Month: July 2006

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Digg Down

Yes, it happens to everyone. I went to digg an article this morning and found that Digg was indeed Down. No report on why or how long on their blog, but I was interested to see site recommendations from the Digg staff.

Amar recommends a BBC site about Planet Earth. As a long-time resident of this BigBlueBall, it naturally caught my eye, but it’s really more of a one-time visit type of site.

Rocketboom was Brian’s choice, which left me wondering if his selection was made in the Congdon days or afterwards.

Dan is apparently a big Oasis fan. All I remember them for is Wonderwall, but apparently they made other songs, too.

On the other hand, Daniel shares a site called Top Left Pixel, the wonderful photo blog of Sam Javanrouh. He posts one new photo each day.

Maybe his head is in the stars, but Eli gives us HubbleSite — with all things about the Hubble space telescope. I like the gallery, but I’ve never been a fan of astronomy.

Fearless leader Kevin gives us Ask a Ninja. Is this an insider view into the decision-making process of the Silicon Valley?

Jay shares one of my favorites, the Onion. Seriously, who doesn’t love good satire?

I have to wonder if Owen is the finance guy? His pick was Dealbreaker, an interesting blog on Wall Street. Did you know, for instance, that 60% of homosexuals rank online banking as important, compared to only 50% of heterosexuals. Neither did I.

If Owen is the finance guy, Steve must be the designer. He shares A List Apart, a great site for all things CSS.

They added a gratuituous, albeit “timeless” link to Wikipedia, links to the various LAMP components (hopefully they didn’t contribute to this downtime), and a plug for the Digg blog (which again, didn’t say why Digg was down). But all-in-all, an interesting way to share during that downtime. Maybe we could all take a page from their playbook.

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Tagging and the Average Joe

Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration has analyzed the tagging behavior of users on four websites that have helped popularize folksonomy-style tagging: Flickr, del.icio.us, Technorati and YouTube. According to Agarwal, the results indicate that the Average Joe is a better tagger than the tech-savvy user.

Agarwal suggests that Technorati, YouTube and del.icio.us are more tech-oriented sites that the friendly photo-sharing site Flickr. Possibly a stretch, but I’d agree that photo-sharing transcends the boundaries of geekdom.

Using Google search to analyze the number of distinct tags used at each site, here’s what he found:

This got me thinking. As you know, I’m a big fan of folksonomy tagging. I regularly use Flickr and del.icio.us, and slightly less frequently YouTube and Technorati. And on top of that, my vocation (and avocation) make me passionate about knowledge management. One of the early concepts incorporated into most knowledge management systems in the 90s was that of a taxonomy for knowledge. A structured approach at organizing knowledge for easy lookup and retrieval.

The trouble with taxonomies is two-fold. First, they are often only understood by the person who created them. The layperson is befuddled. Second, the structure quickly turns to inflexibility upon real-world application. This is one of the reasons Clay Shirky supports folksonomy-style tagging, as he discussed at last year’s Emerging Tech conference.

But can folksonomy tagging take hold in an enterprise environment? Will the success that Flickr has experienced with the Average Joe translate into the corporate world? Will the Average Employee grasp the personal value of tagging? It’s a question worthy of further study. In my own experience on Flickr, I’ve seen some people go absolutely nuts with tags, while others neglect to use any at all.

I suspect we’ll see similar behavior behind the firewall. As with Flickr, some people get the value proposition of tagging, while others don’t. Some need time to discover that value, and will eventually have their “ah-hah!” moment. The beauty of tagging is that once you get it, it’s not a chore to tag items. It’s your own personal breadcrumb trail back to that photo, that link, or that video. It frees your mind from rote memorization of a rigid and often cryptic taxonomy, and puts you back in charge of the stuff that matters to you. And isn’t that what we all want?

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WordPress vs. Movable Type

It seems like all the cool blogs are on WordPress these days. When I launched www.jeffhester.net back in 2003, Movable Type was the best blogging option out there. It’s still quite good, with decent plug-in support, the ability to publish dynamically (like WordPress) or static HTML (as I do here). But damn, all the latest goodies are on WordPress. And it seems like all the blogs I follow these days are also on WordPress.

I did a quick and unscientific test on Google Fight to see which was most popular. WordPress beat Movable Type hands down: 211,000,000 to 16,600,000.

So as I prepare to update the site design, I’m considering the possibility of converting to WordPress. I’m not worried about losing my entries (those can be imported). I’m not even concerned about losing search engine rank (as the “permalink” URLs will likely change). What am I concerned about? If the change is worth the time and effort.

So let me hear from you, WordPress and MT fans. Which would you choose, and why?

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BigBlueBall IM Podcast #8

Number eight… number eight… number eight… appears to be the magic number. Jake Burgy and I recorded the eight episode of the BigBlueBall Instant Messaging podcast today, and I think this show has the best sound quality yet.

We tried something a little different this time, highlighting some of the hot topics shared in the forums by our BigBlueBall members. Check out the show notes, download the episode and give it a listen. If you like it, consider adding a review at iTunes. Who will be the first?

Links

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Time

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” – Rodin

Last year while in Paris I spent an warm, sunny afternoon at the Musée Rodin. While most artists find fame long after their last gasp, Rodin had a great gig. They set him up in a mansion and paid for everything. His only requirement was to create, and that when he died, his creations would belong to France.

The Musée Rodin is actually housed in Rodin’s former mansion. As you stroll the park-like grounds you’ll see locals eating their lunches amidst some of the most recognizable sculptures in the world — like Le Penseur — The Thinker.

Which brings me back to this quote. “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” I had a number of people ask me what’s up with this blog. There is no dramatic reason for the dearth of new posts. I’ve simply been taking some time to think. Was that time wasted? That all depends on how I use the experience.