Widget-ul corespunzator fiecarei surse, prezinta doar titlul si data de publicare, astfel incit nu poate exista o problema legata de drepturile autor asociate cu continutul. Daca plimbi mouse-ul deasupra titlurilor vei putea vizualiza si primul paragraf al articolului.

Utilizarea lui Agregator.ro nu necesita crearea unui cont pentru ca toate informatiile despre particularizarile facute sunt mentinute prin cookiuri, dar asa cum scria si Andrei intr-un articol despre Fav20:

Treaba bazata pe cookiuri este faina pentru ca poti sa incepi fara sa-ti faci cont; dar daca vrei sa devina un obicei sa il folosesti, trebuie sa te poti baza ca iti regasesti lista de site-uri in orice conditii.

La acelasi capitol, nu mi-a placut faptul ca la inchiderea widget-ului corespunzator unei nou feed, aceasta sursa este pierduta si va trebui reintrodusa.

Sunt inca multe de facut pina a putea spune ca Agregator.ro este un Netvibes sau Pageflakes tinind cont ca acestea ofera diferite tipuri de widget-uri si mai ales stocarea customizarilor, dar cred ca Agregator.ro poate fi util celor care folosesc un numar redus de surse de informatiei pe care vor sa le scaneze repede.

A recently introduced search engine by the name of Scour has surfaced and I, personally, am a fan. The first thing you may notice when you enter a search are the small icons next to each result with the Google, Yahoo! and MSN logos and a number next to each. This indicates the "rank" on each search engine. So for example, below, you can see that there is a 1 next to the Google logo. The "1" indicates that if you were to search the same phrase in Google, it would turn that link up as the first result. This is a great feature that helps to weed out the poor links and give you the best results from all of the main search engines. You also have the option to show the results as they would appear in each search engine separately, leaving almost no excuse not to use this as an alternative to your current engine.

Another feature used to help weed out the poor results is a voting system. Next to each result and the footer of each clicked result you have the option to give the page a thumbs up or a thumbs down. It is also optional to leave a comment as to why it was a good/bad site. After enough votes, the listings will move down in rank, placing the relevant ones where they should be, according to the users. When using Scour, you can read comments left by other users about websites based on your keyword. This takes a lot of the guesswork out of looking for the right link.

The way that Scour encourages you to vote and comment is by using a points system. If you sign up with Scour (it's free and optional) you will receive one point for each search, two points for a vote and three points for leaving a comment. They also allow referral points where you receive 25% of the points they make. Once you achieve 6,500 points, Scour will send you a $25 Visa gift card.

They also have browser search plugins for Firefox and IE with Opera arriving soon; start page search widgets for Netvibes, Pageflakes and iGoogle (all arriving soon); and Desktop search widgets for Windows, OS X and Yahoo! Widgets (all arriving soon).

I honestly can find no good reason as to why not to use this browser as an alternative. If I don't like the "Scour" results, I can change it to Google, Yahoo! or MSN-only results while being paid. I honestly can't think of a better way of attracting users to a search engine than this.

The link for Scour is here.

Do not fret, I have not vanished off the face of the earth, I am making sure that I do not screw up the next step.

I will update this blog as I inch forward, but what has become clear is how much is being done by Steph Gray in DIUS - and I need to assimilate this, rather than dupe effort. (Proving harder to achieve in real life than you would think!) Steph and I run around each other in ever decreasing circles, so hopefully next week I will be at stage two.

Two things that bring me comfort:

1. Looking at where we are now and where we want to get to in departmental communication online; is the 'stuff' I am doing going to get us to where we want to be? Yes. (Phew)

2. The first step to take in collaborating in the social media space, is to listen. Oli Barrett showed me easily the simplest listening tool I have found to date: addictomatic. The only downside being that you can only listen to one 'keyword' at a time - good way to filter what you are really trying to achieve. So, you can either have many people listening, or you use a multiple listening tool like Pageflakes. Pageflakes requires a teensy amount of technical knowledge (to make it look good mainly) and I can recommend Dave Briggs as a good person to set one up for you in about... er half a day :)

So, I am getting there. It is complicated - by the day job as well as the wealth of information available.

Even better news is that Beth Kanter and I have touched base... I will keep you updated.

Next week I will also update my roll call, as I have recently received several formal complaints (sorry!)

Update sinning: sorry I do know the rules, but I have just realised that I posted without checking my reader first. Jeremy Gould has talked about both things I have mentioned here on his Whitehall Webby blog - h/t

Question: Can I Make A Personalized Page At Pageflakes.com?

Answer: Yes you can and it's so simple. Read this posts "How To Make a Personalized Startup Page On Pageflakes.com" and you will understood about it's works. Hope you enjoy.

If you are having trouble keeping track of your links, I suggest keeping online bookmarks using del.icio.us. It's a popular online social bookmarking site.  You can keep a note of your "password/login" and share the list of your sites with your friends.  I use it as well as Pageflakes.  I absolutely love Pageflakes and don't know how I'd start my use of the internet without it.  Basically it is similar to iGoogle or NetVibes. You can basically develop your own custom home page on the internet with all of your favorite links (from del.icio.us even!), flickr photos, check email, RSS feeds from your favorite sites (news, sports, fashion, cooking, etc.), make a To Do List, insert Google Maps, see all the files you've uploaded to Box.net (online file storage), play sudoku, send a Twitter message, watch your favorite YouTube channels, etc. ....ALL FROM ONE PAGE.  Bring the internet to YOU.  You shouldn't fuss about where to find all of your favorite goodies on the net...don't waste time.  Live more efficiently.  Pageflakes allows me to do a quick check of everything from news to email...to even Facebook in the few minutes before my kids wake up! If you are a working mom or just a working and busy woman in general....setting up Pageflakes is absolutely necessary!

Start Pages are personalised homepages that you can fill with news feeds and a whole variety of 'widgets' - weather, youtube videos, sudoku puzzles etc.  Start pages were initially private homepages but increasingly public facing pages are being offered (and created).

I'm looking at them in a bit more detail today as I've got to give an external talk on them next month and also pages are under development here by the Careers Service and the Spanish Department.

I've been using Netvibes for a while now and the other big players seem to be iGoogle, Pageflakes & Protopage.  Here's a comparison of the 'top 5' from a year ago, so well out-of-date in the emerging technologies world but a good starting point.  Although we regularly use iGoogle for training sessions at the LSE it doesn't currently seem to offer public pages which for me is its weakness.  My other discovery this morning concerens OPML which is a format for transferring multiple feeds en masse.  Most start pages offer an import OPML option but only Netvibes seems to offer an export - a useful backup strategy in the world of third party services that might not be around forever!

Here are a few examples to give you a flavour.  They are all from Pageflakes & Netvibes as they both offer public directories.  Pageflakes seem to have more and are easier to search.

• Southampton University School of Electronics
• Pageflakes Education 'Tag'
• Pageflakes search: university
• Careers in China
• Science Blogs
• Al Jazeera
• Harvard University (created by students)

Back in January, I wrote a post about Pageflakes and the screencast we had created for our media center.  Now Joyce Valenza has inspired me with her latest blog post  about ways we can use Pageflakes with our patrons!  As Joyce points out, we can certainly use iGoogle with our patrons to help them design feeds through their GoogleReader accounts to keep up with the latest news on a particular topic from their favorite web resources:  news outlets, blogs, and RSS feed searches from a few databases.  We showed iGoogle to 9th graderst this past year, and they were very much impressed by the power of iGoogle, but now Joyce and Clarence Fisher  have me thinking about how we can use Pageflakes as personal learning network information portal.

I am not sure how I missed this, but there is a "Teacher Edition" of Pageflakes for educators---it is not really too different from the "regular" flavor, but the widgets and template are more tailored for items and feeds of interest to educators.   Pageflakes could be a powerful tool for teachers---imagine creating a screencast for your students around a particular unit of study in any subject area! 

However, I am really thinking hard tonight about students taking the reins and creating their own learning portal and personal learning networks; there is a student version of Pageflakes available, too!  As Will Richardson pointed out in this blog post,

"From a teaching standpoint, pages of this type can be pretty effective for bringing in potential content and then making decisions about what to do with that content. "

Take a look at these three examples: 

• Joyce's test Pageflakes for Global Studies
• Lisa Spiro's "Digital Humanities Research Portal".   
• Will Richardson's Darfur Screencast

All of these screencasts give us a tantalizing taste of how students could use Pageflakes as a personalized research portal.  Note how both examples pull in feeds from podcasts, authoritative news outlets, and vodcasts.   If students are blogging their research process, they can even pull in the RSS feed from their blog as part of their personal Pageflakes portal.  Note also that you can incorporate widgets for favorite search engines as well!  Students can also pull in their personal Google Library feed, You Tube videos, Teacher Tube videos, SlideShare presentations, del.icio.us RSS feeds....the possibilities are truly endless!  Organizational tools, such as sticky notes and "to do" lists, are also available. 

For the short term future, I want to experiment with Pageflakes as a personal learning network for students/information-research portal in three ways:

1.  Teacher-Librarian/School Library Media Specialist lens:  I will seek out a teacher to pilot the use of Pageflakes as a personal learning network/portal at my high school this fall.  We will work together to design mini-lessons to show students how to harness the power of Pageflakes for a particular research assignment.

2.  Classroom Teacher Lens:  As I do the  multigenre research project with my night school students this fall, I want to build a new requirement that they create their Pageflakes screencast to reflect their research.  We could easily incorporate screenshotsof the screencast and a live link to the Pageflakes screencast in their final Word document or better yet, move away from Word and create the final product in Google docs or as a blog/Wiki.  I could also create a blogroll to everyone's Pageflakesresearch portal on my class blogs that I use with my students.

My third and more ambitious goal is to see if we could get one of our senior English teachers to collaborate with us and use a student created Pageflakes screencast (along with a research blog created by each student) as one of their artifacts for their Senior Project.  This is our school's first year piloting the "Senior Project" since this year marks the rise of our first senior class---how exciting would it be if kids could easily view each other's research projects and Pageflakes screencasts?

I will keep you all posted on how these three initiatives come to fruition this fall as the beginning of our school year is just three weeks away!  If anyone else out there is taking on similar collaborative planning projects, please email me at buffy.hamilton@cherokee.k12.ga.us ---I am always happy to share ideas and experiences "from the trenches" with another media specialist.  Stay tuned!

A footnote:  Tonight's blog post and the ideas that have come out of it are the result of my personal learning network I have established using Web 2.0 tools....I will be blogging more about this topic in September!  :-)

Buffy Hamilton, Media Specialist
Creekview High School
http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com
http://theunquietlibrary.wordpress.com
http://webtech.cherokee.k12.ga.us/creekview-hs/mediacenter/

Zendesk gets it.

They have drunk the 37signals Kool Aid and are now serving up a monthly online subscription-based help desk ticketing system which

• is elegant and simple in design
• is well-thought-out, with battle-tested features
• has key Web 2.0 elements "baked in" that make for "joy of use" and increase efficiency (e.g., tags, smart folders, RSS, built in Ruby on Rails for speedy responsiveness exceeding traditional fat client desktop apps, etc.)

Om Malik writes in his blog: "Just like 37Signals offers you project management tools or hosted chat, Zendesk offers you a simple way to manage all incoming help desk inquires." And Zendesk just got US$.5m in funding from private/angel investors, including Christophe Janz, from my favorite web-top RSS reader, Pageflakes.

I had dinner with one of the key people behind Zendesk last week, Michael Hansen, and the more I hear, the better I like it. Check out this video describing the features:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=402706&dest=-1]

The key features and benefits of Zendesk seem to be:

1. Tight integration with email.
2. Very cool implementation of tags to be used by a group--more than a simple folksonomy (which is "anarchy by design"--fine for Flickr, but not fine for enterprise knowledge management). It seems to suggest "most popular" tags. Why tags are revolutionary: folders force you to file items (e.g., help desk call notes) into a rigid hierarchy. Tags are extensible (i.e., you can add new ones any time). And they allow you to tag things with "apples" and "oranges" and "problems". Or, in the case of a help desk call, e.g., "XP", "Junichi's clients", "VIP", "strange flashing screen bug", "Very important", "Possibly related to Known Bug 716" etc. etc. See another cool Mac software that exploits tags very well: Leap.
3. Smart folders a la iTunes (aka saved searches with the results always available, no need to hit the "Search" button).
4. SLA (service level agreement) monitoring dashboard and reports.
5. "Cases" and macros which allow you to automatically fill out fields for oft-repeating sets of data entries.
6. Can easily build up a comprehensive self-service "solutions database" out of previous resolved Help Desk tickets.
7. Community forum/group blog enabled, in a sensible way that ties into the overall workflow of servicing individual ticketed problems.

Originally I was thinking Zendesk would be appropriate only for SMEs. But the more I mull it over, the more I realize this may be an excellent and low-cost solution--up in days--for large enterprises also. For example, Zendesk allows you to ITIL Incident Management and it can be made to conform to your company's IT departments workflow and business rules.

Pricing is from free (for one help desk agent), to US$49/month for two agents, up to US$349/month for 25 agents.

Stay tuned for more on Zendesk...

The London-based startup's service also learns what users like and recommends stories based on their previous interests. I call it a mobile portal analogous to Yahoo, MSN, Netvibes or PageFlakes, but Judy Gibbons, the new CEO, has a different definition. She says it's a mobile media services company, in that it optimizes PC content for consumption on a mobile device. "We believe there is only one Internet - there is not a separate mobile one," Gibbons told me via email. "But mobile presents different challenges and opportunities and there is real user value to having all this content in one place in the same consistent format with a great fast user experience."

Whatever you call it, Mippin needs to gain wide adoption in a crowded area to support its advertising-based revenue model. The market includes efforts by Yahoo, Microsoft and Google, and according to ad network AdMob -- which does business with Mippin -- the number of mobile portals is steadily rising (see graph). Obviously the mobile world cannot support 500 varying portals. Even in the PC web world, portals have problems.

Despite impressive growth from its October 2007 launch, averaging 110 page views per user and advertising click-through rates of 3 percent and 15 percent for contextual ads, (way better than the .5 percent rates on other mobile sites), I'm not sure Mippin will deliver the audience advertisers need given the amount of competition fighting for consumers' eyes. It's a nice service, but unfortunately that doesn't always win out.

feed, calendar and much more. I know many people prefer Page Flakes but I am Google all the way. My Google docs are listed for easy access as is notebook. What could be simpler? Artists contribute to the available motifs and my current favorite is Carrie Chau. I can get my news, movies for my zipcode and embed widgets or youtube selections. I plan to set up a profile for my student computers. Calendar, groups, docs, weather, news, these will be useful.

For many years, I've mulled over ideal software interface designs, and have an electronic trail of litter behind me consisting of many boxes and flow diagrams exquisitely mapped out in...well, Powerpoint. In a prior post, I tossed out some very early-on concepts for an ideal social media interface. But the holy grail for me is much larger - I want to see a meta-interface that helps me conduct most of my on-line life.

Why do we need this? Well, fundamentally, the tools we used were designed only to fulfill specific purposes. They weren't designed for me, to pull my life together, but to do one or two things. However, I don't need another gardener or cook or chauffeur. I need a Chief of Staff. For a throwaway branding term, I'm going to call it MetaMee - because it's about me.

What would this MetaMee interface be like? Here's my highest level list:

MetaMee would consolidate the main functional activities I have on the web into one simple interface.

MetaMee would be a hybrid off-line/on-line system, built in part using Adobe Air or Google Gears or similar.

MetaMee would allow storage and controlled release of varying levels of my information to different people/applications/businesses/other entities.

MetaMee would talk to existing platforms (such as those listed above) in a widget-ized fashion.

MetaMee would use intelligent bot/crawling technology to find, recommend, and deliver what I want, so that I spend less time searching.

How would this project get done? Here's where it gets interesting. I'm not a programmer. And I know that there are tons of talented bloggers/socializers out there who are loaded with great ideas and talents far beyond mine. So I'm just going to put out a series of posts this month, outlining my preliminary ideas for this "dream" application, and invite all of you to discuss, refine, contribute, ideate...let's see if we really mean what we say about social media. I think this app ought to be crowd-designed, and then someone will take the bull by the horns and start making it. Ready?

In the next day or two, I'll post part 2 - the five main functions that I foresee in a MetaMee-type app.

Links to the entire One Interface to Rule them All series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

plus...The Ideal Social Media Interface

Related post: Share Media vs. Tell Media

Pageflakes: Creating and sharing a start page

P. S. If I missed any, leave me a comment and let me know! If I didn't miss any, leave me a comment and let me know!

دوست دارید که تمام محتوای جالب اینترنت را در یک جا داشته باشید؟ هر روز چقدر از وقت خود را صرف سر زدن به ده ها سایت و وبلاگ مورد علاقه خود می کنید؟ هم اکنون که این مطلب را می خوانید چند پنجره از مرورگر در مقابل شما باز است؟

در فیلم های تخیلی فرمانده سفینه فضایی را می بینیم که در اتاق فرماندهی خود با تعداد زیادی مانیتور و دکمه بر همه چیز کنترل دارد. جمع شدن مطالب و امکانات مختلف در یک جا این احساس را به ما می دهد که بر همه چیز تسلط داریم. احساسی که با استفاده از سرویس «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» هم خواهیم داشت.

همه چیز در یک خانه

روی اغلب نرم افزار های «مرورگر اینترنت» دکمه ای به نام «Home» وجود دارد. اولین چیزی که پس از متصل شدن به اینترنت می بینیم صفحه ای است که به عنوان «خانه» تعیین کرده ایم تا نخستین صفحه ای باشد که با آن مواجه می شویم. معمولا صفحه ای را خانه خود قرار میدهیم که بیشترین اطلاعات را در حوزه ی مورد علاقه ما ارایه کند. سایت های خبری یا صفحه ورودی ایمیل به عنوان «خانه»، یکی از انتخاب های اصلی کاربران هستند. اما با پیشرفت وب و فراگیر شدن امکانات و تکنیک های برنامه نویسی جدید، زمان «خانه» قرار دادن چنین سایت هایی به پایان رسیده است.

کم کم اداره کنندگان وب سایت ها به این نتیجه رسیدند که باید به کاربران خود این امکان را بدهند که صفحات سایت را طبق سلیقه خود شخصی سازی کنند. یاهو به کاربران خود اجازه می داد که با وارد کردن نام شهر خود به اخبار محلی آن منطقه دسترسی داشته باشند و همراه آن از وضعیت آب و هوا هم مطلع شوند. اما ماجرای شخصی سازی صفحات به همین جا ختم نشد. از سال ۲۰۰۵ با ورود وب سایت هایی که به صورت تخصصی برای «خانه شدن» طراحی شده بودند بازار رقابت برای تصرف صفحه خانگی کاربران وارد مرحله جدیدی شد.

این امکان که «Personalized Homepage» یا «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» نامیده می شود به کاربر اجازه می دهد تا تمام صفحه مخصوص خود را شخصی سازی کند. کاربر می تواند آخرین مطالب سایت های مورد علاقه اش را در صفحه شخصی خود ببیند، ایمیل خود را چک کند، در موتورهای جستجو بگردد، ویدیو ببیند و در شبکه های اجتماعی اینترنتی به گشت و گذار بپردازد.

برتری سرویس «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» در این است که وابسته به کامپیوتر و یا مرورگر کاربر نیست. شما برای استفاده از این سرویس عضو سایت می شوید، از آن به بعد تمام تنظیم ها و اطلاعات در حساب کاربری شما ذخیره می شود. پای هر کامپیوتری که باشید کافی است وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید، «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» در مقابل شما خواهد بود.

در «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» چه می توان کرد؟
امکانات متنوعی در اختیار کاربران قرار دارد که برخی از آن ها در سرویس های مختلف متفاوت هستند. کاربر در صفحه شخصی خود از طریق فیدها (feeds) از آخرین مطالب وب سایت ها و وبلاگ ها مطلع می شود و دیگر لازم نیست که برای مطلع شدن از مطالب جدید مستقیما به خود سایت ها مراجعه کند.

در صورت تمایل می تواند در صفحه خود ویدیوهای اینترنتی را تماشا کند و یا پادکست (رادیوی اینترنتی قابل دانلود و گوش کردن بر روی  MP3 Player) گوش کند.

امکان دیگر شامل چک کردن ایمیل ها از طریق همان صفحه است. علاوه بر آن کاربر می تواند با استفاده از تقویم موجود در صفحه، برنامه کاری خود را تنظیم کند.

دسترسی به شبکه های اجتماعی مانند «MySpace» و «FaceBook» از دیگر امکانات «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» محسوب می شود.

اگر تا این جا قانع نشده اید بهتر است بدانید که می توان با استفاده از انواع ویجت ها (ابزارهای کوچکی که کار بخصوصی را انجام می دهند) کارهای خود را بهتر انجام بدهید. برای مثال در دفترچه مجازی صفحه خود یادداشت بنویسد، کارهای روزمره را لیست و مدیریت کنید، و یا یک ماشین حساب دم دستی کوچک در صفحه شخصی خود داشته باشید.

قسمت های تفریحی «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» هم تنوع زیادی دارد. از دیدن عکس های مختلف گرفته تا انواع بازی های اینترنتی و حتی اطلاع از برنامه های سینمایی و تلویزیون.

امکان دسترسی به سرویس های چت مانند Google Talk و Meebo هم از اجزای اصلی یک «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» محسوب می شود.

محیط کار و گرافیک «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» هم قابلیت سفارشی شدن را دارد. کاربر می تواند اجزای صفحه را جابجا کند، تعداد ستون های صفحه را کم و زیاد کند و حتی رنگ بندی و عکس پس زمینه را طبق سلیقه خود تغییر بدهد.

سرویس های قابل استفاده به همین ها خلاصه نمی شوند، ارایه کننده های «صفحه خانگی شخصی» حداکثر تلاش خود را می کنند که تمام اینترنت را در یک محیط برای کاربران جمع کنند.

چه کسی معمار بهتری است؟

شرکت های مختلفی سرویس «صفحه خانگی شخصی» را ارایه می کنند. بر طبق آمار comScore در ماه ژانویه ۲۰۰۸ بیشترین مراجعه کننده متعلق به سرویس MyYahoo بوده است. iGoogle و MyMSN رتبه های بعدی را به خود اختصاص داده اند. اما مراجعه کننده بیشتر به معنای امکانات بهتر نیست. بیش از ۴۷ میلیون مراجعه کننده در ماه به سرویس MyYahoo بیشتر به این دلیل است که افراد زیادی از سرویس پست الکترونیک این شرکت استفاده می کنند و با همان نام کاربری به سرویس MyYahoo نیز دسترسی دارند.

وب سایت Mashable در یک بررسی میان ۱۴ سرویس مختلف «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» از نظر امکانات سایت، Netvibes را در رتبه ی نخست قرار داده است و البته سرویس Pageflakes هم طرفداران خاص خودش را دارد.

همه وب سایت ها به دنبال «خانه» شدن

تمایل به داشتن یک صفحه شخصی در میان کاربران اینترنتی سبب شده که شرکت های بزرگ اینترنتی تمایل زیادی به ورود به این بازار داشته باشند. این موضوع در میان شبکه های اجتماعی مانند facebook و MySpace بیشتر خودنمایی می کند. شبکه های اجتماعی تلاش می کنند که امکانات و سفارشی سازی های سرویس های مخصوص «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» را به خود اضافه کنند. در مقابل محبوبیت شبکه های اجتماعی هم سبب شده که سرویس های «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» هم امکانات شبکه های اجتماعی را به خود اضافه کنند.

انفجار اطلاعاتی در اینترنت باعث شده که کاربران وقت و حوصله کمتری برای گردش در سایت ها داشته باشند. استفاده از «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» روش خوبی برای صرفه جویی در وقت خواهد بود. علاوه بر آن برای کاربرانی که به اینترنت پرسرعت دسترسی ندارند، استفاده از یک صفحه خانگی شخصی موجب سرعت بیشتر در دسترسی به مطالب خواهد بود.

اگر تا به حال «صفحه خانگی شخصی سازی شده» نداشته اید، وقت آن فرا رسیده که برای خود یک «خانه» داشته باشید.

منبع : مجله زیگزاگ

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At the end of the day, I asked the participants to think about which applications they would definitely use, those that are worth considering (the 'maybe' category) and those that would get the definite thumbs down. As they had varying experiences of the technologies, and were looking at them from different perspectives, it is not surprising that some 'stuff' ended up in more than one category. We even invented a new award (see And finally... )

No!

There was only nomination for this category. Second Life (SL) did not seem to have any supporters on this workshop. As one has to download software to run SL and run it on serious, heavy duty network connections we were not able to experiment with it on the day. Some of the workshop participants had had bad experiences with it in the past and I did not help matters by recounting the tale of my disastrous attempt to attend an SL meeting the previous evening. Those of us who had tried it agreed that the technology is still getting in the way and it has a long way to go before it is promoted to the 'maybe' list.

Nevertheless, it is being taken seriously by Manchester Business School who have commissioned design and new media agency Corporation Pop to develop a Second Life island for them

Yes

Pageflakes - for pulling together frequently accessed information of all types. Can be kept private but also made public as a Pagecasts, for example Dublin City Public Libraries, East Lothian Libraries, ActiveIT.

Flickr - publicise your events, launches/relaunches of services, new library facilities

RSS - great for personal current awareness, but also a way of adding content to your web site, blog, Facebook etc. and generally facilitating the sharing of content.

iGoogle - your very own personalised Google start page for frequently accessed information of all types, but 'tabs' can be shared with colleagues.

YouTube - link to 'how to' videos, create your own virtual tours of your library, or make videos of your key events.

Wikis - great way to collaborate on documents for example a glossary of acronyms and abbreviations (under development by one of the workshop participants).

Blogs - can be used as sources of information and as a quick and easy way to provide news of services, events and 'What's New' to users. Several of the workshop participants were already active bloggers.

Maybe

Social Bookmarking for example FURL, Del.icio.us, Connotea, 2Collab - could be a good way to provide access to evaluated subject and reading lists. Connotea (owned by the Nature Publishing Group) and 2Collab  (owned by Elsevier) are aimed at researchers and scientists. "If only we could persuade our academics to use them" exclaimed one workshop participant.

Facebook - worth a try but, because of its structure and minimal import/export options, beware of possible extra work in having to re-enter content held on web sites, blogs and start pages .

Google Docs - several people thought that they might use Google Docs as a way of collaborating  on documents but only for personal use and for applications where it would not matter if the document was inadvertently made public.

Presentation sharing services for example Slideshare, authorSTREAM. A good way to share lectures and also presentations on library services.

Nominated for both the 'Yes' and 'Maybe' categories were: YouTube, RSS and iGoogle.

And finally...

A new category. The winner of the John 'you-cannot-be-serious' McEnroe award goes to - ta da, ta da:

Twitter

I did try very hard to convince them of how wonderful Twitter is and was joined in my endeavours by some of my followers (thanks chaps and chappesses, your efforts were appreciated by at least me). The presence of the BBC, Timesonline and even No 10 Downing Street on Twitter did not help. I suspect that the main problem is the Twitter associated jargon and nomenclature. The name 'Twitter' generated enough titters on its own, but when quickly followed by tweets, twitterstream, TwitKit, Twitterfeed, Twitterment, Tweet Clouds etc ... well, I think you can see the problem.

The company blew through nearly $4.3 million and was close to running out of cash, as we first reported over the weekend. Their quick embrace of bargain-hunting Greenspan only adds credence to the rumors of them running out of gas.

But in the broader scheme of things, Pageflakes' sale is not that big of a deal. Startups that fail to become category leaders either shut down or have to settle for the ignominy of being sold for pennies on a dollar -- it's standard operating procedure in Silicon Valley. And as the current Web 2.0 cycle runs out of steam, we're going to see the startup equivalent of a brownout. I think there is a real opportunity here for someone to make money.

Back in the dark days of the telecom depression, some crazy mavericks started buying up distressed telecom assets, packaging them and flipping them for a nifty profit. More recently, many vulture funds have started buying out distressed real estate assets. Maybe it's time for someone to start a Web 2.0 Vulture Fund, aggregating startups with decent technologies that have otherwise failed to get themselves off the ground.

Someone could, for example, roll up the social bookmarking startups with social news companies, or bundle Office 2.0 web apps. Aggregating web utilities such as online storage services, or online address books and calendaring services could be another opportunity.

How would such a fund be different than Greenspan's Live Universe or Internet Brands? Those are companies with a roll-up strategy. In comparison, as Morgan Stanley notes, "Most vulture funds are limited partnerships, but some are retail mutual funds that are open to individual investors." (The other option is a buyout fund specializing in distressed Web 2.0 assets.) You can help define the properties of this Web 2.0 Vulture Fund, either on your own blog or in our comments section. Or just email me directly.

If you don't care much for that, answer this big question, dear reader: Which Web 2.0 company do you think is going to run out of steam and is worth being picked up by a Vulture Fund?

These days I get a creepy feeling just entering my social security number. Handing my credit cards over to a beta site was just a little too unnerving. I started out with something tame - but would prove its functionality. I entered my Starbucks Card number and within a minute my balance popped up next to the little Starbucks icon.

Other reviewers have likened this new app to the iPhone - it is killer. But what I want to be able to do is just not view - but to manage! For example, showing the different interest rates on all my credit cards, allowing me to select the right one to fund my Starbucks card right there on the page.

And I can track almost all my social networking profiles and accounts here as well.

Techturf has some negative impressions, and I agree with some of the reservations Pamela has over the aggregation trend as a whole. Privacy and data portability will continue to conflict, and you do need to be careful out there.
But hey - my American Airlines miles, Facebook stuff, and latte balance all in one place. This is a good start.

PS - Need invites? Track me down here. Be nice and digg or stumble me first :-)