Thursday, June 16, 2005
CLA Conference session - Blogging & RSS: Applications & Technology
I registered for the Technology Track portion of the conference which consisted of three sessions. I missed the first one ("Keeping Current: Gadgets & Tools") because the keynote presentation by David Snowden - which was excellent, but dense (I'm still mentally digesting it) - ran long and I didn't have the guts to wander into the session a half hour late. So, I started my technology "track" with this session, which got off to a wonderfully ironic start with a cranky internet connection and a laptop that crashed a couple of times. But the panelists - Darlene Fichter, Randy Reichart, Aaron Schmidt, and Steven Cohen - merrily soldiered on. It was a really fun session.
Some of my takeaways:
I registered for the Technology Track portion of the conference which consisted of three sessions. I missed the first one ("Keeping Current: Gadgets & Tools") because the keynote presentation by David Snowden - which was excellent, but dense (I'm still mentally digesting it) - ran long and I didn't have the guts to wander into the session a half hour late. So, I started my technology "track" with this session, which got off to a wonderfully ironic start with a cranky internet connection and a laptop that crashed a couple of times. But the panelists - Darlene Fichter, Randy Reichart, Aaron Schmidt, and Steven Cohen - merrily soldiered on. It was a really fun session.
Some of my takeaways:
- 3 keys to blogging: frequency, brevity, and personality
- blogs don't stand alone, but are part of a loosely joined conversation, thereby encouraging collaboration
- RSS allows you to redistribute/repurpose content - however an RSS feed itself is content, and so has copyright implications. It's a good idea to check for appropriate permissions from the provider before using an RSS feed
- Blogging/RSS represents a shift from mainstream media to grassroots media - widens the field of knowledge
- Blogs vs. wikis (question from the audience) - blogs allow for limited and controlled collaboration amongst one or a few; wikis allow for wide open and uncontrolled (for the most part) collaboration. Blogs also are more robust and stable than wikis right now, allowing for more flexibility in accomplishing your purpose.
- Legal and/or ethical implications of scraping feeds (another question from the audience) - there likely are legal implications (at least in Canada) as you are basically manipulating someone else's content without their permission. Darlene recommended reviewing the Electronic Frontier Foundation's new Legal Guide for Bloggers for more guidance.
Aaron's and Stephen's presentations were rendered as a website and blog, respectively. I appreciate being able to immediately go back and review the presentation online, without having to download a ppt or doc file. Lovely.
Comments:
Hi Kerry. My presentation is available on the web as well, at this site: http://www.ualberta.ca/~science2/clablog.ppt. Unfortunately at the moment, the U Alberta site isn't working, so I've added the presentation to my personal site here: http//stlq.info/clablog.ppt. Thanks for attending our session.
Hi Kerry
Thanks for blogging this and linking to the presentations.
My presentation is at:
http://tinyurl.com/djdtq
The wiki vs. blog - when to use which one is great question - and we had to respond to it very very quickly.
Wikis embrace the concept of "open editing" where anyone can post, revise and edit. They also can have any organizational scheme that you like.
Blogs generally have a chronological organization to the content. Typically someone authors to the post and anyone can comment.
Whether to use a blog or wiki depends on what you are hoping to get done.
Some people like to combine the functionality and have created "bliki" software. SnipSanp is one example. http://snipsnap.org/
Darlene
Post a Comment
Thanks for blogging this and linking to the presentations.
My presentation is at:
http://tinyurl.com/djdtq
The wiki vs. blog - when to use which one is great question - and we had to respond to it very very quickly.
Wikis embrace the concept of "open editing" where anyone can post, revise and edit. They also can have any organizational scheme that you like.
Blogs generally have a chronological organization to the content. Typically someone authors to the post and anyone can comment.
Whether to use a blog or wiki depends on what you are hoping to get done.
Some people like to combine the functionality and have created "bliki" software. SnipSanp is one example. http://snipsnap.org/
Darlene
