape communities – no offense intended for anyone!). 

First, you have a corporate level of conversation – basic marketing blurbs, conversations focused on promoting the expansion of blogs into cyberspace.  Second, you have the tech conversations – discussing new tools, bugs, etc.  Third, you have the futurists and sociologists (Ists for short).  Finally, you have the consumers.

So, it strikes me that rolling out a klog community in the university setting, or any other setting for that matter, will also see the 4 levels of conversation as noted above.  Thus, we should not only encourage those multiple levels, but support it by creating templates that will allow those conversations to be organized accordingly.

More on this later.

11:03:34 AM    

More data on Lindows -- barriers to success?

PCMag.  Dvorak on the potential of Lindows.  I have worked on PCs with Windows, Apple, Be, and Linux over the years.  The reasons I continue to stick with Windows is due to 1) the ability to quickly and easily upgrade a system (device drivers, conversion of data from apps that store it in profiles, etc.), 2) the ability to run a wide variety of new software (particularly PC games  -- never underestimate the need for this), and 3) familiarity.  If these roadblocks can be eliminated, I will try it out.

One reason I have high hopes for the Lindows OS is that there is a 20-person team working on it, not a 20,000-person team. Starting with the base Linux OS gave the Lindows team a nice head start, after which all the team had to do was translate Windows app-to-OS hooks. The open-source WINE project helped out there. But the Lindows team still must make its OS run the key versions of Microsoft Office. Once the Lindows team starts talking about running StarOffice applications, then you'll know the developers have failed.   Note: concur to the extent that this is a canary in the coal mine for compatibility (of course this doesn't take into account the potential in greenfield environments).

...Nobody wants to see a compatible OS appear on the scene that would make a 90-Mhz Pentium run rings around a gigahertz machine, which is a distinct possibility.  Note:  what would it look like on a 2 or 3 gigahertz machine??

I, for example, have various machines in my house running many different operating systems. If a machine craps out, I would like to get an OS installed on it immediately. So, like everyone else in the world, I would like to just grab whatever OS disk I can find and get the machine back up and running. With XP that may be impossible, so Microsoft's policy is an annoyance. This is the kind of annoyance that Lindows can exploit.   Note:  this is exactly how it works in my house!

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I hope John takes no offense in the number of clips I have taken from his feed.  But, then again, that is how this community works, right?

10:56:54 AM    

Hallways and water coolers and validation for klogs?

from John Robb:

I am reading a new Forrester report:  Managing Business Velocity at the Edge.  Here are some highlights in regards to weblogs (Forrester's research is worth owning if you have the budget):

General Electric recently touted it 'corporate cockpit' of key business metrics -- viewable by only 45 executives across the company.  But a $125 billion company with 300,000 employees can scarcely turn on a dime with that degree of information hoarding.

Employees are the early warning systems of business change.... Weblogs capture and cultivate knowledge, opinion, news about customers, technology, and markets.

Teams:  Encourage Weblogs of evolving ideas.  To harness internal expertise, firms should encourage employees to link their ideas to external supporting evidence using weblogs.  For example, an engineering team at Motorola can bolster internal R&D thinking with outside expertise -- like Glenn Fleishman's Weblog on 802.11b standard for personal wireless technology.

The person-to-person connections enabled by IM, shared workspaces, and weblogging confound published system-based communication paths -- like approval processes, lead routing, and technical problem escalation.  The result is a behavior change at every level.  Executives must accept that the best information may pop-up in the virtual hallway.

Recommended vendors:  Groove, Jabber, and UserLand

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I see the potential.  Using outliner we may be able to group those converations around topics as well as dates.  On my wish list is some "hyper text" tool that would automatically categorize by key words (like Lotus Agenda) creating a true web of conversation and knowledge.  That tool may already be out there and I haven't found it yet.

9:39:07 AM    

More market data from Robb:

Rory Perry got quoted in an AP story on ways the government is using technology to better serve its citizens (30 September).   Huzzah!

Weblog software allows the court's site to provide constantly updated "information feeds" for civil, criminal and family law news. "This is a $40 piece of software," Perry said. "As far as I know, this is the only appeals court that has made opinions and news available in this way."  Each Weblog entry is linked so when clicked it conducts an automatic search of that legal topic with the Google search engine. The search engine also translates each entry into other languages.

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Ah, a toe hold!  This link tells of good work.

7:29:14 AM