November 2010 Archives

Blogs as social software and social networks

Nov 192010

Dina Mehta says, “My blog is my Social Software and my Social Network“. Many bloggers, including Lilia Efimova, seem to share this feeling. Dina cites the richness of content of a blog compared to a profile pages on a networking cite as the primary reason. She also points to the various back-end tools that allow her to carry on an extended, public conversation with other bloggers. Lilia sees a balance between the two, appreciating the immediacy of information that a profile on a social networking site provides, but also the depth that comes from reading someone’s blog. She summarizes it by saying: “I’m thinking about YASNs and weblogs in terms of contact management (knowing whom and how you can reach) and relation management (knowing why you do it and why they would react). For networking you need both…”

I, too, appreciate the role of both. I do, though, see some limitations to blogging, particularly for the impending mass of mainstream users:

While blogging itself is fairly accessible, many of the back-end tools that allow that connectivity are not. Every new blogger will most surely end up pinging weblogs.com and blo.gs, but how many will learn how to properly use Trackback, properly join and ping the Blog Network, or set up different categories in their blog to ping the proper categories at Topic Exchange? The basics of posting and linking are easy enough, but the stuff that enables blogs to be really useful as social networking tools are still somewhat exclusive to the digerati.
Blog conversations are NOT egalitarian, as has been discussed recently by Joi Ito, Clay Shirky, Marko Ahtisaari, et al. I’m not saying that’s “wrong”, or “bad”, just “inaccessible” for most users, compared to the openness of a discussion forum or mailing list. With blogging, you simply have to work a lot harder to be heard by anybody.
Reading and writing blogs can be enormously time consuming. I appreciate the rich picture I can get of someone from reading their blog, but do I really want to do that with every single person I meet? It’s completely impractical. As we point out in our book, The 5 Keys to Building Business Relationships Online, the number of people in your network and the average strength of your relationships with them are inversely proportional, constrained by the time one is willing to spend building relationships. Furthermore, different people need different balances between numbers and strength of relationship. Someone selling $15 e-books needs more people at a much lower strength of relationship than someone selling $150,000 enterprise software. Blogs are great to have there to provide the depth when wanted/needed, but they’re not as useful as a purely exploratory tool.

Bottom line: I, too, see the role both can play in building a rich and diverse social network. If you’re primarily interested in deep, long-term relationships, then your blog should be your focal point, and the profiles in the various social networking sites merely additional points of presence to invite people into the richer communication of your blog. On the other hand, if your needs are more towards a broad visibility, not just among the blogging technorati, then less frequent blog posting and more time spent in group discussion in the social networks is a better strategy. If your relationship needs are far more focused, i.e., wanting to meet people, or people in specific roles at specific companies, then business-oriented social networking sites, not blogs, are the place to do that.

They can all be part of the mix, but the portion of your time and energy spent in each platform should be aligned with what your objectives are for social networking.

What Passed at Colonus

Poems

Nov 192010

Seamus Heaney

in memory of Czeslaw Milosz

His instruction calmed us, his company and voice
Were like high tidings in the summer trees.
Except this time he turned away and left us.
He walked to where the stream goes underground
And a steep bank paved with flagstones
Leads down to a lintel in the earthwork.
And there he stood, studying what next.
Between a stone cairn and a marble plaque
To the dead of our late wars.
Other wars and words were in my mind,
Another last look taken upon earth—
Roads shining after rain
Like uphill rivers—so that I all but
Wept for his loneliness.
He loosed the girdle then
Off his scarecrow rags, called for his girls to fetch
River water for him, find a place
Where overhanging grass combed long and green
And dip their pitchers there. So off they went
And came with overbrimming vessels back
To pour a last libation and to wash
Their dear departing father, hand and foot,
Prepare his linen garment and do all
According to the custom for the dead.

And when all was done, and the daughters waiting,
There came a noise like water rising fast
Far underground, then a low blast and rush
As if some holy name were breathed on air,
A sound that when they heard it made the girls
Cry out, and made blind Oedipus
Gather them in his arms. “My children.” he said—
And the rest of us felt that we were his then too—
“Today is the day that ends your father’s life.
The burden I have been to myself and you
Is lifted. And yet it was eased by love.
Now you must do without me and relearn
The meaning of that word by remembering.”
Then the waterfall of sound behind him grew
Into an overwhelming cavern-voice
Shouting shouts that came from all directions:
“You there. What are you waiting for? You keep
Us waiting. It’s time to move. Come on.”

And now he was a stranger. He groped in air
As the daughters went to him, heads on his breast,
And he found and kissed their brows, instructing them
One final time: they were to turn and go
And (these were his words exactly) not look upon
Things that were not for seeing, nor listen to
Things not for hearing.
And what he said to them
We took again as meant for all of us,
So turned away together when he turned
Away, with the king accompanying him.

But after a few steps I and other ones
Halted to look hack. He was gone from sight:
That much I could see, and against the sky
The king had his arm up shielding his two eyes
As if from some brilliant light or blinding dread.
Next he was on his knees, head bowed to earth
In homage to those gods who dwell in it,
Then up again with his arms spread out to honour
The gods on high, like a windlass being turned
By every power above him and below,
Raised out knowledge into knowledge, sole
Witness of what passed.
No god had galloped
His thunder chariot, no hurricane
Had swept the hill. Call me mad, if you like,
Or gullible, but that man surely went
In step with a guide he trusted down to where
Light has gone out but the door stands open.

(adapted from Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, lines 1586-1666)

Idea file – vCite (2003)

Tech Notes

Nov 192010

I had talked about this with friends in the past. It is basically the citation format equivalent of a vCard. It should allow simple swapping of citation or citation-like information. It should be built on open standards, perhaps using the Dublin Core as the basic semantics. It might also use something like the Netscape RSS.

vCite must be XML-based. It should be able to hook into a hypertext link (perhaps as a XLINK or in some extension of ANCHOR tag) that allows a vCite block to be “grabbed” by another application. This might be things like:

– an automatic citation scanner used to compile link directories (useful for collaborative filtering)
– bookmark manager
– enhanced subject gateway or hypertext link display (cursor over and see a structured catalog entry for the link).
– exchange of vCites between a range of applications, for example, sending a catalog URL to a customer PDA much like the vCard allows a user to send a business card.

One can imagine going into a store with a PDA and then allowing a user to have selected items automatically forward their descriptions for later review and comparison shopping.

Students would be able to grab vCites from library catalogs as a simple transportable and interoperable set of semantics that they could then use for creating bibliographies.

Promoting this development would allow a user to catalog a link or some record and then share it more easily. Since users and automated tools would be the ones disseminating the vCite, the onus is on the originator to ensure a useful, accurate vCite. This helps encourage stronger linkages and fewer transcription and other errors in sharing citation information.

IDEA: CITATION ANALYSIS and NOTETAKING

Citation analysis seems underutilized for information retrieval to me. Why don’t organizations use citation analysis to figure out what important things were referenced in their particular area of interest and use this information to help determine things like digitization priorities (like making sure the most important and cited articles/texts are available to their users) or to create secondary “survey” products like annual compilations of important stuff.

Now if only we had a mechanism to clearly identify what portions of documents that people stop and reference, then we have something interesting. Too bad electronic highlighting is so crude. It would be useful if we could have highlighting in browsers and have it used for automatic notetaking or summarization. Rather than just saving links (which are terribly unstructured) the objective should be to capture anything and summarize and/or catalog.

Here again is where my idea of vCite would really be helpful.

Citations online. Why have programs like Endnote/Procite on the desktop? Why not make them accessible from anywhere on the web and allow users to have a variety of outputs (HTML, PDF, .doc, RTF) and let them chose the citation style as well.

This would be a useful service and allow notetaking from anywhere.

It would be useful to be able to upload a local file and to download one as well. Import from Procite/Endnote would also be a great feature to have. Work with ISI to develop the product?

One objective is to support scholarly and educational work.
Another is personal subject trees: how to manage links better is the objective here.

Another twist might be to make this an online bookmark manager. Allow users to move their bookmarks to a central repository (saves them in the event of an accidental overwrite) and to make all or portions of their links accessible. If this were matched with vocabulary tools online for creating personal heirarchies
and automatic linkchecking, and even metadata cataloging, then I think there is a nice application environment here.

How to make money? It must be a subscription service purchased either by single users or institutions. Viral market by providing a limited service for users (100 citations/200 links, etc).

Existing citation management tools are lame and have not advanced significantly.

Performance must be great.

It would be useful to allow users to define access for various parts of their personal bookmarks, subject trees,

Patricia Storace

Poems

Nov 192010

PAGAN LITANY

Unknown gods we drove away, we invoke you.
You who are not named, but are not nameless,
Pardon our arrogance. Return to us.
Let the myriad altars we destroyed surge up again,
Ocean of gods, and lave the world with generous prayer,
Restore, we beseech you, your manifold blessings.

Let no one be called infidel unless
He seeks to harm another.
Let the curse of idolater be reserved
Only for the self-righteous.
Whose tyrannous faith brings war,
And permits any cruelty
In the service of its self-deity.
Let the charge of blasphemy fall
Only on the self-anointed,
Ventriloquists of divinities.
Once again, let no god be abominated,
Declared a devil by another’s partisans,
Let none be despised, but all honored.

Terminus, god of border markers, return from Rome,
Teach us again our limits. Mark off the finite from the infinite,
Let no man claim the deaths he causes are the will of God,
That the bodies at his feet are the butcheries of angels.
Show the women their own deaths in the tortures they inflict—
Their children will tremble at the sight of them,
And drown on their own mothers’ milk.
Abattur, come with your scales from Persia;
We need your judgment.
Anat of Canaan, goddess of war, wear your ostrich feather crown;
You alone knew the purpose of war, not to destroy other creatures,
Each born as it is, already in its shroud—
But to fight death.
Pattini, Lady born of a heavenly mango, share with the starving
Your miraculous rice, protect us from epidemics,
Both those we endure, and those we devise.

O Ptah, who created us in Egypt on a potter’s wheel,
Make us serviceable and lovely.
Nu-gua, who made us in China of yellow clay,
Do not shatter us.
Huracan, who made us in America of cornmeal,
You who live simultaneously in eternity and time,
Watch over us in heaven,
Watch over us on earth,
Watch over us in hell.
Quat, who made us on his island out of boredom,
Inspire us to give our stories better endings.
Imrat, who fashioned us in India of butter,
And in the richness of divinity made other gods,
Remind us that it is not our limitations that are sacred.
Lowalangi, great guardian from Indonesia,
You speak of us tenderly as your pigs,
And teach us we are incapable of worship,
Until we see ourselves a thousand ways.

Nanse, Our Lady of Sumeria, Queen of Divination,
Tell us the awful truth—that this world is a faithful record
And clear interpretation of our dreams.
Ometeotl, glorious Aztec, born of your own thought,
Keep us unfinished ones ever-thinking,
Revealed always by what we have caused to exist.

Patrons and Givers of Gifts, we summon you.
Juturna of the springs and wells,
Quench our thirst.
Egres, who first gave turnips to the Finns,
If we scorn your gift,
We repudiate the world.
Dua, god of daily grooming,
Reviver of mankind,
Patron of perfume and the sacred bath,
It is your vocation also to wake the dead,
Your therapy through which they remember
How to use their limbs. Remind us of the
Resurrections hidden in our days,
Celestial incarnate in quotidian.
Cao Guo-Jiu, Patron of actors,
Of all that is both true and false,
Sustain us in belief,
Protect us with doubt.
Hintubuhet, Androgyne,
Maker of Marriage,
Butterfly of both sexes,
Bless those who seek devoted love.
Tenenit, refresh us with the golden beer
Brewed first in your sky-blue lapis vat.
Marunogere, Maker of genitals,
Thank you.
Arhats, enlightened ones,
Lend us your heavenly eyes,
So we might glimpse other worlds,
Read other scriptures, so those who
Know nothing of the earth they inhabit
Will not dare again to speak to us of heaven.
Return to us, Pantheon,
Abundant in divinity,
Without you, we cannot be human.

Winged Nan, from the heaven of dead children,
We petition you: have mercy on us.
Ran of Scandinavia, goddess of the drowned,
Lift the breathless gently in your nets,
Pray for us.
Freya, weep for us your golden tears.
Mayan Ixtab, Goddess of Suicides,
Show those in torment your inhuman mercy;
With compassion beyond blessing,
Receive them in your Paradise.
Greek Eirene,
Whose liturgies were never stained with blood,
Grant us peace.

Constantine Cavafy: A Small Selection

Poems

Nov 192010

PERILOUS THINGS

Said Myrtias (a Syrian student
in Alexandria; in the reign of
Augustus Constans and Augustus Constantius;
in part a pagan and in part a christian),
“Fortified by theory and by study,
I shall not fear my passions like a coward.
I shall yield my body to sensual delights,
to enjoyments that one dreams about,
to the most audacious amorous desires,
to the wanton impulses of my blood, without
a single fear, for whenever I wish-
and I shall have the will, fortified
as I shall be by theory and by study-
at moments of crisis, I shall find again
my spirit, as before, ascetic.”

ITHACA

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
then pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
Do not fear the Lestrygonians
and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon.
You will never meet such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your body and your spirit.
You will never meet the Lestrygonians,
the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not raise them up before you.

Then pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many,
that you will enter ports seen for the first time
with such pleasure, with such joy!
Stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony,
and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds,
buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can;
visit hosts of Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from those who have knowledge.

Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for long years;
and even to anchor at the isle when you are old,
rich with all that you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.

Without her you would never have taken the road.
But she has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you.
With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience,
you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean.

DESIRES

Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown old
and they shut them, with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum,
with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet-
that is how desires look that have passed
without fulfillment; without one of them having achieved
a night of sensual delight, or a moonlit morn.

EXPECTING THE BARBARIANS

What are we waiting for, assembled in the public square?

The barbarians are to arrive today.

Why such inaction in the Senate?
Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?
Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
What further laws can the Senators pass?
When the barbarians come they will make the laws.

Why did our emperor wake up so early,
and sits at the principal gate of the city,
on the throne, in state, wearing his crown?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
And the emperor waits to receive
their chief. Indeed he has prepared
to give him a scroll. Therein he engraved
many titles and names of honor.
Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
today in their red, embroidered togas;
why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,
and rings with brilliant glittering emeralds;
why are they carrying costly canes today,
superbly carved with silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today,
and such things dazzle the barbarians.
Why don’t the worthy orators come as usual
to make their speeches, to have their say?

Because the barbarians are to arrive today;
and they get bored with eloquence and orations.

Why this sudden unrest and confusion?
(How solemn their faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,
and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?

Because night is here but the barbarians have not come.
Some people arrived from the frontiers,
and they said that there are no longer any barbarians.

And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.