Whether it's boredom, the frenzy of a manic social life, isolation, knowledge & knowhow, having the ear for celeb' gossip, or just the sheer will to talk and be talked back to, 'blogging as an exercise in socializing that can reap many rewards, some of which can be financial.

Whatever your reasons for reaching out, there are some things that can make that one, single act a little more worthwhile, and add a lot of value to your virtual venue.

In part 1 of Better 'blogging, I discussed the process of 'blogging and ways of doing the 'blog thing a little better and with a little more focus.

In part 2, I'll be looking at some of the resources I've found that will help you make your 'blog a viable, interestingly 'sticky' place to be on the web.

This 'blog article needs YOU!

This list of tools & services is by no means an exhaustive one. I've picked out what I see as being among the best resources.

If you think there are more, then here's your chance to share, OK?

I want YOU to participate and add value to this article. I've started with what I think is good, now it's your turn...

Getting sociable

People being people, they don't always get the time to read something right there & then. Also, people like to share stuff with other people.

The list of social bookmarking services is just too long. Most of you will either have a favorite in mind, or don't have a clue either way.

Idea #1: Either way, you ought to be using Add This: "Simple recognizable widgets to help your visitors save and promote your website or blog to the social bookmarking and feed reader services!"

Idea #2: And if real-time interaction with your audience is your thing, then there's a little more in the way of a detailed discussion over at Pronet Advertising, who I'm sure will appreciate the exceptionally specific anchor text I've just provided them with!

Idea #3: Then there's Twitter, which offers you another way of connecting with your audience, getting feedback, ideas, making friends and generally staying in touch.

Idea #4: Additionally, while 'blogging is an inherently social thing, the one thing you're never fully sure of is who's on-line. That's where Who's Amung Us comes in: "Want to know how many users are reading your website or blog in real time? Then simply copy and paste the code you see below onto every one of your pages to bring up our nice little widget."

Idea #5: Then there's your musical tastes, which you can also share with people, too! Assuming you're on Last.fm their tools could well come in handy: "Create a chart with your recent tracks to share your music taste with friends on your MySpace, LiveJournal or blog. Create a custom chart to match your site or pick a style from the gallery."

Idea #6: And let's not forget MyBlogLog, who offer a Widget for showing which members are currently on your 'blog, or who have just been on your 'blog.

Idea #7: If you're getting Digg traffic coming through, but not converting those visitors into regular readers, then you may well benefit from reading some advice by Darren Rowse over on Pro Blogger.

Idea #8: Now that you've got a steady stream of people filing through your 'blog, you now need to build a sense of community, an essential component of any 'blog.

Idea #9: If you're a business and you're not convinced there's money or value in 'blogging, then think again. Still not convinced? The waft on over to Better Business Blogging for some top advice to get your business 'blogging.

Idea #10: Let's not forget 9 Rules: "9rules is a place where members and readers can connect, build relationships, gain exposure, learn new things, and have fun."

Idea #11: Something falling between Twitter and a full-blow 'blog would be Tumblr: " To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks. You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster, and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create. "

Getting sticky

Idea #12: Adding links into your 'blog articles is great, but what if you could make that whole experience a little better? What if you could let people peek into the website before they click the link? It's just as well we have Snap Shots to rely on: "Snap Shots intelligently brings users the right content, at the right place, at the right time, in a convenient shot."

Idea #13: They say a picture paints a thousand words. Well what would they say about a picture that lets thousands of people saying hundreds of words? I imagine they'd be amazed! But that's just what BritePic lets you do, among other things: "BritePic adds interactivity and ads (if you want them) to the photos on your website. BritePic is free and easy to use. If you’re an HTML coder, use BritePic instead of the <img> tag."

Getting rich

Well, maybe not all of you. And of those that could make money, it's not likely to pay the bills.

But a select few of you will dodge the abyss of obscurity and make it to 'blog stardom. While the rest will snatch defeat from the yawning jaws of victory and slum it with everyone else in the shanty town of the web world.

Idea #14: While I don't ordinarily have a ton of good things to say about John Chow (living proof if ever there was that sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart,) he does quite liberally offer up some worthy insights into how he makes a living from his 'blog, such that it is. So it's maybe worth reading through some of his articles.

Idea #15: if you've got a good readership, you rank highly on Technorati and Alexa, then you could plunk your name down on Review Me and, well .. review stuff: "Get paid to review services and Web sites that are of interest to your readers, and reap the benefits of conversation with advertisers." And the same applies to Pay Per Post, too: "Get paid to review services and Web sites that are of interest to your readers, and reap the benefits of conversation with advertisers."

Idea #16: If you're 'blogging about something very specific that's topical and currently a high-earning area, and you've got the traffic, then Google AdSense could be for you: "Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money."

Idea #17: If it's ecommerce you want, embedded right inside your 'blog, then booBox could be what you're looking for: "We believe that in this dialog there’s a business opportunity, for turning your opinion into money, but it has to be in a way that it's more like a service to your readers then an interruption. boo-box comes from that vision."

Getting rid of the crap

We've all had our fair share of spam, be it through our email In Box, or through our 'blog comments. Well, no more!

Idea #18: Quite frankly, comment spam is a pest, but it needn't be. Just follow the advice being doled out by Thomas McMahon over at the Online Marketing Blog and you won't go too far wrong.

Idea #19: Don't list your actual email address on your 'blog, 'coz you're just asking for trouble. If you can, point people to a response form, one that's ideally nailed up with a CAPTCHA.

Getting laid

Sorry, can't help you with that one.

Getting more ideas

Now it's your turn…

Be you the ardent journalist, the voracious researcher or the sweating voyeur, Spock really does apply some very lateral thinking to a common, logical problem.

And the problem? Finding stuff about someone in particular on the 'Net.

Oh, you can just use Google for crap like that, surely? Well, yes. But if you've ever performed a search for someone's name, say Eric Schmidt for example, a name that just happens to be the same name as someone else, someone more famous than t'other, then you have a problem.

This is where Spock comes in...

Right now, Spock is in invite-only testing mode, to and I've asked for an invite so I can have a play around.

In lieu of them letting the likes of me in to go and muck things up, Tim O'Reilly has done a pretty good job of explaining what Spock is and does. So my discussion is going to be centered around that.

At first squint, I see many things...

The very first thing that popped into my head when I began to read down through the article was the similarities to Clusty, which offers similar functionality to Spock, albeit for the web as a whole.

And having performed a search for my own name, you'll see that Clusty isn't exactly behind the door with regards to being a people finder. However, there's little doubt that Spock has the edge.

The second thing that popped into my head was how something like Spock would benefit massively from the Semantic Web paradigm.

That said, maybe there's a more social paradigm that not only pre-empts some of the stuff that the Semantic Web offers, but adds some additional value:

“[Spock] will get better as more people use it ... It also illustrates the heart of a new development paradigm: using programs to populate a database, and people to improve it.”

It's a solid idea, too.

We're not just searching for stuff these days, we're an active ingredient in the bigger mix. We add to those ingredients to help bake a better, more specific end product.

So if we assume that the end product is something that's arrived at only by participation & cooperation (think of Wikipedia, for example,) then finding holes in the data isn't the bad thing it might have been back in the day:

“I notice a couple of things that are missing. The list of known web sites associated with Eric [Schmidt] includes neither his personal home page nor the Google corporate information site, so I add links to both. I also see that he's not tagged in association with Sun Microsystems, where he was formerly the CTO, or Novell, where he was the CEO. So I add these as tags.”

Indeed, this is a way of thinking that's gathering momentum, and it's something that I've discussed recently, too:

“Moving forward, I think a time will come when the the turn of phrase: 'Going on the web' will drift out of our vocabulary. In time, you'll just decide to find something, and you'll do so from almost anywhere from any number of devices.

Your questions will then be interpreted contextually, depending on where you are and what your question is. And finally, the data you uncover will become your data.

I say your data because the end result of your search maybe so highly focused to your specific needs – and with more data & information being disentangled from proprietary ownership – that your results become part of your own Lifestream or Workstream.

Discoverable from anywhere at any time. There for you to manipulate, adjust, widen, refine, reshape, subtract from or even just discard.

This is the social web maturing and the high five of the API (Application Programming Interface) being joined by the square-shouldered, firm hand shake of the Enterprise, their databases, blade servers and their becubicled staff scattered hither & yonder around this global village of ours.”

The third thing that popped into my head was the privacy issues that will no doubt abound once Spock comes on-line:

“Yes, we've revealed certain details about ourselves to web portals and other places on the web. And yes, we accept that someone could – with such a mind to do so – find out more about us, given enough time.

But what we didn't envisage is a time when all of this information is aggregated into one place.

We might tell a friend which plant pot we keep the spare house keys under, or a colleague which username & password to use to access our computer, or even let a family member use your credit card once in a while. But what you don't do is let all of these people have access to the whole lot!

This is all pure speculation on my part, but it does seem logical in certain respects. Might such a feature of search engines not come about at the behest of certain governments? As a direct request to subvert anonymity, masquerading as an aspect of national security, dressed up as a new search tool, perhaps?

The point is, is there a dividing line between personal, freely available information about you on the web, and invasive scrutiny, verging on a violation of privacy?”

Pure speculation, I promise you.

I had no knowledge of Spock at the time of writing my Internet Anonymity article, so it's as much a surprise to me as it you that something like Spock should come about, or that I should discover it so soon after the aforementioned article of mine.

Googlebomb is dead! Long live the Spockbomb!

So we may have seen the last of the Googlebomb. But what happens if there's something worse?

What happens if Spock becomes a very refined, sharp tool, deadly in the hands of the character assassin?

“It will also be very interesting to see how successfully they manage spamming of tags, websites associated with people, and other user-contributed data. They do allow users to vote information up or down, but that may or may not be enough. I'll bet that entries on prominent people end up needing to be closed.”

Associating a competitor, or a person you just don't like with a very negative tag could cause some degree of embarrassment, and that's not to mention the prospect of loss of income and a huge dent in the faith of your partners, your customers as well as kith & kin.

As a tool, Spock has the potential for people to manage their personal brand, which is an ever-growing subject these days.

In fact, personal branding on the web is a way of sweeping away those inconvenient resources that may make reference to subjects you'd rather no one know about.

Clearly then, Spock could quite conceivably become a battle ground for all kinds of nonsense, including a new class of spam.

As a tool, Spock seems quite limited, but that belies the true depth that Spock appears to offer.

It's a people finder, but not as we know it…

Recommended reading

Why I'm so excited about Spock

Blah, Blah! Technology: Internet anonymity

Wikipedia: Semantic Web

Blah, Blah! Technology: Web 2.0 + 1

Blah, Blah! Technology: Googlebomb now a dud?

I have been remiss.

With my work load being what it is, Friday and Saturday saw no articles.

This will happen from time-to-time, but that's life!

But that doesn't mean that I wasn't busying myself like the strange man behind the curtain, pulling levers & switches, taking a moment or two to catch glimpse of his audience.

Changes to the look & feel

As of yesterday, I removed all of the social bookmarking buttons and replaced them with just the one from Add This, which vastly simplifies things.

I've also trimmed some of the button labels, so stuff can be scan-read much more quickly.

Since dropping the Amazon adverts, the loading time of my 'blog has decreased, and it's freed up more space for other peripheral, non-content devices, like my Clipmarks stuff, my Del.icio.us bookmarks et cetera.

All of which adds value to much of what I write about.

Keeping a place in the big book

Speaking of my Del.icio.us bookmarks, based on my FeedBurner statistics, you guys seem to really enjoy following in my footsteps, don't you?

Glad you like, so that's one thing to consider in the future. All of which sort of feeds back to the Blah, Blah! Technology Live thing I talked about previously -- letting you, the viewer follow the discovery process, as it happens.

To the future...

While this 'blog has been around since March 2005, I've only been 'blogging consistently since the second week in October 2006. So that's around or about 7 months proper 'blogging.

While I've dabbled in posting my articles to Digg in the past, just to get some content on there, I won't be doing that in the future. I will continue to post my content onto Del.icio.us, but I won't be adding my stuff to any other similar social bookmarking service.

That is up to you, the visitor. It's your choice whether what I write about is worth sharing with other people.

I've recently started running articles based on my SEO & SEM stuff, some of which has been released elsewhere previously, but there's always new stuff floating around in my head, or stuff I've done for clients that's worth talking about.

Since adding in my SEO & SEM stuff just over a month ago, I've managed to get to page five of Google's search results for the phrase: "SEO tips", which is pretty significant.

As I've said previously, I'm never going to be doing the Echo Chamber thing, even though I know that I could draw in more visitors, I just don't see any real value wins for me personally. I'll be damned if I'm going to be an unpaid PR venue for anyone & everyone touting something new.

The focus of Blah, Blah! Technology is to uncover the socio-technological angle, the political machinations, the possible trends and how those trends may well affect our everyday lives.

The story behind the news if often more interesting than the news itself, and that's where I want to be. What this means is, my 'blog becomes exceptionally niche, and pits me against the very best futurologists and technical speculators in the game.

Well I'm up for that, if you are?

So if you're here looking for what's new and a link to where it is, go somewhere else, 'coz it ain't here, OK?

But if you want some astute, well-observed commentary on how things might be, anywhere from 6 months to 6 centuries from now, then you might want to stick around…

... Of Canada, that is.

There are few things more rewarding than seeing some of my advice pay off.

I recently ran an article on better 'blogging, which seems to have been quite inspirational to a fellow 'blogger over in Canada.

So when she took some of my advice and ran with it in a direction I hadn't even thought of, and come up with something truly meme-orable at the same time, I think that idea needs a little exposure.

If you can, pay a visit to Box 1715, read her idea and let's see if we can make this idea into something special.

So while I run off a proof print from the office colour laser printer and stick it to the back of a postcard, let's see what you guys have in mind…

Right now, Google Docs & Spreadsheets does not, I repeat, does not compete with Microsoft Office.

Nor does the Google Apps suite of applications, which includes the aforementioned Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Simply offering a one-for-one, like-for-like suite of applications doesn't really add up to something on a par with Microsoft Office, largely because Office is so vast.

However, that doesn't preclude Google Apps building towards something bigger over time.

Currently we have Rich Internet Applications, certainly the Adobe Apollo flavoured kind offering some very interesting possibilities that Google may well look to explore in the coming months and years.

But despite the obviousness and the sheer scale of the non-trival task of going toe-to-toe with Microsoft in the office applications' arena, the question still keeps cropping up:

“[Eric Schmidt] says [Google are] announcing something,... a presentation feature for Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Google is focusing on collaboration and tying the new presentation feature into those features with Docs and Spreadsheets. John [Battelle] said this 'completes the office suite'. Eric dodged the question about this being a big competitor to Microsoft Office, but John made sure to get an answer.”

And there's good reason to dodge the question, because I'm pretty sure Eric Schmidt would need to answer the question with a question of his own, that being: "When? Now, or in the future?" Which might sort of give the game away.

So with the pieces slowly fitting into place, a long-term strategy sort of builds itself and starts the rumour mill rolling inexorably towards yet more unanswered questions, which will in turn almost certainly lead to a future product announcement.

Right now, though, these pieces just aren't enough. What's needed is substance, and Google might do well to move as quickly as they can, since Microsoft have made it clear that they intend web-enabling their Office technologies:

“A 'Microsoft insider' was asked which other products and services Microsoft would host and the reply was: 'Everything. Hosted Office. Everything hosted.'”

No, no! Say what you mean, man! Don't hide behind clever words couched in riddles!

[/sarcasm]

From where I'm sitting, Microsoft are going to take some displacing.

Unlike other areas of their business, there's a lot of people happy with Microsoft Office as a product, if not as a price point, and Office is one of Microsoft's most profitable lines.

If there's to be a concerted effort by Google, might we see Microsoft drop the price of Office to compete? But then, how the hell do you compete with free?

Well, you don't, because Google Apps isn't free now even, and certainly won't be as more features come on-line:

“Two versions of Google Apps Premium are available. There's a free, ad-supported version with 2 gigabytes of e-mail storage, or the premium $50 version, with 10 GB.”

But maybe Google could heavily subsidize their office suite with advertising?

Now there's a thought.

And didn't Google go and buy someone this week?

Recommended reading

Live Blogging the Expo Day 2 Keynote (Part 2) - Google announcing Power Point feature

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

Apple Keynote 3

Blah, Blah! Technology: Google Apps not equal Microsoft Office

Microsoft building a fully Web-based Office?

I often look for ways of turning a weakness into a strength. It's a key instrument that any business person employs at some stage in their lives.

For the likes of Apple, it's become a key differentiator – take what people and your competitors perceive as a weakness and build it into a strength.

Take for example the 'closed' concept of the iPod + iTunes. This seamless union of software & hardware has created one of the most wildly popular means of managing and consuming digital entertainment in the world.

Sometimes, being closed can open some interesting doors. And all you need to is step through...

What's in a name?

There's a lot at stake when a good name works in a tandem with what looks like a good product. So when Apple and Cisco originally came to blows over the iPhone name, a lot was at stake.

However, as per their agreement, Apple and Cisco have gotten their collective heads together:

“As part of the agreement, Cisco and Apple also agreed to investigate opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications.”

And this coming together of minds could be bearing some fruit:

“Already there are about a half-dozen ideas on the table, according to Cisco Chief Development Officer Charlie Giancarlo, who revealed in an interview last week that Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs is discussing with members of his team ways in which to make the Apple iPhone compatible with Cisco's business and consumer equipment.”

What? Are we to believe Apple maybe forming a selfish deal, one that will ultimately benefit them more than the other party?

Tell me it ain't so?

And here's where Apple turned a potentially highly product-threatening legal wrangle into a chance to make good use of Cisco as the cable guy to Apple's plans to squeeze the iPhone into, say, municipal wireless networks? Or maybe even secured office communications for SMEs?

Oh, the possibilities–

Recommended reading

Apple, Cisco attempt to meld iPhone technologies

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple iPhone: a guided tour

Blah, Blah! Technology: Games developers eye Mac, iPhone?

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple iPhone to play World of Warcraft?

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple iPhone to get ringtones via iTunes?

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple get casual about gaming

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple iPhone versus the LG KE850?

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple iPhone: where's the games?

Adobe have the wind to their backs, and looking down the playing field, they can see old enemies with the sun in their eyes, trying to figure out if it's a confident smile or gritted determination they see on the faces of those coming towards them.

Either way, it's best to exercise caution and brace for a collision, 'coz Adobe are rollin'...

Adobe have just released their own media player, prosaically entitled, Adobe Media Player.

While I provide you with the official press release, unless you want to have your senses dulled by the blandness contained therein, stick around here for a while, I usually get up a head of steam.

Enough for everyone, or so I'm told.

So I'll pick out the salient points for you, such as:

“Adobe Media Player enables higher quality Flash format playback, the ability to download and view videos offline, ways to discover interesting new shows, full screen playback, one-click viewer ratings, and a powerful Favorites feature that automatically downloads new episodes of favorite TV shows or video podcasts. The player is cross-platform, based on open standards - including RSS and SMIL - and brings viewers the highly desired ability to play the Web’s most popular video format outside of their browser.”

Which as well as sounding a lot like Apple iTunes (sans the Flash 'n' Favorites,) it also sounds very much like that other Adobe technology at work behind the scenes, namely Apollo:

“Adobe Media Player is developed using Apollo, the code name of Adobe’s recently announced application runtime that empowers content publishers and web developers to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) on the desktop using technologies such as Flash, PDF, and HTML.”

There's more, but it's not all that important to me.

What floats my boat is the story behind the news – the hidden techno-political machinations, if you will.

Anyway, when I look at what Adobe are talking about, in some respects, you could argue that they're a little behind the times:

“For content publishers, Adobe Media Player enables better ways to deliver, monetize, brand, track and protect video content. It provides an array of video delivery options for high-quality online and offline playback, including on-demand streaming, live streaming, progressive download, and protected download-and-play.”

Scanning through the press release, while finding phrases like: 'protect video content' and: 'protected download-and-play' I didn't find the dreaded phrase: 'digital rights management', although that's certainly been the interpretation elsewhere.

What with Apple and EMI giving DRM the heave-ho, I suspect things will be a little different for Adobe by the year's end.

But to be fair to Adobe, the monetizing options at least help keep them on an even footing with the likes of Apple and Microsoft in respect to their own media offerings.

There's another aspect to the Adobe Media Player, which to me makes the same kind of sense as Netvibes decision to roll out their Netvibes Universe service for brands only to begin with.

Right now, despite all of the hullaballoo about Adobe Apollo, it's got no traction. No track record. No major points to its name.

OK, we know that Yourminis have updated their personal page service so that their widgets use Adobe Apollo, but as good as Yourminis is, they're not a major player with a huge audience of the scale that Adobe would need to give their Apollo-driven Adobe Media Player a good airing.

In lieu of a more coveted player stepping onto the stage to help Adobe out with some rose-tinted endorsement, for now, they have to go it alone.

It's no surprise to me that Adobe should choose a media player as the first, serious application to showcase their Apollo technology, since it's so much the 'in thing' these days.

What I want to see are other, less obvious uses of Adobe Apollo technology. Stuff that bridges the internet and the desktop. Something even I wouldn't have thought of!

In a Flash!

While the Adobe Media Player is ostensibly an Adobe Apollo application, at it's heart beats Flash, all be it a souped-up version, powered to drive high-quality media:

“Adobe Media Player enables higher quality Flash format playback,...”

And me being the argumentative sort these days, could it be said that Adobe have been fobbing us off with a low-grade version of Flash all these years? I blinkin' well hope not!

Write once, run anywhere

The truly disruptive nature of Adobe Apollo is awe-inspiring, it really is.

While I don't see Adobe Media Player making Apple's iTunes wince any time soon, the same might not be true for, say, Microsoft's Windows Media Player.

However, what Adobe might have in technical smarts to run rings around Microsoft, Microsoft more than make up for this short-coming by way of some exceptionally lucrative media deals with the music labels and the movie studios .. and that's not mention the games developers.

Taking a leaf from the Apple playbook of long-term strategizing, this could be the kind of product that reveals itself in stages as the years pass.

For example: "[Adobe Media Player] complements and leverages other Adobe components ... such as Adobe Creative Suite® 3 Production Premium for video, audio and motion graphics production..."

Anyone with a lick of sense and a head for creating branded, utilitarian mobile applications can knock a Rich Internet Application together in less than a couple of days, one that will also live, work and play quite happily on the desktop of any computer and quite possibly actively undermine several Microsoft applications in a single stroke.

What about a light-weight PIM (Personal Information Manager?) Or a shared address book? And what about a secure corporate email client built into your intranet home page?

And from where I'm standing, this all looks like the protracted public face of a silent software war...

Recommended reading

Adobe Unveils Next Generation Internet Video Solution

Blah, Blah! Technology: 15 things about Adobe Apollo

Yourminis: Desktop Widgets Available

Blah, Blah! Technology: iTunes get EMI DRM-free exclusive

Blah, Blah! Technology: Netvibes Universe goes live

Adobe takes wraps off Apollo, uses WebKit

Blah, Blah! Technology: Adobe development cycle hits 2.0

Blah, Blah! Technology: Adobe and Microsoft having creative differences? [part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

My name, my face and my words are my personal brand. They're what I use to promote myself, my 'blog and my business.

To hide is to not be seen. But that's just my thinking. Clearly, I can't speak for others.

So what's wrong with being heard but not seen? Well, we're going to find that out right here...

First of all, I want to qualify the focus of this article: this isn't going to be a debate on political anonymity, because that's too massive and exceeds the remit of simple 'blogging anonymity so clearly enjoyed in many free nations, and delves into socio-political issues that are too complex for me to even attempt to disentangle on a Monday evening.

Anonymity and the invisible population

From a human perspective, and as humans on the internet, anonymity most probably came about not through decision or even choice, but out of primitive technologies, such as bulletin Board Services, which wouldn't have had any real provision for personal profiles.

Additionally, operating systems like Unix made popular the concept of a username, which is quite distinct and often separate to the name of the actual user in question.

So anonymity may well be a byproduct of function, rather than decision.

This sense of anonymity still exists today. I'm usually to be found under the usernames Octane, OctaneInteractive, Forbes, or ForbesBingley. There are services which I've joined as a matter of professional curiosity which I'd rather .. ahem, not be seen dead in under my own name.

I also use my real name sometimes, but it's quicker to just type Octane. While you could argue that I hide behind these usernames, that's not strictly true. With most of the services I've signed up to, my real name, location and photo are often visible to all other members, or even the public.

Anonymity could be seen as just being easier than being onymous (the opposite of anonymous, apparently,) but I'd hazard a guess and say with a certain degree of confidence that some people do hide being their on-line anonymity to avoid accountability for both their actions and their words, which is both sad and lamentable.

There's where I'm going to draw a line under the issue. I think there are many reasons for being anonymous, so I'm now going to look at the possible consequences of internet anonymity and just how much anonymity will we really have in the coming months and years.

Real content is still the king

When we sign up for some on-line service, we're often given the choice to fill out a form, the purpose of which is to offer up some details about ourselves to either marketeers, or other members of that service.

Often, these details are quite simple, such as name, birth date, where you live, gender et cetera.

Whether you choose to fill out all of these options is ultimately your choice. But what are the possible consequences of all of this feverish form-filling?

Well, for one, if you're like me, there may be a point in the not-too-distant future where my profiles become hubs, out of which the search engines can trace my activities with even more detail.

For the likes of me, this can be a good thing, and I'll explain.

I write, and I'm quite a prolific writer, too. I've written a bunch of stuff for Ezine Articles, as well as 'blog entries and articles on Ecademy, also formerly Always On 'blog entries as well as various fora up & down the globe, as well as this 'blog.

Some of my articles have been published elsewhere on the web, places mostly unknown to me, but most of which do credit me as being the author.

However, what if some of my stuff doesn't credit me as being the author? And, what if I decide to run that same content elsewhere? Or, run that content on my own 'blog?

Through the eyes of the search engines, this could be seen as 'content scraping', which carries a penalty.

In simple terms, content scraping is the act of pulling together often superficially original, accurate content to build 'splogs' (spam 'blogs,) which are often automated 'blogs built to game the search engines into driving traffic to them so that the visitors then click on some banner advert, or other revenue tool.

But if there's a mechanism to aggregate my various profiles into one place, either within the Byzantine algorithms of the search engines, or via the likes of Profile Linker, as discussed on TechCrunch, then maybe the search engines can be more precise in their penalizing of those gaming them and rewarding those playing by the rules, like yours truly!

So there's the potential to be credited for your own content, and not being marked down for content scraping.

The eye wire

But there's a flip side to this always-on search engine watchfulness. How long before the search engines allow us to search for people by their username? And, is that an invasion of their privacy?

There's a very thoughtful, concise and introspective thought-peice over on Standard Web Standards by Regnard Kreisler C. Raquedan, which makes for good reading:

"I have to admit, putting my personal information tied to my blog carries several risks and responsibilities. There's always identity theft (although I would doubt anyone would take interest in stealing mine), there's also the risk of getting sued if I make disparaging remarks."

Finally, he ran a poll with the question: "Would you trust a blog with an anonymous author?" And of the 25 people that voted (including myself,) 72% felt that they would not trust an anonymous author.

It's this one article that started me thinking about internet anonymity and internet censorship in the first place, so it's fitting to bring the discussion back in that way.

So we have an issue of trust, where the anonymous writer is perceived as being less trustworthy than their more visible counterpart.

It's quite easy to draw immediate conclusions from this, but we're only dealing with 25 people voting. Maybe there's other studies out there? Right now, I'm not going to go hunt them down, I feel sure they'll back this conclusion up.

However, as we paint broad sweeping strokes across this delicate canvas of trust in our fellow man, we cannot dismiss all anonymous writers as being frauds, charlatans, shills and con-men. There will always remain those few who have their reasons and are as trustworthy as the day is long.

Setting the issue of trust aside, and going to back to my previous question, could we see a time when the price of gaining trust is the loss of personal privacy?

If the search engines are all-seeing, all-knowing, then so too will be the people sat in front of their computer, typing out our names into the likes of Google, Yahoo!, MSN or Ask.

Yes, we've revealed certain details about ourselves to web portals and other places on the web. And yes, we accept that someone could – with such a mind to do so – find out more about us, given enough time.

But what we didn't envisage is a time when all of this information is aggregated into one place.

We might tell a friend which plant pot we keep the spare house keys under, or a colleague which username & password to use to access our computer, or even let a family member use your credit card once in a while. But what you don't do is let all of these people have access to the whole lot!

This is all pure speculation on my part, but it does seem logical in certain respects. Might such a feature of search engines not come about at the behest of certain governments? As a direct request to subvert anonymity, masquerading as an aspect of national security, dressed up as a new search tool, perhaps?

The point is, is there a dividing line between personal, freely available information about you on the web, and invasive scrutiny, verging on a violation of privacy?

Maybe there is no line anymore. Just footprints leading off in every direction...

Recommended reading

Blah, Blah! Technology: Internet censorship and Digg democracy

Blogger Anonymity: Does this hurt blog credibility?

My timing is usually spot on, but this time, it's been impeccable. My comparison of Google Personal versus Netvibes couldn't have come at a better time.

Only a few days ago did news surface that Netvibes were up to something, and I made a stab at guess as to what that something was:

“By way of some exceptionally idle speculatin', I'd stab at a guess and say that maybe the idea behind Netvibes Universe is to add in more glue of the social kind and allow people to create custom channels, like 'Lifestreams', or even 'Workstreams' for example, pulling in content from various data sources, like Last.fm, Del.icio.us, Flickr et al.”

And I wasn't that far off as it looks like personal pages are making a come back, and just when we thought they were dead & gone!

“This afternoon Netvibes will announce the launch of Netvibes Universe, allowing users to create highly customized versions of Netvibes and publish them for public access. Netvibes has created 100 or so branded versions for the launch - users will be able to create these in about six weeks.”

While some people will be chomping at the bit to make their very own personal web pages, by delaying this feature for the public means that the more qualitative '100 or so branded versions' get to spread the word and emphasize the quality over the quantity.

Some of the branded Netvibes Universe's include artists like 50 Cent, Ben Harper, Deftones, G-Unit, Mandy Moore, Moby, Pretty Ricky, and Snoop Dogg, as well as major news sites such as CBS, CNN Money, Forbes.com, LATimes.com, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, TIME, Inc., USAToday and the Washington Post.

Strangely absent from this list is a BBC Netvibes Universe. I would have imagined these guys being at the forefront of this kind of thing.

What's obvious is that this new breed of personal web pages aren't the catch-all portal pages of old, such as those from Netscape, for example.

While they did sport customization features, to add your own channels and content, these new personal web pages pull in widgets, which take them from being ostensibly news portals to venues for your own stuff -- be that stuff your music, your bookmarks, your contacts, events, people and files.

The web just got a lot more personal…

Recommended reading

Netvibes Launches Universe: Customized Public Pages

Blah, Blah! Technology: Netvibes Universe, Box.net embedded

Netvibes San Francisco Party: TechCrunch Readers Get Last 50 Invites

Box.net Releases Two-Way Storage Widget

Blah, Blah! Technology: Meebo, Box.net make Netvibes viable

Blah, Blah! Technology: Google Personal vs Netvibes

I use Skype almost exclusively. Yeah, I use Meebo, too, but it's Skype that keeps me connected to clients as well as colleagues and friends.

So my interest was truly piqued by a double-whammy of Skype news this last week. Apparently, there's an enterprise-class version of Skype on its way:

“The enterprise version will allow 'company-owned Skype name creation' and 'Direct technical support from Skype,' among other features.”

So it's more a support issue than anything else. But, for enterprise customers, support is not just the added-value nicety, but a critical component of any product that has serious ambitions of finding its way into their hallowed networks.

A friend of mine supported a VoIP (voice over IP) telephony system at the last company he worked for, and it's no mean feat. In fact, it was quite an undertaking, by all accounts.

I imagine then that the 'company-owned Skype name creation' is a branding exercise, though I'm not too sure on that one.

More applicable to me is news that yet another version of the Skype client for Mac is in public beta, with some new features:

“Skype for Mac 2.6 was released today and includes a number of 'catch up' features previously available only for Windows Skype users. Among them are a chat type indicator (knowing when your contacts are writing messages), Skype Prime integration and automatic updates.

But the coolest feature is Mac-only at this point, Call Transfer. When you are on a Skype call, you can transfer it to another Skype user on your contact list. It is available under the 'more' button during an ongoing call.”

While this new, suitably cool feature is a welcome one, as well as the belated inclusion on features found previously only on the Skype client for Windows, all of this jostling of features is a major bugbear of mine.

The feature disparity between the Mac and Windows versions is confusing for the end user. And anything that people find confusing usually results in some people just walking away.

I'm guessing that it might be as a result of usability studies, but if that's the case, at least still include those features on both clients and just hide away in a menu somewhere the ones that are used less on each client.

That way, people using either the Mac or Windows client can then make full use of those features.

Let's hope Skype make the right call…

Recommended reading

Skype For Mac 2.6 with Mac-Exclusive Feature

Enterprise Skype on the Horizon? Yes!

Blah, Blah! Technology: Skype offers charged call service

Blah, Blah! Technology: Tech' news in brief: Skype round-up

Blah, Blah! Technology: 'Skypecasts' coming to a 'blog near you!

Blah, Blah! Technology: One to watch: Skype VoIP

Blah, Blah! Technology: Product review: Skype VoIP client

I keep getting asked about 'blogging by people and what does it take to be a good 'blogger.

First of all, I try to clarify one thing: being a good 'blogger is not always equal to being a successful 'blogger.

OK, with that out of the way, I'm going to serialize my thoughts on 'blogging for anyone, not just beginners.

Disclaimer: some of the advice I'm going to be giving out, I might not actually practice myself, and there's usually a good reason for that, which I may or may not allude to during the course of the series. Depends how I feel.

Better 'blogging, part 1: the process

Like anything else, 'blogging has a process. In general terms, it's not rocket science, but if you want to be a good / successful 'blogger, chances are, you'll uncover some prerequisites.

During the week, I had the chance to offer some advice to a certain gentlemen from MyBlogLog by the name of Tom Boyd with regards to his Bass Blog, which is about bass guitars.

In an email to Tom, I outlined what I see as the general rules of the 'blogging game, which I've been given kind permission to reproduce here, although re-formatted for the web, as well as being slightly abridged in some places, and added to in others:

1. Knowing your niche


2. Getting sociable


3. Being seen


4. Style and substance


5. Measure and test


6. Closing the sale

1. Knowing your niche

By going after bass guitar stuff, you're entering a very niche field. And that's not a bad thing, either. Now more than any other time, you can turn your niche into a big thing.

Because it's such a niche, there's plenty of room for your authority to make a mark on the search engines and drive traffic to your 'blog.

Not knowing too much about bass guitars, I imagine there's not exactly a ground swell of news on a daily basis, as there is with technology, for example.

However, by finding out where the news is coming from, I'd be thinking about getting in touch with people in the music industry, magazines, other websites and get some coverage with / from them.

Once you're happy with what you're writing about, it's important that you post regularly and Ping your articles. Simply posting and relying on your 'blog CMS isn't good enough. Use something like Ping-o-Matic (>http://pingomatic.com/">(http://pingomatic.com/)

I very rarely get comments on my articles, but people link to them and do all kinds of things with my content, so don't be disillusioned by the silence. Silence doesn't mean dislike.

You need the energy to keep going if you want to be good. To be successful, well .. you need to get in people's faces so they can't ignore you!

To be successful, you'd also need to be posting compelling, regular content that people are going to want to link to.

2. Getting sociable

I can't stress enough how important it is to be on the likes of MyBlogLog, Twitter, various 'blogs, various forums et cetera.

Don't just join and stay silent, comment and comment often. Also, don't just comment for the sake of a back-link. Add value to the article you're commenting on.

This is your calling card. If you can, be daring, look for an angle. Prompt people to think, pose questions, make them laugh .. anything to make them click on your name and visit your 'blog!

Additionally, where you enter the address to your 'blog, be sure to enter the address to an article relevant to the post you're commenting on.

A straight link to your 'blog is good, but a 'deep link' to an actual article is worth more. And, if it is relevant, then you're adding more value. Plus, you score more points with the search engines.

Again, look through my Del.icio.us bookmarks for some good Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing resources. There are a zillion different resources for this stuff. Use the Tags to find out more about related topics.

3. Being seen

This is slightly different to being social. This is where you really do just sign up for anything social, anything relevant to your stuff.

Yes, take the time to fill out all of the damn profiles, with brief descriptions of you, your 'blog, your RSS feed, your web address, your tags!

Do what I do, have a file with all of that repetitive crap in there which you can pull out and use straight away.

I use the same picture of me everywhere. Partly because I only have one picture of me, but, my excuse is that people then become familiar with my face.

Being seen is an essential part of your personal brand building. You want people to associate your face with a certain phrase, word, style, topic, attitude et cetera. That very thing that sets you apart from the other guy.

Anonymity just doesn't cut it, and it's a topic I'll be discussing later. Put a face and a name to your words. This is about trust, remember? Your visitors are far more likely to accept your views as being trustworthy and authoritative if they know you're for real.

To give you a head start, pay a visit to this list of the top 10 largest social bookmarking websites, as well as spending a little time sifting through my Tags on Social media.

4. Style and substance

Unless you're 'blogging to a select group of known friends only, the chances are, the majority of your traffic is going to come from Google, or maybe Yahoo! MSN, Ask, or some other niche, specialized search engine.

Search engines are very predictable animals, largely because we're very predictable animals. And search engines simply attempt to mimic our own patterns when using the web; assessing the validity of the things we find and whether they're of value, and whether they're relevant to what we're looking for.

So if you're planning on getting traffic from the search engines, it's as well to know what your audience is looking for. And to do that, you need to have some idea of what can draw the search engines -- and by extension, your potential audience -- towards your 'blog.

An example would be a recent article of mine which really did hit on the way people construct search phrases. I used the title: "Google Personal vs Netvibes" and among the various search queries that brought people to my 'blog, that was the top query. So I got it spot on.

Also, I tend to rank well for phrases like: "Apollo Adobe", which is opposite way around to the actual product name, "iPod Shuffle bug" and: "Firefox social", as well as: "landing page design" to name but a few.

Additionally, it's as well to have some understanding of how the search engines work. No, not in a technical sense. That'd be boring, wouldn't it?

No, I'm talking about arming yourself with the knowledge of what the search engines really want from your 'blog or website, which you'd do well to read.

In simple terms, you want to think of a group of keywords ('Apple', 'IBM', 'technology', 'software' et cetera) and key phrases ('Apple iPhone', 'IBM WebSphere', 'disruptive technology', 'software developers kit' et cetera) and infuse those keywords and key phrases into the paragraphs or your article.

So if you're writing an article on say, red wine, then include types of red wine, wine growing regions, best places to buy red wine, history of wine .. you get the idea.

Don't make the mistake of trying to please the search engines, that too would be silly. Try instead to please the people visiting your 'blog. Do that, and you will inevitably please the search engines, too.

If certain keywords and key phrases are really important, add some emphasis. Make them bold or italicize them, which adds a little extra weight to their significance within the context of the web page.

To give any given web page some search engine strength through substance, there are four key ingredients. Your keywords and key phrases should appear:

1. In the title of the article


2. In the body of the article several times


3. In the actual name of the file itself


4. If possible, in the domain name itself

By way of an example, here's the first result on Google when looking for search results bases on the 'Adobe Apollo' search query:

Apollo - Adobe Labs - 2 visits - 25 Mar
Apollo. From Adobe Labs. Apollo is a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, ...
labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo - 13k

There are some really, really solid resources out there focused on headline writing, linkbaiting and copy writing, some of which you'll find in my Del.icio.us bookmarks, which I urge you to read.

And finally, give some thought to a house style. Consider a theme for your 'blog, even if it's just a particular font. I make use of a number of elements, such as a graphical section title, a lead paragraph, quotes and resources as well as particular fonts.

It's all about readability, so keep your paragraphs 'bite size' and put in plenty of links to add some value to your opinions, or to back up a claim, which then adds credibility, too.

5. Measure and test

So you've got your 'blog out there, people are coming in, but from where? And when? And why? And for how long? And what did they read? And click on?

• Technorati is your window through which you'll see who's linking to your 'blog, find new 'blogs and maybe add them as your favourites.


• FeedBurner is how you take control of your RSS feed and turn your visitors into a readership. In addition, FeedBurner includes live web statistics, too.


• Clicky is a quick, efficient way of tracking the visitors to your 'blog, live. You get to see back-links, clicks and there's some really good map-related filtering tools, too. All of which is covered in more detail in a recent Clicky review of mine [parts one, two as well as an update.]


• Google Analytics is web analytics for those that like to compare, contrast and generally take the whole visitor process towards a fuller, more complete level. There's a whole battery of analytical options, so the learning curve becomes more steep in places. There are better packages, but often they're not free and sometimes even the free versions are a mess to use and don't let you export the data.


• Alexa is how you measure your standing on the web by way of a ranking, based on number of visits, page impressions et cetera. Some people say that there are better, more accurate offerings, but most of the others don't measure smaller 'blogs and websites.


• Google Webmaster Tools is a great way of managing sitemaps, indexing, seeing query statistics et cetera.


• Del.icio.us is a great place bookmark and share the stuff you find on the web. There are other social bookmarking services, so maybe use those, too.

Don't be afraid to experiment.

Your 'blog isn't in stasis, it's a petri dish, full of potential.

Try different things at different times. Maybe run a poll to get some feedback. Maybe offer your visitors the chance to ask you a question. Or give people a place to vent.

Notice a pattern, here? All of the options suggested are about getting people to actively participate. In essence, that's the kind of thing that will make your 'blog grow and flourish.

6. Closing the sale

Imagine the scene: it's late evening, you wander through the front door, exhausted. You toss you house keys onto the sofa, throw you bag and coat on the floor and slump in the chair. You take your laptop from your bag and check your email. And while you're there, check the web stats' through Clicky for your 'blog.

"Wha?!" You exclaim in astonishment.

"How many visits?!" Hundreds of people have paid a visit to your 'blog, all from just a minor hit on Digg.

The next day, you look to your FeedBurner account to see how many of those people have subscribed to your feed.

"Wha?!" You exclaim in astonishment, again.

"How many subscriptions?!" Out of the hundreds of visits to your 'blog from Digg, only a handful have signed up.

Sadly, this is all too common.

While not everyone can plan on making it to the front page of the likes of Digg, Slash Dot or Del.icio.us, you can plan for these things. And in planning for these things, you put in place resources that will serve the regular, every day visitors to your 'blog, too.

What are these things? They're called Calls To Action, or CTAs, which is usually some visual device (typically a graphical or textual link) that people are prompted to click on with something like: "Click HERE to subscribe to Blah, Blah! Technology news" or some other suitably tempting phrase.

Ideally, you need to position your CTAs at the end of an article, the same place you find the Comments button, which is also a CTA.

Also, a good place to position your CTAs is in the upper region of the web page, near your main navigation, maybe accompanied with a graphic, or as a graphic.

Think of your 'blog as a series of goals. Your goal is to funnel the visitor towards completing a goal, which is either to make a comment, subscribe to your feed, clicking on an advert, emailing you, calling you et cetera.

It's not hard. In fact, it's actually quite easy.

In essence, it's self-promotional marketing for the layman and laywoman. It's about building a sense of trust with your reader and converting them from an incidental, once-a-month visitor to a daily subscriber.

Better 'blogging, part 2: the resources

In part 2 of Better 'blogging, I'll be looking at some of the resources I've found that will help you make your 'blog a viable, interesting 'sticky' place to be on the web…

Censorship on the 'Net is a fiery issue currently burning holes through the web in unusual places.

It's contentious, debatable and causing some consternation for some.

So why is the idea of calling for some silence or some order on the web the cause of so much dismay?

And just how could Digg be the saviour or free speech on the web?

Well, we're going to find that out right here...

First of all, I want to qualify the focus of this article: in reference to the Tim O'Reilly call for a Blogger's Code of Conduct, I'm not going to reverse engineer his ideas into something else. Nor am I going to go through them with any level of detail. I shall glance over them superficially and maybe add to as I see fit.

Of censorship and other animals

I wanted to leave my entry into this recent debate a little late because when Tim O'Reilly had his say I knew for a fact that his comments would stir up a debate and more commentary would emerge, which would all add much greater value to what had originally been said.

Now that the smoke is starting to clear, there are very visible edges to this debate, which have in some ways Balkanized, leaving some quite clear in their views.

Additionally, I'm not going to go into a he-said-she-said too & fro of comments, citations and endless references. People reading anything on Blah, Blah! Technology are typically mentally well equipped enough to have in their minds the various arguments for and against.

One comment in particular by Andrew Goodman over on Traffick struck a chord with me:

“I've never been one for codes of ethics, especially not codes that emerge suddenly from particular actors in emerging industries. In search marketing I've written in the past that a 'benign anarchy' can be better than a cartel-like phony codification / certification process.”

Which in simple terms is taking the informality of the open dialogue and then overlaying it with more formal, maybe hierarchical structures, which to all intent & purposes, kills, or at least stymies the spontaneity of things.

Speech is speech is speech

What I keep seeing within the various comments emerging from this debate is a very strange misunderstanding of what censorship means.

And I think this is because there's an even more strange and worrying misunderstanding of what is permissible in terms of personal conduct on the web.

For a moment or two, I'm going to ask you to forget that the web exists and instead image you and some friends are in a park somewhere. Some of you are drinking, some aren't. A few of your friends have invited some of their friends. Most of you don't know who these guys are.

Around you in the park are families with kids, people playing sports, couples neckin' and some fat guy sunbathing with his shirt over his head. You actually think he might have died of heat exhaustion.

You discuss actually going over to see if he's OK. You laugh, you joke and before long, there's a discussion underway.

One of you who's been drinking laughs a little too loud, but that's OK. The guys who are friends of friends pull out a stereo and start playing some music. They start to drink, too.

Hours pass and the conversation is chugging along. One of the friends of friends – many of which have been drinking – adds his two penneth worth: "Hey! Why don't we go and wake the fat guy up?" Holding a handful of ice from the chill box, he suggests pouring the cubes onto his chest.

Clearly this is a stupid idea, and it's shot down. His idea refused, he turns the music up. A couple of them start wrestling on the floor. They get rowdy, raise their voices and the air turns blue with expletives.

The other people in the park look around too see what's going on. At this point, they don't care that it's just the idiot friends of friends making the noise, or that they're not really with you. Those with kids would prefer you either shut up or leave.

At this point, those core friends who came to the park to just talk and chill turn to those that invited the idiots to ask them to send their friends away.

Feeling more than a little responsible for them, and more than a little embarrassed, they ask them to leave. Grudgingly, they do so, but only to a far-flung corner of the park, fortunately far enough out of the way to be of no new nuisance to anyone else.

You get a nod of thanks from some guy with his kids playing Frisbee, and while all of this was going on, the fat guy got up and left.

I'm not going to paint any more pretty pictures with words because it's not needed. You know yourself how applicable certain behavior is at any given time, and so does Tim O'Reily, too:

“There's an attitude among many bloggers that deleting inflammatory comments is censorship. I think that needs to change. I'm not suggesting that every blog will want to delete such comments, but I am suggesting that blogs that do want to keep the level of dialog at a higher level not be censured for doing so.

There are many real-world analogies. Shock radio hosts encourage abusive callers; a mainstream talk radio show like NPR's Talk of the Nation wouldn't hesitate to cut someone off who started spewing hatred and abuse. Frat parties might encourage drunken lewdness, but a party at a tech conference would not. Setting standards for acceptable behavior in a forum you control is conducive to free speech, not damaging to it.”

We delete spam comments, right? Why do we do this? Because they don't add any value. So why tolerate inflammatory or just plain stupid comments that equally add no value?

The web is not in any way intrinsically different to real life, yet different values and weights are applied to the same customs, which I find truly bizarre.

In conversation, when someone says something stupid, your brain actively censors these comments. If asked later what Idiot A said, chances are, you wouldn't be able to remember! So why should the web differ?

While the idea of some kind of code of conduct hasn't been dismissed out of hand, the implementation of a code of conduct for 'bloggers / 'blogging is where the debate will ultimately gravitate:

“Of course no one should favor restrictive, tight-assed 'you should communicate in this way' moralizing for the blogger community. Whoops, I just moralized. I meant, I don't favor it.

...

Someone started a productive debate, and from the tone taken by some of those who comment on blogs, many people have lost the ability to debate or to even acknowledge the substance of the other guy's argument before dismissing it.”

For those that have been on the web for some time, the idea of codes of conduct aren't in any way either unusual or new. Almost any forum of repute and note that you'll sign up to will have such rules in place. Transgress, and you're out.

So why should 'blogging be in any way less liable to these rules?

Diggmocracy to the rescue?

Maybe there's something that sits somewhere between what we consider censorship, but still allow people to just say whatever pops into their head?

What if I told you that such a thing already exists?

It's possible that Digg may well have started something, by way of introducing a certain democracy to the web which has an interesting way of solving the problem of web censorship that could potentially placate both parties.

On the one hand, if someone's just talking crap, they get marked down and their comments are greyed out and collapsed down so that they're only revealed by actually clicking a disclosure button. But uniquely, their comments remain.

Sure, there's room for abuse here, too. But it's a better system of regulation than the non-system of regulation that exists right now.

The problems we have now are a product of the free-for-all mentality that's become the accepted way rather than the extreme. In time, the same checks & measures that exist in the really real world will migrate to the web, and the idea of censorship will be an anachronism.

My view is, if someone comes onto my 'blog and becomes abusive to me, I'll defend myself. However, if they become abusive towards other people, then I will actively remove their comments.

To me, my 'blog is an extension of my home. When I entertain guests, I am honour-bound to shield them from such abuses. Simple as that.

Free speech is not the right to talk crap, insult people and generally be an idiot. While I will always defend the rights of the individual to exercise their individuality, if those individuals are incapable of recognizing their failure to offer something of value to everyone else, or to remain at least reasonable and calm, then someone has to make that decision for them.

That's not censorship, that's citizenship...

Recommended reading

Yet more on blog standards

Draft Blogger's Code of Conduct

Thumbs-Up to a Blogger Code of Conduct

People Are Very Angry at Tim O'Reilly So They Just Proved His Point

I've been feelin' the luv this week.

What with getting some exclusives on Now Public with my recent articles, as well as my news subscription swelling, I'm quietly pleased with myself.

I've been putting myself about like a mad'n all this week, and I thought I'd share my experiences with you, which some of you may have seen from the huge list of links I've compiled over the course of the week over on Del.icio.us.

So for those that haven't had the chance to follow me along the byways & highways of the web, here's an excerpt from my SEO & SEM diary. In a voice similar to what you get on TV: "Previously on Blah, Blah! Technology Live!"

“Monday, 9 April 2007 11:32:34 BDT

Having joined a load of social networks yesterday (Furl, BlinkList, Spurl, Listible, Loopster, Simpy and Now Public) I think the most promising could well be Simpy and Now Public.

Of the two, Simpy allows you to synch with your Del.icio.us account, and uses all of the Labels in my articles as Tags, which means I'm dominating in a number of Tags for strong keywords related to my stuff.

I've had a couple of visits from Simpy, but it's still pretty early yet. And I've yet to get my head around how I might use Now Public to get my stuff seen.

So I decided to publish an earlier article "Mobile you, me .. mobile everyone..." over on Now Public to see what might happen:

'I've flagged your item as good stuff.
On April 9th, 2007, Markus Schlegel says:

At NowPublic, this is high praise from NowPublic editors! Your story is now on the home page for a while, and everywhere else the 'good stuff' box shows up. Many thanks for your great work.

I liked the way you put the converging technologies into a realistic, yet embracing perspective. I'm looking forward to your future articles.'”

Feel the warm glow? I did. So I posted some more stuff and have enjoyed some equally positive comments, from other Now Public members.

Also, I've finally tracked down another personal web page service, which I'd intended to be a part of my recent review, but for life of me couldn't remember the name of.

In any case, Yourminis has gone all Adobe Apollo, and are now doing some interesting stuff. I've also been in touch with their guy Jeremy on MyBlogLog, who I'm sure wouldn't mind you popping over and seeing what else they're up to.

So I've got a kind of spin-off review coming up next week sometime.

Additionally, I've>http://myblah-blah-tech.blogspot.com">I've created my own Blah, Blah! Technology widget on Yourminis, which would benefit greatly from some extra attention (of the 'add to my favourites' and voting kind,) which would be warmly appreciated.

As always, thanks for your time.

It's been real…

Recommended reading

25 things about me

What I'm not...

My profile on Now Public

I never really hit it off with the Web 2.0 moniker. To me, it was and still is a marketing gimmick that doesn't reflect the fullness of the second breath the web has taken recently.

Version two implies the web has stepped forward. To me, that's to neglect the fact that the web has not only stepped forward, but also sideways, into areas not often thought of as the domain of the web, such as truly interactive applications.

I remember one guy telling me how he as a developer was asked by the marketing guy to insert a progress bar into a web application, simply because it looked cool. Despite trying to explain that this was bad usability – as well as slowing the application down to do it, because the action was instant – his marketing guy rested on the misguided belief that cool meant good.

Well, not always. And in fairness, people are generally better informed these days, so such ghastly horror stories are far & few between.

I'm not going to wade into the technical minutia of what makes up the so-called Web 2.0 thing, because that's not really all that important. What is important is what Web 2.0 has achieved and what lays ahead.

For a long time, JavaScript was the ginger stepchild of the marriage of the web to the browser. Oh, there would be moments, of course, but for the main part, JavaScript made few friends and didn't really influence people, least of all me.

Why? Because of how JavaScript was implemented in the various web browsers. Saving some blushes and forgoing the temptation of some finger-pointing fun, JavaScript just didn't do the same thing from one browser to the next.

Bummer.

Personally, I hate JavaScript, and choose to avoid it at all times. But what Web 2.0 did was breathe new life into JavaScript and bring in some discipline.

Web 2.0 is also a philosophy. It's a way of doing things and pulling together best-of-breed of tools, formats and standards, like HTML, XML, CSS, SOAP et cetera, and turning them into RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) that really do create something greater than the sum of all the constituent parts.

So it's not all about JavaScript, but in terms of end user interaction, it's where much of the action is.

Two notable problems that Web 2.0 seemed to bring to the table were security issues and poor accessibility. Let's face it, they're as big as they get.

Fortunately, people are already giving good thought to these issues, specifically accessibility issues surrounding rich internet applications.

The future of the web

As an indication of the direction of all things web, when the likes of Adobe get involved and build something like the Apollo framework, you know there's money in them thar widgets!

By creating an environment for discrete, self-contained and highly adaptive formats, like Adobe Flash, in addition to the aforementioned HTML, XML, CSS, SOAP et cetera – with the more recent inclusion of Apple's WebKit – to work together seamlessly as pier formats, and all of a sudden, these little widgets start to take on a life all their own.

Speaking of widgets, enter stage left, the World Wide Web Consortium with their Widget 1.0 standard. And then there's Google, coming in with their widgets in hand .. so to speak.

Draw neat little lines between our technological triumvirate and you see the shape of something looking very much future like.

So what's next for the web?

Let's not forget the little guys, eh? After all, they're the ones who started all of this in the first place. But what we now have is the dust settling and something not at all like a ginger teenager, but something all grow'd up, 'n' stuff.

Sorry guys, the final frontier is an office block and the suites have moved in!

The pieces are set, and the idea of working with web standards to create rich interconnected web applications is the 'in thing' these days. Not convinced? Why not take a squint at what Yahoo! have been up to recently.

The whole mashup thing isn't so much an offshoot of Rich Internet Applications, borne out of Web 2.0, but a consolidation of the philosophy. It's a desire to make one web application play nice with all of the other luvly little web applications out there.

For me, that's big.

It's something that has sort of been touched upon, but only tangentially, and from the end user point of view. Yes, we have this social web thing taking off like an Arian rocket, but the concept of building sociability into web applications themselves is something slightly different.

So while people busy themselves being social with social web applications, the web applications themselves are being social, too. Now the lingua-franca is XML, the Esperanto of the web, if you like.

Talk that particular tongue, and you can talk to anyone these days.

Whither Web 3.0?

I've been putting myself about recently, and I've been feelin' the luv over at Now Public, who have been notably receptive to my rambling, meandering prognostications crapping up their front page much of this week.

In between acts of blatant self-promotional whoring, I stumbled upon an intriguing article on Now Public that prompted me to say:

“As I read your article, questions popped into my head. But as I read on, you quite comprehensively answered all of them. If you don't mind, I'll be referencing this article in an article of my own, maybe later this week.”

Which I did, and am doing. Right now, in fact!

“Web 3.0 will bring together advanced technologies that include the semantic web and adaptive data mining, and move towards making content accessible by applications other than a web browser. Everyone will build the next layer of intelligence into the web using integrated tools for social networking, allowing for both interaction and collaboration. Web 2.0-style tagging will be formalized and expanded so that documents and other web data that now must be interpreted by humans can be read and understood by computers.”

The article is a must read, because that one article brings together all of the things I was thinking, but in a concise way, lacking the verbiage and endless digressions from the point, like you get from reading anything found here.

If you read all of the article, you'll notice that it takes a healthcare angle, which was even more interesting, because some years ago, I read something about healthcare data management, specifically hospital records and how they need some kind of formal, standard format.

A narrative, perhaps? I'd say so. And that's what brought my own ideas into focus.

For those not in the know, I'm currently developing a series of web applications for creative businesses. I've got a prototype application, but I'm currently thrashing around like an oiled-up Sumo wrestler in a kiddies paddling pool, trying to make sense of Marketing Plans, Sales Forecasts, Executive Summaries, Business Plans...

I'll stop now, the twitch is coming back and I'm all out of medication.

While much of what's been mentioned earlier is doable now, it's really something that will benefit greatly from the Semantic Web, which makes possible the loose coupling of rich internet applications, mashed up together, producing refined, focused and specific groups of data that can be marshaled into a comprehensive narrative.

In the context of the healthcare industry, a narrative of the patient's care over the years. A narrative that is threaded, linking out to other narratives, forming a network of related, interconnected groups of data.

Taking this idea out of the domain of the healthcare industry, and into perhaps insurance, finance, legal, even creative, better yet, policing, national and international security and you have a model for mining data that does so almost automatically, by virtue of the applications used to source the data in the first place.
The web is dead! Long live the web!
Moving forward, and I think a time will come when the the turn of phrase: "Going on the web" will drift out of our vocabulary. In time, you'll just decide to find something, and you'll do so from almost anywhere from any number of devices.

Your questions will then be interpreted contextually, depending on where you are and what your question is. And finally, the data you uncover will become your data.

I say your data because the end result of your search maybe so highly focused to your specific needs – and with more data & information being disentangled from proprietary ownership – that your results become part of your own Lifestream or Workstream.

Discoverable from anywhere at any time. There for you to manipulate, adjust, widen, refine, reshape, subtract from or even just discard.

This is the social web maturing and the high five of the API (Application Programming Interface) being joined by the square-shouldered, firm hand shake of the Enterprise, their databases, blade servers and their becubicled staff scattered hither & yonder around this global village of ours.

The end

OK, as most regular readers will be familiar with, I love my closing line. But today, I managed to come up with two, and I can't decide which works best.

Even after talking to Carl, I'm still undecided. So, I'm going to use both!

End #1: Discovery is to the dialogue, what data is to the dollar. Didn't you know?

End #2: Data is the new dialogue. Didn't you know?

Talk about non-linear technology commentary, eh? Can't beat it…

Recommended reading

Web 3.0 and Predictive, Preventive and Personalized Medicine

Blah, Blah! Technology: 15 things about Adobe Apollo

Blah, Blah! Technology: Yahoo! getting into mashups?

Wikipedia: Semantic Web

Blah, Blah! Technology: 'Workstreams' for mobile business?

Wikipedia: Mashup (web application hybrid)

Blah, Blah! Technology: All work & play in the new social age

Widgets 1.0

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) at ALA

Blah, Blah! Technology: Apple Safari, Adobe Apollo in web app tie-in

Recommended viewing

Designing for Web 2.0: From Markup to Microformats, from Semantics to Ajax

What Is Web 2.0? Short Version documentary

Kevin Lynch's Web 2.0 Conference Presentation announcing Flex 2.0 and Flash 8.5

Looks like Netvibes are planning something major, spaciously entitled "Netvibes Universe" which conjures up all kinds of notions.

To celebrate this event, they're inviting '600 of their closest friends', which also conjures up all kinds of notions, specifically, beyond 100 friends, close or otherwise, could you name them all?

Anyway, despite my previous glowing review of Netvibes, my invite is clearly still in the post.

By way of some exceptionally idle speculatin', I'd stab at a guess and say that maybe the idea behind Netvibes Universe is to add in more glue of the social kind and allow people to create custom channels, like 'Lifestreams', or even 'Workstreams' for example, pulling in content from various data sources, like Last.fm, Del.icio.us, Flickr et al.

Now that Box.net are edging towards the 1 million registered users mark, I'm sure they now have the luxury of time to think about the big question: 'what next?'

“Today [Box.net] launched a new widget product. It's effectively a public folder that can be customized and embedded in a web page. A logo can be added and a number of views are available. The folder can be password protected, and viewers can also optionally upload their own files as well (if the creator is a premium or pro account holder). Media files are automatically played when clicked, or they can be right-clicked and downloaded.”

Now that we all have stuff – and while we wait for Apple to make their .Mac service actually usable, or more hopefully, as usable as Box.net – we can sling our photos, our music (of the legal variety, of course) or even our work files around like there's no tomorrow.

Better yet, movie and image files get previews, which adds a lot of value in terms of at-a-glance usability.

I've been thinking about setting up an anonymous FTP account on my hosting rig for clients to upload their stuff, but Box.net offer a very cost-effective service, so I'm tempted to just go with that and absolve myself of the inherent security risks associated with anonymous FTP accounts...

Recommended reading

Netvibes San Francisco Party: TechCrunch Readers Get Last 50 Invites

Box.net Releases Two-Way Storage Widget

Blah, Blah! Technology: Meebo, Box.net make Netvibes viable

Blah, Blah! Technology: Google Personal vs Netvibes