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  • 2 min read

RSS in the Academic/Research/Scientific community

I recently wondered out loud (on a couple of mailing lists) how much action there is with RSS and Blogging within the Academic/Research/Scientific community. The reason for that question was that I was considering that with those folks refereed, scholarly articles are what counts which seems diametrically opposite to the casual, ad-hoc, first-person rants that are generally associated with blogging. (Ok I am just exaggerating to make a point.) I learned that there's actually lots and lots going on with RSS and Blogging in that world. Here are some interesting from a more or less random collection of serious science and academic pubs all of which have RSS support of some kind. This is, I am sure, nowhere near comprehensive, but it was eye opening to me.,

Pretty cool, eh? Technorati Tags: RSS, science

  • 1 min read

[GEEK] Site Referral Log Mystery: How does this happen?

Can someone explain why my referrer log for this site is full of spamish- looking like urls, none of which actually have a link to it? For example: texasholdemcenteral.com, www.freewebs.com, skate.cyberfreehost.com, google.co.uk/search, www.myspace.com/nyjeter2ox, images.google.ca/imgres, images.google.co.uk/imgres, evilplots.com/texas-holdem, www.texasholdemcenteral.com, online-casino.blest-casino.com/ , www.favorite- casino.com/online-casino, www.sportscribe.com/poker-party, com/texas- holdem.html, favorite-casino.com/casino. And so on? It's got to have something to do with page rank and Google, but I would love to understand HOW and WHY they do it. Technorati Tags: Geeky, google

  • 1 min read

[GEEK] This may be good news for Java, long term

"IBM has announced that it will be joining the Harmony open source Java project. Although right now, IBM's role is limited to providing thoughts and suggestions, it is likely that IBM will be contributing code to the project in the future according to Rod Smith, Vice President of Advanced Technology at IBM.", from JavaLobby.

While Java is great as a language and as a platform, there has been reasonable concern about Sun's stewardship of it, both short and long term. The fact that IBM seems to be throwing their hat into the ring of making an alternative, open source, Java platform, can either be good by itself or because it gives Sun a kick in the pants. Either way, I think it could be good! Technorati Tags: interesting, java, IBM, puppy

  • 1 min read

Scoble, Technorati and Bloglines (and Dow Jones and Nasdaq AGAIN different?! What’s going on?)

Scoble has been really picking on Technorati recently, and I can't figure out why. Given the megaphone that Robert has it has got to be really hurting Technorati. There has been a lot of detailed commentary about this, some of it quite good, for example David Berlind and Dan Farber on ZDNet and Padawan.info. My modest contribution to the debate is this: Why does it shock anyone that the number of links reported by Technorati is different than the number of citations counted by Bloglines? These are statistics for which there are no objective definitions. Both sites are measuring something but are they measuring the same thing? No! Unfortunately (sort of) neither site gives the detailed objective definition of what they are measuring. I say "sort of", because, guaranteed, those definitions would be inaccurate and dated, and no one would read them anyway. (Update : I am pretty sure that my modest contribution is not original but it what is screaming out in my mind each time I read about this topic.) (Update 2: Maybe a better analogy would be feigned surprise that Fox News poll results differ from The New York Times, or that the statistics about how many people have died from AIDS are different depending on who is reporting. I mean, this isn't the speed of light we are talking about here.) Technorati Tags: bloglines, scoble, technorati, truth

  • 1 min read

Here's something I hadn 't seen before: I IM'd a friend of mine at a Big Company and the message got rejected because it included a URL. I have to suppose that it's any URL that gets bounced, but who knows? So the workaround? I sent the text for a Google query that returns the same url. Further details: Discussing it with him, the logic seems to be that someone could send an employee a phishing link in an IM message.

  • 1 min read

Blogging 101 article in NYT

Scripting News: 7/15/2005: Dave points to the New York Times article by Rich Meslin, Blogs 101. It's a very nice collection of Blogs of general interest as a good introduction to the world of Blogs.

"If you want to get the feel of Web logs and blogging, visit some of these sites. Most blogs carry links to other blogs on related topics or that the author likes. This page is under development; feel free to suggest your own finds. Business and sports suggestions are particularly welcome." (from New York Times)

It's a really nice starter list, but Rich, how about providing your list as OPML as well? Technorati Tags: blog, OPML

  • 2 min read

[GEEKY] Using OPML for master lists of feeds

I encounter more and more organizations or people who are collecting lists of feeds or blogs for one purpose or another. With BlogBridge we have the BlogBridge Topic Experts. Global Voices have their collection of international blogs (very cool!) And of course, anyone using a feed reader or aggregator has their own list of subscriptions. Anyone who is making a list of blogs or feeds (or I suppose, URLs of any kind) that is not secret or private, would do well to record that in a simple OPML list. And the 'handle' to that list or collection is a URL. Lets see. Instead of telling people, you can find my list of best restaurant blogs as a BlogLines list, or as this html page, or as a BlogBridge Guide, you refer to that list by the URL of the OPML. It's a subtle shift: instead of thinking of OPML as a handy interchange format, start thinking of it as the most elemental format for representing a hierarchy on which all others are built. (This insight is clearly inspired by Dave Winer's new OPML stuff, particularly the service which accepts and serves up OMPL files.) Going on. If this is a good way to think about things, then this argues that the OPML service and format at its core should remain minimalist. That as people decide to layer other semantics (as they will and should) onto their lists and hierarchies, that these be kept separate or separable from the OPML. I am not sure where this leads. I am just musing to myself (with all of you listening in.) Technorati Tags: blog, Geeky, OPML

  • 1 min read

In my other life…

I just updated this site a little to have some more up to date information about my consulting business. Yes, you know about this blog, and you know about BlogBridge, but perhaps if you ever clicked on the links on the right of this you will have noticed that they were old and decrepit. Well, they are new and much nicer now. Still nothing profound, but at least informative if you are looking for me to do work for you!

Technorati Tags: Consulting