Jim Moore's blog: Innovation, Strategy, Public Policy » Personal life, love and laughs

Edge 2.0 public aggregator on Top Ten Sources

jimmoore — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:27:29 +0000

I just started an Edge 2.0 aggregator here. I only have three items, but it will grow. The most fun is the first, based on the Global Voices Online breaking news RSS feed.

Update: now I have six items and love the site–I may make it my home page!

Web 2.0 and/or Edge 2.0 tools: The New Social Aggregators: Top Ten Sources favorites versus Technorati faves

jimmoore — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 04:46:11 +0000

New social aggregators offer you the favorite sources of a person, with current content..by way of RSS. Ideally these sites can enhance our access to the long-tail of blogging, helping us find quality, freshness, and novelty.

Arianna Huffington on TopTenSources click here

Arianna Huffington on Technorati click here

One of the most interesting new categories of Edge 2.0 web sites are “social aggregators”–where one is encouraged to make a public aggregator and share it with others. The total collection of social aggregators becomes, ideally, a relatively spam-free environment for searching for interesting content that has been vetted by friends and community members. This category of site is just starting to evolve. Two of special interest are TopTenSources.com, and the “faves” service of venerable Technorati.

Both are using established celebrities, such as Arianna Huffington, above, to advertise their services. I am not sure this is exactly in the spirit of Edge 2.0. After all, does WikiPedia advertise famous contributors? No. But in any case each of these services provides a powerful, free and widely available platform for individuals of all stripes and sizes to post one or more collections of sources. FYI at TopTenSources you are encouraged to create as many pages as you want.

Here are screen shots of the sign-up pages for TopTenSources and for Technorati faves, if you would like to try your hand:

Click here to make your own TopTenSources pages

Cick here to make your own Technorati “faves”

Fight against the powerlaw of blogging celebrity! Start your own list of cool bloggers at TopTenSources, which in turn will get the sources you choose some new exposure

jimmoore — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:58:37 +0000

Let’s get some new voices heard in the blogosphere! This is now technically easy to do. Just put up a TopTenSources list, and then campaign among your friends to get it noticed. Even friends who don’t know anything about aggregators, and perhaps don’t use the biggest of all aggregators, MyYahoo, may find your list worth visiting on a regular basis.

Create your own Top Ten Sources list here, and bring some attention to new voices!

BTW, please don’t just list the same old a-listers!

Do list yourself and your friends
The blogosphere needs your voices!

Help showcase the best of blogs–especially those that are down at the thinner end of the long tail..

Do your part to fight against the powerlaw of blogging today! It only takes a minute!

http://Steve-Garfields-Top-10.toptensources.com
” title=”http://saucydame.toptensources.com
” target=”_blank”>http://saucydame.toptensources.com

” title=”http://US-Politics.toptensources.com

” title=”http://Katrina.toptensources.com

” target=”_blank”>http://Katrina.toptensources.com

…
Create your own Top Ten Sources list here, and bring some attention to new voices!

RealTravel is real helpful for those who want a taste of a particular destination

jimmoore — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 06:43:54 +0000

RealTravel features
travel and travelers, and is based almost entirely on user-generated
media. It is a nice service within which to browse imagined destinations. A good complement to traditional travel guides and formal/commercial media on particular destinations.

http://realtravel.com/

1. The user contribution
strategy is to expand the range of primary source material and informal
content, by encouraging the creation of personal profiles and travel
blogs.

It’s user participation format is “travel blogs” that it
hosts, and that thus expands the range of informal media available on a
given topic..

Here is the sign-up page

http://realtravel.com/login.aspx?redirect=%2fmypage.aspx

A user may create a personal profile that is highly visual and, I think, compelling.
The profile page in turn is a kind of top ten sources link page to
other bloggers on related subjects. Here is a profile of a young
traveling couple Jan and Marge

http://realtravel.com/member-m585885-jan__marge.html

Here is a travel blog by Jan and Marge in Africa

http://realtravel.com/africa-trips-i619529.html

2. The site enables both search and browsing.

Search is done with keyword augmented by check the box suggestions/options–a very good idea

http://realtravel.com/search-results.aspx

Browse is by geographical region and destination

http://realtravel.com/destinations

3.
The coolest thing: Browsing leads to top ten sources-like pages of the
best blogs on a given destination. Reading these blogs really gives a
sense of the place..

Here are top blogs on Bangkok

http://realtravel.com/bangkok-thailand-reviews-hotels-d20461.html

Here are photo sets from Bangkok and Thailand

http://realtravel.com/bangkok-thailand-photos-d20461-7.html

4.
Commerce is very well integrated, and the site includes “deals”
especially for participants and a kind of built-in travel buying service.

http://realtravel.com/travel+deals

5. The founders come from Adforce, which was at some point acquired by CMGI.

http://realtravel.com/about-us.aspx#team

Architecture blogs on Top Ten Sources

jimmoore — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 12:22:21 +0000

Really interesting work here by the editor..Bernard Parham..a review of architecture blogs. Check them out to see how a particular community has taken to the form…

How did I know about this set of blogs? Anwer: It was the daily feature on TTS.

Tired of general-purpose search engines? Bookmark this post! (click once on this title, and then “add to favorites”)

jimmoore — Thu, 04 May 2006 00:58:22 +0000

Note that the search engine landscape is de-consolidating again…perhaps analogous to the media world going from ABC, NBC and CBS, to moving to ESPN and a thousand micro-segmented, fragmented channels..

The rule that drives this thing is not economics and not technology. It is perception, perception of “chunks,” and perception of memes. It is the association of one’s desire with a particular source..it is like retail. Yes, big boxes like Wal-Mart are still expanding, just as Google and Yahoo are expanding. But the interesting action is in boutiques, in specialty, in focused experiences. A world with only Wal-Mart would be drab. We need Barnes & Noble, to bring us a “book experience” that Wal-Mart just can’t duplicate. And that is just the beginning of the sub-categorization and focused provision of special experiences. We enjoy sporting goods stores, Whole Foods, and car showrooms..And we go for the neighborhood bakery or coffee shop, as well as the high end Prada store that we just might visit the next time we are in NY.

The new edition of Firefox showcases some new search engines. This is a nice expansion out from the (still extant) close tie between Firefox and the Wal-Mart of the web, Google.

Here is a copy of the new Firefox search engine directory. Enjoy.

Oh yea, and check out TopTenSources.com for some of the most fun informal sources on the web–and check out globalvoicesonline.com for a taste of the world.

Search Engines

We’ve put a few popular search sites in the Search Bar in the
upper-right corner of Firefox. If you’d like to add more, there are
hundreds to choose from. Click on a Search Engine to add it to your
Firefox Search Bar:

A9: Amazon’s A9 search engine.
Ask.com: Better search results with keywords or questions.
BBC News: Search for the latest news on BBC.
del.icio.us: Search through most bookmarked sites.
ESPN: Get the latest sports news, scores, and highlights.
Expedia: Search for hotels by destination with Expedia’s Best Price Guarantee.
Flickr Tags: Search for photos on Flickr.

Food Network Recipes: Find recipes from your favorite chefs.
Hollywood: Search for movies and movie listings
IMDB: The Internet Movie Database.
LinkedIn: Search your LinkedIn network for the people you need when you are on any Web site.
Lonely Planet Online: Search through Lonely Planet’s travel guides.
MarketWatch: Stock quote look-up and financial information.

Merriam-Webster: English dictionary search.
MSN: MSN search engine.
Technorati: A real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere
Weather Channel: Enter city, state or zip code to find your weather information.
Wikipedia: The incredible free encyclopedia.
Yahooligans: Search engine for kids and teens.
Yahoo! Answers: Search real answers to real questions from real people.

Additional Resources

Special thanks to the Mycroft Project for their work on Firefox Search Engines.

Snow prayers: Boston Snow Storm, Buddhist Prayer Flags, February 12, 2005

jimmoore — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 15:59:41 +0000

Snow prayers
is a brief QuickTime movie of the snowstorm, during a lull at around
noon on Sunday, February 12. The brunt of the storm is set to hit
us in about fifteen minutes.

Martin Luther King’s Birthday

jimmoore — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:40:54 +0000

This is the only national holiday that means a lot to me. I am
old enough to remember the state of the nation before the civil rights
movements of the 1960s, and to have experienced fresh the cataclysm and
the changes that were wrought–and finally achieved.

If you believe that the nation advances more by spiritual and cultural
movements than by elections, and certainly more by either than by wars,
the movement Martin King was a part of is a prime example.

If you want to have a special experience sometime, read some of the
lesser known of Martin King’s sermons and writings. He was
concerned with comprehensive cultural change, he spoke of race, of
class, and of war and peace. He was both tactically-effective,
and consistent to his core beliefs about how people could be
together. He learned how to use good means to justify good ends.

“Your phone records are for sale” FBI, as reported in the Chicago Sun Times

jimmoore — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 03:31:09 +0000

>http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-privacy05.html

>Your phone records are for sale

>January 5, 2006

>BY FRANK MAIN Crime Reporter

Online services raise security concerns for law enforcement

>The Chicago Police
Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available
to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists
of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement
and privacy experts.

>Criminals can use such records to expose a government informant who regularly calls a law enforcement official.

>Suspicious spouses can see if their husband or wife is calling a certain someone a bit too often.

>And employers can check whether a worker is regularly calling a psychologist — or a competing company.

>Some online services
might be skirting the law to obtain these phone lists, according to
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has called for legislation to
criminalize phone record theft and use.

>In some cases,
telephone company insiders secretly sell customers’ phone-call lists to
online brokers, despite strict telephone company rules against such
deals, according to Schumer.

>And some online brokers have used deception to get the lists from the phone companies, he said.

>”Though this problem
is all too common, federal law is too narrow to include this type of
crime,” Schumer said last year in a prepared statement.

>The Chicago Police Department is looking into the sale of phone records, a source said.

>Late last month, the
department sent a warning to officers about Locatecell.com, which sells
lists of calls made on cell phones and land lines.

>”Officers should be
aware of this information when giving out their personal cell phone
numbers to the general public,” the bulletin said. “Undercover officers
should also be aware of this information if they occasionally call
personal numbers such as home or the office, from their [undercover]
ones.”

>>Test got FBI’s calls in 3 hours

>To test the service,
the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent’s cell
phone and received the list within three hours, the police bulletin
said.

>Representatives of Data Find Solutions Inc., the Tennessee-based operator of Locatecell.com, could not be reached for comment.

>Frank Bochte, a spokesman for the FBI in Chicago, said he was aware of the Web site.

>”Not only in Chicago,
but nationwide, the FBI notified its field offices of this potential
threat to the security of our agents, and especially our undercover
agents,” Bochte said. “We need to educate our personnel about the
dangers posed by individuals using this site and others like it. We are
stressing that they should be careful in their cellular use.”

>How well do the
services work? The Chicago Sun-Times paid $110 to Locatecell.com to
purchase a one-month record of calls for this reporter’s company cell
phone. It was as simple as e-mailing the telephone number to the
service along with a credit card number. The request was made Friday
after the service was closed for the New Year’s holiday.

>>‘Most powerful investigative tool’

>On Tuesday, when it
reopened, Locatecell.com e-mailed a list of 78 telephone numbers this
reporter called on his cell phone between Nov. 19 and Dec. 17. The list
included calls to law enforcement sources, story subjects and other
Sun-Times reporters and editors.

>Ernie Rizzo, a Chicago
private investigator, said he uses a similar cell phone record service
to conduct research for his clients. On Friday, for instance, Rizzo
said he ordered the cell phone records of a suburban police chief whose
wife suspects he is cheating on her.

>”I would say the most
powerful investigative tool right now is cell records,” Rizzo said. “I
use it a couple times a week. A few hundred bucks a week is well worth
the money.”

>>Only financial info protected?

>In July, the
Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a petition with the Federal
Communications Commission seeking an end to the sale of telephone
records.

>”We’re very concerned
about Locatecell,” said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, senior counsel for the
center. “This is the company that sold the phone records of a Canadian
official to a reporter ‘no questions asked.’ “

>Schumer has called for
legislation to criminalize the “stealing and selling” of cell phone
logs. He also urged the Federal Trade Commission to set up a unit to
stop it.

>He said a common
method for obtaining cell phone records is “pretexting,” involving a
data broker pretending to be a phone’s owner and duping the phone
company into providing the information.

>”Pretexting for
financial data is illegal, but it does not include phone records,”
Schumer said. “We already have protections for our financial
information. We ought to have it for the very personal information that
can be gleaned from telephone records.”

>fmain@suntimes.com

>Check out this story:

>http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-privacy05.html

buy vintage typewriters, search by author who used one like it

jimmoore — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 05:40:32 +0000

I love old typewriters. I used an Olivetti portable when I was a kid..loved it.
before I got the TRS-80..
This is a cool site–wow, I even might buy one..

Corona No.3 (1906)

Once declared by
Hemingway as the only psychiatrist he would ever submit to, the Corona
No. 3 was an instant success when it debuted in 1912. Based on the
Standard Folding Model of 1906, the No.3 was refined in this even
lighter and more compact machine made mostly from aluminum. The No. 3
has three banks of keys and a double carriage shift: one for capitals
and the other for figures. Another unique feature in the typewriters
design is the machine’s ability to “fold” in order to fit into the case
– that is, the carriage was hinged and could tuck forward over the
keyboard and become more compact for storage. This machine was so
practical that it was chosen by British Army in WWI.