Writing about collaboration, defense, innovation and whatever strikes me.

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February 2006
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2/24/2006

Wikifying the Amazon

Filed under: Collaboration, General, Language — Diane @ 2:54 pm

We’ve noticed this before, but now people seem to be actually using Amazon’s ProductWiki. Seeing how people can already comment in the Reviews section, one wonders how this will be used or abused. They suggest that their readers/writers should “Think of a Wiki as an encyclopedia entry that everyone who comes to the page will read.” Obviously, they’ve heavily influenced by Wikipedia, but who isn’t. A wiki is a way for a community to create content. It needn’t be encyclopedic, but perhaps the ‘pedia’s influence on wikis has contorted their flexibility.

So far, their 2200-some entries are unremarkable, with some link spam and pet projects. The wiki lacks social construct, such as being able to see who edited what. Maintenance pages, like recent changes, are also missing, although “recently edited” is available. The distinction, while subtle, is important. I can see what was edited, but not how. Therefore, I can’t police the wiki for Amazon. Let’s see how long this lasts.

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2/17/2006

Collaboration Chooser for wikis

Filed under: Collaboration — Diane @ 1:07 am

You’ve all seen an intelligent agent like the Wiki Choice Wizard. The wizard walks through the feature list then spits out the list of Wiki software packages that meets your specifications.

Some things I’d change. Most of the distinguishing features are technical; programming language, database or files. Most end users don’t care. Only the page history and WYSIWYG features are ones that are functionally important to the typical end user. Rather than discern based on the type of license available, why not discuss what process the wiki is designed to support. Will the wiki be used for project management or as a content management system (CMS)?

The comparison matrix has some nice features, including the ability to flag features and show only those.

Why don’t I get paid to develop something like this?

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2/15/2006

The Phenomenon of blogging power

Filed under: Collaboration, General, Innovation — Diane @ 11:03 pm

Brrreeeport, a game? A show-the-man? A bandwagon? An easy way to get hits? Why would so many bloggers, including me, include this nonsense word and even try to define it.

Robert Scoble started this, and he can tell you why better than I can. Technorati shows as the most popular tag, beating out Cheney shooting a man.

Me? I’m facinated by the phenomenon of the bandwagon. While the major search engines seemed “slow” to pick it up, the blogosphere picked it up like wild fire. Are bloggers that interested in search, or is it just a cool thing to participate in? The latter, I suspect.

As many bloggers as there are, they (we) still like to think of ourselves as anti-establishment, of being outside looking in, but slowly taking over. A community outside, or deep within, the larger Internet community.

It harkens back to the APRAnet days. Techies knew something everyone else didn’t. And we liked it that way. An inside joke, our own culture.

Brrreeeport tapped into that.

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2/9/2006

For Good or Evil: Blogging is an Activist’s Dream

Filed under: General — Diane @ 5:53 pm

A recent Washington Post article examines the use of blogs, text messages and web sites in the recent Muslim cartoon, what does one call it? Scandal? Uprising? Ah, violent protests. Thomas Friedman calls this ability the “superpowered individual.” Jody Williams of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines propelled the landmine cause into the public discourse primarily using technology (and a little help from Princess Diana). Now, that same technology is being used to fuel the protests. Not a surprise. Technology, like any tool, can be used for good or evil.

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