#13: Tagging - a del.icio.us improvement in Web 2.0

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http://www.GraffitiGen.com/

During this 23 Things trek, we've used Web 2.0 sites that make use of tags. A brief definition was provided as we explored Flickr, and we could just leave it there (tags are keywords we choose to associate with an image, a title, a Thing, etc.). But tags deserve a little more spotlight time because they hold amazing Web 2.0 potential and have already revolutionized information access.

Tags democratize (or anarchize, if you take a dimmer view) information. They disregard or embrace, as users choose, the usual labels 'the establishment' has always used. Tags give library subject headings a run for their money.

Folks, tags are the hallmark of what is known as folksonomy. And that's a fancy word making reference to taxonomy, the formal classification and hierarchical structure of a topic or area of information.

Tags are terrific! They are

• personally useful
• personally relevant
• link us to other users (social element of Web 2.0)
  
• discovery tools (find out what others' have tagged with same word)
  
• based on plain language (informal, no imposed vocabulary/subject headings)
• freeform - unstructured, without hierarchy (as in headings, subheadings, etc.)
  
• current and timely
  

Tags are Web 2.0 loud and proud. And they figure prominently in this Thing's featured tool: Del.icio.us. Yes, those 'dots' belong there (no keyboard spasms creating staccato typos). Type it in as http://del.icio.us/, and don't stick a .com at the end.

Del.icio.us is basically an online bookmarking manager, but so much more. Because of tagging, del.icio.us stands out on the social Web's phenomena of collective collections.

The site houses your bookmarks on the go. Find yourself moving from computer to computer - and annoyed that you have to Google to get that url you've forgotten or must visit a site's main page and click five times to get the page you actually want? Bookmark using del.icio.us, and you have those pages just a click away wherever you are! While you're at it, take a look at how others have tagged the same link - and use those tags to discover more sites that interest you.

Discovery Resources

• The Otter Group webcast tutorial for del.icio.us
• Take a look at what del.icio.us has to say about itself

Discovery Exercise - lite

1. Take a look around Del.icio.us using the account created for this exercise: GCC23Things. Many of the sites we've explored on our trek so far are bookmarked here.
   
2. Explore the clickable stuff on this page! Click on the pinkish "saved by # of people" link - then look at the right for common tags used to label this site. Do any of the other tags lead you to good stuff to share? Blog about it!
   
3. Back on our account page, look at the gray box to the right: explore different display options and take a look at bundles. Bundles take a step toward taxonomy - do you think this is a good feature or not?
   
4. Feeling just a little bold? Log in to our account (learn2.0) to add tags or new bookmarks.
   

Discovery Exercise - commit

1. Create a del.icio.us account. You might consider this tutorial (text-based, self-paced) for getting started (from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Xavier University)
2. Import bookmarks from your browser and add more tags.
3. From your account list, click on the pinkish "saved by # of people" link - follow some of the common tags used to label sites you value. Do any of the other tags lead you to good stuff you bookmark and tag yourself? What potential does del.icio.us hold for you as a discovery tool (for finding more sites of interest to you)? Blog about it!

#12: Rollin', rollin', ROLLYO!

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ROLOS? No, but a few of those would be yummy. RollYO. Roll Your Own search engine.

Do you have sites you tend to search frequently? The "usual suspects" when you're looking for updated information on a certain topic? Do you find it a little tedious to go from bookmarked site to bookmarked site looking for similar information from similar organizations/institutions/companies/entities? Well, Rollyo is worth checking out. It enables you to create a search tool for your own selection of web sites; this is called a Searchroll. You can create private ones or public ones to share. Take a look at some of the Searchrolls others have created:

• Food and Dining
• Phoenix News
• Triathlon Junkie
  

The first one above is considered a "High Roller." This moniker is bestowed upon celebrity-created Searchrolls or very popular Searchrolls. My attempts at rolling are: higher ed and ed tech.

If in surveying your search results you are impatient to see what a particular site from the Searchroll has yielded, you can click on that site's name (at the left on the results page) to narrow your search to results from just that site.

You will have noticed that Rollyo does generate sponsored links at the top and amidst search results; however, no obnoxious ads nor graphics litter your screen. These oh-so-brief (and clearly labeled) advert interruptions are certainly worth tolerating given such a useful free tool!

Now, we all know Google basically dominates the search world. But even Google knows that the breadth it covers cannot touch the depth that niche, specialty searching can provide users. Rollyo really has something going here. It is making available to all of us what sites like Travelocity and BizRate make money doing. So not to be outdone by this little start-up venture, the Big G, along with Yahoo! and Microsoft, have their own customizable search engine tools if you are interested in comparing:

Google Custom Search Engine - in beta from the Google Co-op. You must have a Google ID to create (which you already have, if you set up your blog through Blogger!). Google will host a search page for you, or you can paste the code into your own site/page.

Yahoo! Search Builder - tool provides for free (without requiring a Yahoo! ID) the code for providing a Yahoo! search box of your own site. That means Yahoo! does not provide a webpage to host your customized search. [Did any of you notice that Rollyo is powered by Yahoo! Search?]

Microsoft Live Search Macros - Macro Creator ID is linked to your Windows Live ID. This tool creates a webpage for you to bookmark.

Discovery Exercise

1. Roll Your Own! Create a Rollyo account of your own.
   
2. Create your very own customized search engine. It can be based on someone else's if you don't want to start from scratch.
3. Blog about what you think of having this personalized power searching at your fingertips. Can you see some amazing potential here? Or are you satisfied and accustomed to "feeling lucky" with Google's searching?
   

#11: Collective collections

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This Thing is all about sharing collections - or taking a peak at or a cue from others' collections that include titles along similar interests. And the first site even shares our thing for capitalized Things!

LibraryThing features that community element that distinguishes so many Web 2.0 tools. It is a social space where people share what's on their bookshelves (virtually - we're referring to titles, not physical book swapping/lending. There are other sites that do that, though, and LibraryThing has attempted to partner with 'em ... but we're getting off track here). LibraryThing book recommendations come from your browsing collections of others and/or from searching The Suggester (which draws from the collective wisdom/collections of others, and well, an algorithm or two and the Z39.50 protocol).

Take the tour or just jump to the very short introduction to LibraryThing. Registering is easy (no long form with lots of info to fill out), and each user can catalog up to 200 titles for free (fees apply after that - but $25 for life sounds like a bargain, if not amusing, as a lifetime online could be just as fleeting as enduring). "Cataloging" your titles is as easy as typing some title words, an author's name, or the ISBN - LibraryThing works with open access library records, Amazon, and the Library of Congress to provide complete records for your titles (and cover images!). Amazing! You can see the Library of Congress Subject Headings and call numbers assigned to the title - and/or Dewey Decimal number, lest we forget that other classification scheme. But you don't have to rely on those stuffy old library subject headings - you can tag titles with your terms!

You can view your titles in list form (in various table formats) or as a bookshelf (bookstore style: cover facing out, showing off those cover art images from Amazon). You can join a group of fellow readers. You can share book reviews. Okay, I'm going on and on (it's all so neat-o, though!).

Now, before I divulge too much to dampen interest in exploring LibraryThing for yourself, I have to point out The UnSuggester. This turns around Amazon's "Customers who bought this item also bought" idea and gives you the bottom of the barrel. You can consider this either the worst book recommendations you'll ever receive or one of the best ways to expand your horizons, widen your world, and consider an opposite (or absurdly mismatched) point of view for a short while (or for just a laughable passing moment, if you don't take up the suggestion).

There is all this and more! Go explore more LibraryThingies!

Reader though I am, books aren't the only collections we hold dear.

There is always music to stir our passions, evoke memories, put a spring in a step. Is it any wonder that there are social sites providing opportunities for us to share our music collections, too?

Here are a few music sites with social elements:

• Last.fm - It strikes me that this one is the closest to what LibraryThing is like - and even partners with Amazon, as LT does, for those who want to make purchases. Tags and "audioscrobbling" help users find and share titles they like.
  
• Pandora Radio - Self-billed "music discovery service" that is based on the Music Genome Project, an amazing, ambitious, and intriguing undertaking (explained in an NPR audio link here [6:32]). Not much visible social interaction beyond sharing "stations;" community is low-key here (if you'll pardon my pun!), but users can connect with other listeners.
  
• iLike.com - This works with iTunes, but iTunes is not necessary. Looks to be trying to appeal to younger listeners (but maybe that's just me?). Recommendations based on algorithm; no tagging feature.

But how can "they" (any of these sites) do that, you may ask? There are various forms of legalese posted, and protections against (former) Napster-like file sharing are in place for the most part.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Create an account at LibraryThing or at one of the music sites above.
2. Find a recommendation that pleases or surprises you.
3. Blog about the recommendation. Does the collective wisdom win you over with something new? Something vaguely familiar? Something you forgot you were interested in? Tell us about it!
   

#10: Generating Play

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Hmmm... maybe we should have thought about renumbering the order of things, so that this Thing could fall right along about 7 1/2?

Karen has referred to this week as Play Week, and it did not strike me until now (and reading Mo's post about the 7 1/2 Habits and Renee's, especially!) that this might have worked better (numerically but in a literary way ;) last week. Anyway....

This Thing is about playing around with images using what are known as image generators.

Image generators? No, you don't need a publicist or stylist - and the generator isn't a backup energy supply (although, with three little ones here at home, I'm thinking I'd very much like a personal one!). What we'll be exploring are sites that allow users to manipulate images by entering text or altering portions of a picture to create something new. We've already encountered some Flickr mashups that do this, but this Thing's tools are not necessarily Flickr based.

So, what am I talking about? The animated sand and surf above is an example. And take a look at this:

What?!? There's a careworn book about 23 Things?! You mean Karen and Christine are putting me through this when I could have just checked out a book?!?

These are just simple examples of images you can make with these generators. Ever wanted a street named after you? Your name in lights on a marquee? Your team's moniker (or alma mater, or pet's name, or vacation spot...) in place of the Hollywood sign? A favorite saying tattooed on someone's back? (me neither, actually)

Other examples can be found among the blogs of our fellow explorers for 23 Things. Marla, Karen, and Kathy have each used the Face Transformer for generating painterly images of themselves. And others have tried the Warholizer (looking fab, Sue and Susan!).

Discovery Resources
Here are just a few of the many sites that enable us to fool around with images in one way or another. The 'big momma' list I found here at The Generator Blog provides lots of links - but also mixes the types of generators (and does not organize them other than alphabetically). Our Thing is focused on images - but if you want to generate a Zen koan, an alien limerick, or a wedding toast, The Generator Blog is worth more exploration.

Most of these sites are text oriented: you insert text (or captions) to appear on an image provided by the site.

• ImageChef
• RedKid.net
• Add Letters
  
• ACME Labelmaker (okay, so it's just a simple labelmaker, but the font selection is so cool - as are the typeface names!)
  

Sites for you to upload your own images or pull in from Flickr (or elsewhere, if you've been intrepid explorers!). As with the above (except ACME), there are multiple options/tools:

• dumpr (you'll find museumr here - perhaps you want your Face Transformer image to appear in a museum gallery?)
• FD Toys (this is a repeat from our Flickr mashup Thing) BTW: FD stands for Flagrant Disregard (yikes!)
  

Discovery Exercise
Play around with these!

1. Choose an image generator tool (among these, or impress us with one you've found) and create something fun. As with the first Flickr Thing we did, if you're hesitant to upload an image, you can just use a text-in-image generator. Most of these sites host the image for you, so you don't even have to download either.
   
2. Share your generated image through a blog entry. If you've downloaded the image to upload it to your blog, please include a link or url to the site where you generated the image.
   

Have fun - remember, this Thing is in the spirit of the 7 1/2th Habit: Play!

#9: Feeding Frenzy

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The easiest and quickest way to find feeds is to search for them. Bloglines has a built-in search engine on the top right of the My Blogs page. You can search for posts (individual blog entries) or feeds (whole blogs) by changing the drop-down selector. Like most search engines, you can get closer to what you want by using the additional search options. Google has a specialized search page just for blogs at http://blogsearch.google.com/

But there are quite a few specialized feed tools that you'll want to explore and add to your wagon:

• Feedster - One of the largest collections of RSS feeds, Feedster lets you search for feeds in three categories: news, blogs & podcasts


• Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.


• Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
  

We'll explore more feed-finding tools in Week 6 when we look at some more funny sounding things like del.icio.us and Technorati.

Discovery Exercise: Using the various search tools mentioned above, go exploring for feeds. (Remember that this is a "discovery" exercise. You can delete feeds later on if you find yourself getting swamped!) Pay particular attention to the kinds of information you find with each search tool.

• Find and add a couple of blogs about personal interests or hobbies and about professional or academic interests


• Using Topix.net, create a search for a particular subject in the news. Do you like how this search engine opens with feeds from your location?


• Check your Favorites or Bookmarks. Some of the websites you visit frequently may have RSS feeds. Add them to see the difference between going to a web page and having the new information come to you.

Tell us what you think! Here's where you come in. Write about your experience. In Blogger, you can create a new post and edit it as often as you want without publishing it. Or you can create several blogs on different topics and work on them as you go. Just make sure to save your entries before you leave Blogger.

Don't know what to blog about? Here are some questions to think about ...

• Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?


• Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing?


• What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels?


• Or what kind of unusual or wacky ones did you find?


• What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

We'll be watching for your blogs in our feed readers!

#8: RSS really is “really simple”

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Wow! What a great list of blogs we’ve created. By now, however, you are probably feeling just a little overwhelmed, right? If each one of us writes an entry or two a week, how can we possibly keep up? Aha! That’s the very clever “thing” we’re going to learn about this week. It’s called “RSS” which stands for Really Simple Syndication. It really is simple! There are lots of explanations, but here’s a good one from Common Craft:

Click To Play

Luckily, Blogger automatically includes a subscription link on every blog it creates (and most other blogging software does too.) As a blog author, you don't have to do anything more. Scroll down to the very bottom of this page and you’ll see it: Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). (Don't worry: "atom" is just a specific subscription method.) That’s the syndication part. See, isn't that simple?

Now put on your reader hat. In order for you to use that Subscribe link, you’ll have to set up a Bloglines account. Bloglines is an aggregator. It goes out and checks each blog to which you’ve subscribed to see if there’s anything new. When it finds something, it lets you know. Once you create a Bloglines account (and don't forget to add it to the list of accounts you set up in Thing #1), you’re ready to play!

Bloglines is really a personal web page, so you can access it from any computer using the URL: http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs However, many people install "extensions" to integrate Bloglines into IE or Mozilla or Firefox. See all the options on the "My Blogs" page. (I highly recommend you install a "Notifier." Even if your browser isn't open, it will tell you if Bloglines has found anything new for you. How easy is that?)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Set up a Bloglines account


2. Subscribe to the 23 Things blog. Open your Bloglines/My Blogs page in another window. Click Add on the top of the left panel. Now back on this page, click on the Subscribe link at the very bottom of this 23 Things page. Copy the URL of the Window that opens into the Blog or Feed URL box and click the Subscribe button. Or watch this YouTube video created by Helene Blowers: Adding RSS Feeds to Bloglines


3. Subscribe to one or two (or all) of the 23 Things participants’ blogs. You can do this by selecting the blogs from the list on the left, scrolling to the bottom of each blog, and clicking the Subscribe link.

Now, you will know when there are any new entries in any of our blogs, just by checking one place. See, it's as simple as 1-2-3.

Extra! Extra! Select a notifier from the My Blogs page and add it to your desktop.

Discovery Resources (for those, like Oliver, who want some more . . .)
There are lots and lots of resources about RSS, so if you're interested in knowing more, it's easy to get knee deep in the big muddy before you go very far.

• Read Chapter 5 in Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. A version of this chapter is available online.
• CNET Video: RSS – Feel the Need for Feeds (3:32) – a good over view of what RSS is and the benefits to users.
• Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds - a good tutorial from Palinet, a library cooperative
• A 2-page handout from Educause's Learning Initiative
• And don't forget your friends. Alisa has created a screencast here that explains Google Reader, another kind of feed reader or aggregator like Bloglines.

It doesn't really matter which aggregator you use. Once you're comfortable with Bloglines, you can explore multiple readers and read the recommendations of others. It’s a bit like searching for the holy grail. You can easily export your feeds from Bloglines to other readers or import from other readers into Bloglines.

Tell us what you think! Once you’ve set up a Bloglines account, come back here and add a comment to this post letting us know you’ve been successful. It’s important to us to know that you’re not lost in the deep muddy. We really like reading about your adventures!

#7 Blog about Technology

For this thing, just blog about any interesting technology you've used, seen, been exposed to or heard mention of. Also, please comment on some else's blog entry.



I used SitePal to create this animated speaking character (using a limited free trial) and asked my daughter to provide the audio. [As of July 17, this link has been deactivated due to the end of the free trial!]