Transcript Technology Update

Technology Update
Presented by…
Programs Plus
www.programsplus.com
[email protected]
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Technology Update - Agenda
1. WORLD “LIVE” WEB
2. BLOGS
3. WIKIS
4. PODCASTS
5. RSS
6. XML
7. FRBR
8. OPEN SOURCE
9. VOIP
10. FOLKSONOMY
and… New Technology Trends
Evolution of the World Wide Web
Can you define the “World ‘Live’ Web”?
XML
Podcasts
Open
Source
Blogs
The World
“Live” Web
VoIP
RSS
Wikis
Folksonomy
FRBR
Can you define the “World ‘Live’ Web”?
Are you missing out on ways to promote your organization
or business effectively just because you’re not familiar with
the latest technological trends?
Blogs
 Wikis
 Podcasts
 RSS feeds
 XML
 FRBR
 Open Source
 VoIP
 Folksonomy
 MySpace
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World LIVE Web
In order to understand the World ‘Live’ Web,
it’s important to understand the “static” Web.
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It has "sites" with "addresses"
It has "locations" in "domains"
We "develop" with the help of "architects",
"designers" and "builders".
Like homes and office buildings, our sites
have "visitors"
Unless, of course, they are "under
construction".
World LIVE Web
 One layer down, we see the Net in terms of shipping.
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"Transport" protocols govern the "routing" of "packets" between
end points where unpacked data resides in "storage".
Back when we still spoke of the Net as an "information
highway", we used "information" to label the goods we stored on
our hard drives and Web sites. Today "information" has become
passé. Instead we call it "content".
Publishers, broadcasters and educators are now all in the
business of "delivering content". Many Web sites are now
organized by "content management systems".
The content is material that can be made, shaped, bought, sold,
shipped, stored and combined with other material.
"Content" is less human than "information" and less technical
than "data", and more handy than either.
World LIVE Web
 Blogs still look like Web sites and content to the
static search engines, but to see blogs in static
terms is to miss something fundamentally
different about them: they are alive.
 Their live nature, and their humanity, defines
the live Web.
 Blogging predated syndication, but it was
syndication that began to give form to the live
Web.
World LIVE Web
 The most popular live Web search engines are (with
around 80-million page views per day):
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Technorati and Alexa focuses on rapid indexing, tag search and
hot topics.
 What they search is alive, moving, changing. Its results
are also radically different from what you get from the
static Web.
 The others include:
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Blogpulse stresses trending and ranking.
PubSub doesn't offer Web search but instead concentrates on
keyword search feeds to users' aggregators.
Bloglines integrates search with aggregation and other services.
IceRocket emphasizes performance and simplicity.
Feedster leads with personalization and index size.
Blogs
Blogs are
Journals
They
are written,
not sites
not
built. And the
best
ones
change daily or
faster.
Many
people
wrongly
assume that a
blog
is like a
forum,
or thread.
This means that its
Writing
is
authors
Conversational
are speaking, and not
just "creating content".
A blog speaks to
readers
and other bloggers
who
speak back,
through
e-mails, comments or
on blogs of their own.
What a blogger
says is
often incomplete
and
provisional. Like
all forms
New Form of
Blogging is a
Journalism
new
form of
journalism
that
gives
individuals
a higher
degree
of leverage
than
ever
before.
Blogs
1.
Meme-du-jour bloggers comment on the high-profile ideas of the moment. This
requires more or less constant research, and results in posts that are often less
than polished or complete (because they have to be composed quickly, and also
because these stories are after all, developing). This type of blogger is usually
focused on political issues.
2.
Caterers determine what an audience segment wants to hear, and pursue that
theme aggressively. This style is distinguished from our next group by a core
cynicism, or at best a lack of real conviction. Caterers' content is determined by
readers' tastes more than by a central guiding force. Most caterers play in the
political sandbox, while many others offer porn or sensationalism.
The surest sign of catering is the demon-ization of some person or group outside
their readership.
3.
Nichebloggers, aka localbloggers. Someone focused on any particular subject a
"local" blogger (that subject being the 'locality'). The subject is usually something
the writer is passionate about, or has special expertise in.
4.
Internet guides, such as Instapundit, create little original material. Their strength
is that they are trusted link finders/filters. MetaFilter and BoingBoing are other
Internet guides. This is not to say that these sites don't add value to the posts they
link. Rather, it means that their posts are determined by the stories they link to
(contrast with determining a concept and then researching material that supports
that concept).
Blogs
5.
The celebrity-blogger is someone whose site traffic comes from fame achieved
outside of blogging. While some bloggers achieve notoriety because of blogging,
that has not become much of a factor.
Other celebs, such as Barbra Streisand, are guaranteed site traffic to their blogs,
even though they post on subjects well beyond their range of actual expertise
(politics, in Ms. Streisand's case).
6.
The service blogger performs a service, often to the 'Meme' blogger (see 1). The
Political Teen drives its high traffic numbers by providing video clips to 'Meme'
bloggers. The Truth Laid Bear does well by providing at-a-glance traffic stats and
other group services.
7.
The long-tail blogger is the rarest of successful breeds. This style requires
consistent blogging over a long period of time (hence the rarity in a fairly new
medium). Blogging is heavily favored by search engines in the current Internet
cultural environment. A classic long-tail blogger such as Dustbury gets a very
respectable audience (currently approaching 1,000 unique visits a day) because
the site has been commenting on popular culture, steadily and succinctly, for over
nine and a half years. A look at Charles' site stats tells the story: Out of every
1,000 hits, about 70% come to the site's front page or a current post.
Wikis
 Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create
and edit Web page content using any Web browser.
 Wiki supports hyperlinks
 Wiki allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition
to the content itself.
 Allows everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site and
encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content
composition by non-technical users.
 In a search, use the keyword wiki - Examples in use:
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Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Start a Wiki
Podcasts
 Podcasting is a term coined in 2004 when the use of RSS
syndication) technologies became popular for distributing audio
content for listening on mobile devices and personal computers
(namely, iPod).
 A podcast is a web feed of audio or video files placed on the Internet
which anyone can subscribe to.
 Podcasters' websites also may offer direct download of their files,
but the subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is
what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time
streaming
 Use of "podcast" to describe both audio and video feeds seems
natural to some users, while others prefer to reserve the word for
audio and coin new terms for video subscriptions.
Podcasts
 In a search use the word, “podcast” as one of
your keywords - Examples:
o The Podcast Directory
 o Podcast Alley
o Apple iPod’s
 o Yahoo Podcasts
o Create your own podcast
RSS
 RSS feeds: Really Simple Syndication
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RSS tells us what's changed.
RSS is about "new" instead of "news."
 You no longer have to limit your reading to sites
you know get updated frequently like CNN.com.
 Instead, when you find a site that you enjoy,
even one that gets updated infrequently, sign up
for its RSS feed and whenever the site is
updated, you'll be notified.
RSS
How to access RSS feeds:
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Install a news reader that displays RSS feeds from
the Web sites you select, enabling you to view
hundreds of headlines at once.
After installing the news reader, you can add each
feed manually by clicking on the "Subscribe" or the
"XML" orange button next to the feed.
An alternative to downloading a dedicated news
reader is to use a Web-based news reader. For
example, My Yahoo! users can now add RSS feeds
directly to their personal page.
RSS
 RSS is not a newsletter system that spams you with email.
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RSS is much simpler to maintain for the publisher/syndicator. The
weblog software creates the RSS format automatically each time the
syndicate updates their weblog.
RSS is explicitly opt-in. Someone cannot send you an RSS, you have to
enter the URL of the RSS feed into whatever program you use to view it
in order to get it.
Unsubscribing from an RSS feed is simple and foolproof. You simply tell
your software to stop downloading it. No more hassles trying to
unsubscribe to an unwanted email newsletter.
RSS processing can be easily automated. This is a consequence of RSS
being based on XML.
RSS is largely anonymous because there's no need to give out an email
address.
RSS
 So why do you care about RSS?
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No more surfing from site to site.
No more missing something because you
forgot to visit a particular site one day.
No spam.
RSS delivered Web content is easy to scan.
RSS is like Tivo for the Web
RSS
 The easiest way to get started is to simply
subscribe to some RSS feeds for sites that you
find interesting.
 You will need a piece of software called an
aggregator.
 If you use MyYahoo!, there's a new RSS service
built right in which works well for reading a few
RSS feeds.
 If you use Windows, NewsGator, NewZCrawler,
and SharpReader all seem to be quite popular
(NewsGator even integrates with Outlook).
 Mac user? Consider NetNewsWire. If you'd like
to user a browser-based tool,
RSS
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Once you have an aggregator, try some of these:
Note that unless otherwise noted, these URLs are the actual URLs of the RSS feed. Simply cut
and paste them into your aggregator. These are not chosen as a representative sample, but
simply as specific examples.
o Windley's Technometria
o Amazon.com Syndicated Content
o c|net News (my favorite)
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Other Resources
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o Radio community Server
o New York Times
o Time Magazine
Rafe Needleman's RSS Tutorial (video)
LockerGnome's RSS Resources
RSS in Government
If you have a Web site or otherwise publish information on the Web, you
may want to consider publishing an RSS feed of your own. The software
you use may already support it.
If not, you may need to get someone to so some programming for you. In
either case, publishing RSS is relatively straightforward and your readers
will be grateful for the improved experience.
FRBR
 Functional Requirements for Bibliographic
Records
 It is a 1998 recommendation of the
International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to
restructure catalog databases to reflect the
conceptual structure of information
resources.
 Worldwide Library Cooperative
Open Source
 An online interface that allows web site users to submit relevant
material to the web site authors for sharing with other users.
 It describes the development method used for many pieces of
software, including the Linux kernel, where the source is freely
available for anyone to work on, or modify, or learn from, or use in
other projects.
 Open source software is similar in idea to "free software" but slightly
less rigid than the free software movement.
 Users of open source software are (generally) able to view the
source code, alter and re-distribute open source software.
 There is however less of an emphasis in the open source movement
on the right of information and source code to be free, and in some
cases companies are able to develop proprietary products based on
open source ones.
 Various Licenses
 Free Software Directory
VoIP
 Voice over Internet Protocol is the technology used to
transmit voice conversations over a data network using
the Internet Protocol (Internet or a corporate Intranet).
 Get ready to change the way you think about longdistance phone calls.
VoIP is a method for taking analog audio signals, like the
kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning
them into digital data that can be transmitted over the
Internet.
 VoIP can turn a standard Internet connection into a way
to place free phone calls. The practical upshot of this is
that by using some of the free VoIP software that is
available to make Internet phone calls, you are
bypassing the phone company (and its charges) entirely.
VoIP
 VoIP is a revolutionary technology that has the
potential to completely rework the world's phone
systems.
 VoIP providers like Vonage have already been
around for a little while and are growing steadily.
 Major carriers like AT&T are already setting up
VoIP calling plans in several markets around the
United States, and the FCC is looking seriously
at the potential ramifications of VoIP service.
 VoIP is a clever "reinvention of the wheel."
Folksonomy
 Folksonomy refers to the collaborative but unsophisticated way in
which information is being categorized on the web.
 Instead of using a centralized form of classification, users are
encouraged to assign freely chosen keywords (called tags) to pieces
of information or data, a process known as tagging.
 Examples of web services that use tagging include those designed
to allow users to publish and share photographs, bookmarks, social
software, and most blog software, which permits authors to assign
tags to each entry.
 Examples:
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Flickr
del.icio.us
TagCloud
New Technology
Permalink - is a type of URL designed to
refer to a
specific information item (often a
news story or weblog
item) and to
remain unchanged permanently, or at least for a
lengthy period of time to prevent link rot.
Microformats - are a set of data formats
developed
by Technorati, CommerceNet, and
others that are
intended to give
meaning to content on the Internet.
They are built on XHTML, where possible
reusing existing semantic elements, and adding
Torrent/BitTorrent
- is theofname
of a"rel",
client
new meaning
via a
system
"class",
or
application
for
"rev" attributes
the top torrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file
distribution protocol. And is
designed to widely distribute large amounts
of data
without incurring the
corresponding consumption in
server and
bandwidth resources (and typically, monetary fees
New Technology
Channels - These are XML links to new
articles or blogs.
Sometimes called
a feed.
Syndication - The sharing of content among
different Web
sites. The term is associated with
licensed content such
as television programs
and newspaper
Feeds columns.
- These are XML documents used for
Web
syndication, often with links to new
articles or blog
Proxy server
An indirect
means of
posts-and
brief descriptions.
connecting to the Sometimes called a channel.
Internet. A desktop connects to a server,
which then connects
to the Internet. Sometimes this is
done to filter content or
intercept viruses
before they infect an internal network. If
you are
connecting to the Internet via a proxy server, you will
need to make changes in your RSS reader
Keep on Top of New Technology
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
•
Computer Currents High-Tech Dictionary: 7,000+ terms - Searchable alphabetically or by keyword
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FOLDOC: Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing: Searchable dictionary on anything ‘computing’
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PC Webopaedia: online encyclopedia and search engine dedicated to computer technology
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Dictionary of PC Hardware and Data Communications Terms: Searchable by concept or keyword
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Whatis.com: Explore at random, search specific term, or learn by reading definitions in sequence
according to subject
Electronic Publications
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Check out the Resource Center at ComputerWorld
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Infosecurity Magazine contains in-depth articles on issues of information security
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Internet World is the voice of E-Business and Internet Technology
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The Macintosh News Network for reports, reviews, updates and tips for all things Mac
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See MacWEEK.com for news and resources for Macintosh users
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Netsurfer Digest provides short, crisp news bites, notices, and reviews, and is sent to you via
email
•
Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals combines evaluations of data content with
discussions of delivery media
•
Tech: Business & Finance/New Media News The most current technology news from a west coast
perspective
•
Tech Law Journal contains news and analysis of legislation and regulations affecting the
computer and Internet industry
•
TidBITS covers news and views relating to the Macintosh and the Internet
•
Windows Internet Magazine focuses on Windows-related news and products
•
For more titles, try Ziff Davis Magazines for links to popular computer magazines