Sweet! Jon provides the code for displaying what RSS channels you're subscribed to in Radio so that you can share them with others! I was going to start exploring this, so I'll try to implement it tomorrow.

"The RSS stock exchange

Things just got more transparent in Radiospace. Rankings were the motivation for this feature. But as I mentioned on OReillyNet, transparency as a constitutional value of Radiospace has lots of interesting ramifications. For example, direct one-click access to RSS sources -- a feature also available, in a different way, here on my own homepage -- is suddenly a lot more interesting. It used to be that RSS aggregators were few. Now they are many -- because every copy of Radio is one. The people running these aggregators can now start to trade channels as we used to trade links.

The benefits of this new RSS fluidity, which kicks things up a level of abstraction, seem obvious to me, and will seem obvious to anyone who finds there way here to read this. But those benefits will not be obvious to most people. Casual use of ordinary links is still not nearly as prevalent in routine business and personal communication as it ought to be. The kind of meta-linking possible with channel exchange will seem even more exotic. The challenge -- and opportunity -- is to make all this as easy and natural as most people think email is.  [via Scripting News]

True, true, true. I'll be aggregating channels and installing aggregating software on the desktops of staff at SLS long before they ask for it, and months if not years before they understand why and actually use it. Tack on some additional time for me to get my libraries in the pipeline, although last week's Tech Summit turned out to be a pretty good start after all.

It's going to be a long education process, but this is definitely a big part of the future. I'm still hoping to write up a full story about this so that non-Radio users can get a glimpse of the news aggregator, but that's looking like a late-March or April production.

Cool - Radio's new Web Bug Simulator shows a ranking of Radio sites by subscription feed, and there are 105 folks reading my feed! And that's with my XML broken (which I'm working on fixing, by-the-by).

The Flying Car

"Everyone's favorite foul-mouthed, philosophical shopclerks are back. For those of you who missed it's premiere on the Tonight Show a coupla days ago, the inimitable Kevin Smith has new short up on his site (Quicktime and RealMedia). Dante and Randal are back talking all about mad German Scientists, The Jetsons and the decline of American ingenuity. Terrific, as always, Kev." [MetaFilter]

The Top Librarian Personalities On The Web 

"The LISNews.com Top Librarian Personalities on the Web, is a list of people that, for one reason or another, have stood out in the crowded field of online librarians." [at LIS News, via Library Stuff]

See - a crowded field. We're actually everywhere, even though you're just now starting to notice us.

I've come to believe that news aggregation based on RSS feeds of web sites (newspapers, blogs, magazines, etc.) is the future and that the Net Gens will grow up with this as their primary news source. I can see so many benefits to this, as well as the impact this will have on already "promiscuous information," but here's the flip side of the coin.

"Having defined the kind of free expression that was necessary for democracy, Sunstein went on to identify a major threat to it: namely, the Internet. In particular, he was concerned about the 'filtering' and the personalizing technology of the Internet, which would in principle allow people to define in advance exactly the information they did —and did not—want to see. The more efficient the filter, the less chance that a citizen would be exposed to healthy surprise—or share experiences with the rest of society. As technology evolved, democracy would deteriorate. The 'Daily Me' was Sunstein's name for the news publication of the future. It would destroy the underpinnings of the 'us' that is democracy."

This is from a review of a book called Republic.com by Cass Sunstein, as  written up in the NY Review of Books. James Fallows, the reviewer, goes on to state that the current state of internet filtering and our non-electronic interactions still leave room for that healthy surprise. However, I'm willing to bet the house that Fallows isn't aware of RSS and news aggregators. RSS = the "more-efficent filter."

There will indeed be some negative aspect to the fragmentation of the mass market, but we're already seeing this happen in TV (digital video recorders), books (vanity electronic publishing and ebooks), and -gasp - music (Napster, Kazaa, etc.). The arena of news has been heading this direction thanks to the internet (email, Usenet, and the web), but it will accelerate during the next few years as folks can pick and choose which feeds to aggregate daily and then receive them anywhere on their wireless devices. So how will we (especially the Net Gens) define our culture as a whole with less of a common experience? It will be interesting to watch.

Having noted the potential for such a negative impact however, I agree with most of those quoted in the review who think the internet opens more doors than it closes. This has certainly happened to me in just six weeks with Radio.

Just now getting to read Copyrights Owe Their Growing Power to Globalization at the NY Times. I find this to be the most disturbing Valenti quote I've ever heard, and that's saying something.

"It is hard to answer arguments raised by those who say copyrights stifle expression and creativity, and place undue burden on teachers, researchers and academics. But Mr. Valenti is willing to try.

'Copyrights only stifle if you're going to copy something,' he said. 'The movie `Gladiator' is a progeny of `Spartacus.' `Gladiator' is about a slave, just as `Spartacus' is. But it didn't infringe on the `Spartacus' copyright. There are only so many plots in literature. You just use them in different ways.' "

I think Alice Randall, the author The Wind Done Gone might disagree with him on this one. Here's the choice quote, though.

" 'I'm not saying the public domain is bad," Mr. Valenti said. "But how does it benefit the consumer? If a film is in the public domain, who takes care of it? Who refurbishes it if the print goes bad? What incentive does anyone have to keep the movie alive and vibrant?"

Gee, I don't know... um, libraries? What exactly does he think the Library of Congress does for books? Except for ebooks, of course. And how much art have we lost because there was no copy in the public domain to save? This is just sad that these folks are clinging to such desperate arguments.

Thanks for the link, Dad!

Schoolhouse Rock

"Relive the pop culture sensation with the SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK SPECIAL 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION DVD, which includes every song from the landmark series in a collectible 2-disc DVD. Among the over 50 tunes are such classics as "Conjunction Junction, " "Three is a Magic Number," "I'm Just A Bill" and "Electricity, Electricity." The DVD features an all-new song about the Electoral College, "I'm Gonna Send Your Vote To College" written by the show's original creators. In addition, it includes behind-the-scenes footage, "play-all" and "shuffle-all" features, fun-filled games and much, much more!

The SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK-SPECIAL 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION DVD is priced at $29.99 (S.R.P.) from Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Prebook date for both titles is July 16, 2002." [at DVDFile, via meryl's notes]

Score! The soundtrack of my youth. I, too, have all of the videos, but it would be nice to have the whole series on one disc.

Fred has an interesting point.

"A Message for the RIAA Monopoly

...Look I know its raw. But all I know is if we let monopolies like the RIAA, AOL, Disney, Time Warner, Fox, and etc change our copyright rights by illegal laws such as DMA then we as consumers of music and art have lost the most valuable gift to human kind any one can produce.

If they win this area then they will come after sofware copyrights next! The time to stand up and shut them down and up is NOW PEOPLE!"

In the past, it was understood that criminal law applied to those that committed the crimes, not the folks that made whatever materials were used to commit the crime. Hence, the argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people. We don't sue the automobile manufacturers because some people use their vehicles to escape after a robbery. We also don't make laws to ensure that vehicles can only be driven to specific places in specific ways to prevent this. So in the past, the criminal himself was always held accountable, not anyone who made anything that might have assisted him in committing the crime.

Now though, the RIAA, MPAA, and other copyright holders want to go after completely legitimate materials that a fraction of the population might choose to use illegally. Hence the lawsuits against VCRs, MP3 players, digital video recorders, and now P2P software (Napster, Kazaa, etc.). It's bad enough that they have a good chance at legislating digital devices out of existence or seriously handicapping them in order to abridge existing consumer rights, but Fred is right that if they get to the hardware first, then the software will be the next obvious target. In a way, it's already started with the P2P software, but it can get a heck of a lot worse, so now is indeed the time to stand up.

Buzz emailed me long enough ago that I'm embarassed to have not responded to it yet. His company makes some software called ActiveWords, which looks quite useful. Here's their description:

"ActiveWords adds words to Windows, making computing faster, more convenient, and more satisfying. Assign words to launch programs, jump to websites, send email, substitute text, and much more. Enter or select ActiveWords in any context, press your ActiveWords key, and your computer delivers your desired action."

If I understand it correctly, it allows you to specify your own shortcut actions to get to Web sites, email messages, applications, macros, and the like from within any program. Pretty powerful-sounding stuff. I've been meaning to install it at work, but my PC has been acting goofy for the past couple of weeks, so I've been waiting for the gremlins to tire and move on to someone else's computer. Hopefully I'll have time to give it a whirl this week.

Still catching up on my past emails, Phil Wolff highlights some Challenges for Google Intranet. One of his key points:

"I'm generalizing but a very few people within firms write web pages that contain the links Google uses to establish relevancy and page ranking. Google relies on many folks pointing to URIs to create statistical correlations. What happens when that data lives inside PeopleSoft? When nobody bothers to cite a document that is likely to move around?"

Good question.

Surviving the Adolescent Internet, Part I: Site Design Should Reward Frequent Users (PDF file)

"A crucial survival skill in the maturing Internet environment will be the ability to design sites and services that identify and respond on an ongoing basis to customer needs in real-time. This responsiveness must be as evident to the loyal, frequent user as it is to the first-time visitor. However, as a user's experience and familiarity with a site's design increases, their needs and expectations evolve." [at Catalyst Group Design, via LucDesk]

This is a big problem for libraries, because we have so little control over our database vendors' interfaces. It's also a problem for our own sites, because we just don't have the time, staff, or resources to create customized, personalized, dynamic sites. There's great software out there to help us, but we can't afford the overwhelming majority of it. Even when we can, we don't have the hardware or technical staff necessary to install and maintain it. It's a paradox that I'm trying to bridge at SLS, but it's a rocky road.

Watch for more of these reports in the future.

Here's another Newsweek article about the state of the music industry: Looking Grim at the Grammys

"Last year record-company revenues dropped by $600 million, and the perennial talk about the end of the business as we know it sounds more and more convincing. We could list reasons from now until Sunday: the recession, post-September 11 shell shock, revenue lost to CD-burning and Internet file-sharing. All valid. But they wouldn’t be having as much impact if the music made us care....

Last year blank CDs outsold prerecorded ones. Two out of five music consumers own a CD burner. About the same number say they downloaded rather than paid for most of the music they listened to last year. And young people—the industry’s most coveted demographic—spend much more time on the computer than at Tower Records. 'My 14-year-old cousin has never bought a CD in his life,' says Moby, whose 1999 “Play” has sold more than 8 million legal copies. 'Most younger people see music as being free. For them, it’s always been free. The implications for the music business are staggering....'

H. L. Mencken said nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. But the music industry seems to be doing its damnedest to prove him wrong. It could be a beautiful thing." [via MetaFilter]

One of the best things about working at KJHK in college and then in a record store was the ability to move past commercial radio and find more interesting music. That's why I love the Internet so much, because it has restored this ability to me. Like Dave and others I've been mentioning, I haven't bought any CDs lately, and I don't have any plans to do so. That's saying something for someone with more than 1,000 CDs sitting upstairs. Any future music I purchase will be digital and portable. Until then, the music industry gets zippo from me.

Just now getting around to posting this one: Toshiba Forges Ahead with Bluetooth

"....Toshiba is one of them, and is right now working on a wireless server for use in the home that combines 802.11b and Bluetooth technology, as well as several Bluetooth-enabled home networking appliances.

The networked home appliances are to be launched in early April, and include among other items refrigerators, washing machines and microwave ovens that all will be connectable by means of Bluetooth. The appliances are to be controlled in a wireless environment through separate terminals and mobile phones, and one usage example mentioned would be for a user to enter the use-by date of in a refrigerator, upon which the appliance will notify the owner when it nears the expiry date.

The refrigerator will also be capable of creating a shopping list based on preferences entered by the user, and send it to the control terminal or a mobile phone. Additionally, the appliances have built-in self-monitoring capabilities that will notify a repair company if a problem should arise." [InfoSync]

Meet George Jetson, Jane his wife.... I think my first entry into the networked home appliance arena will be a digital music stereo component, but I look forward to more useful appliances, too. Hopefully someone is working on the interfaces for these things, though.

Brains4Zombies.com

" 'Some brains are just naturally better, juicier, and formerly smarter than others, and we've got them here at Brains4Zombies.com. We sell only the highest quality fresh brains, delivered straight to your door.' If Amazon were to move into the body-parts market, their site would look exactly like this." [Blogjam]

Had a good laugh with this one.

The Customer Is Always Wrong

"Earth to moguls: beware of what you wish for. Business-school professors could feast for years on the unintended consequences that come from treating Britney Spears tunes like nuclear secrets. Clearly, clamping locks on electronic equipment and intentionally crippling CDs wouldn’t increase sales. Would it depress sales? Almost certainly....

But if new discs are copy-protected, someone who wants a classic James Taylor album might do better to buy a vintage disc on eBay. MP3 fans desiring a rip-friendly disc of Moby’s latest would be forced to seek a pirated version where someone has illegally broken the security controls. I can’t see how this situation would boost album revenues....

Then there’s the impact on the electronics industry. If new computers, CD-DVD players and personal video recorders are hobbled, consumers will hold on to their pre-Hollings machines. As Intel’s Leslie Vadasz warned the Commerce Committee, '[Your legislation] will substantially retard innovation ... and will reduce the usefulness of our products to consumers.'

What makes this all totally insane is that Internet file sharing is not necessarily the foe of copyright holders" [at Newsweek, via Tomalak's Realm]

A great overview of the problem. I may use this one as a handout for librarians that are not yet aware of how the SSSCA will completely hobble their services.

I had enough time during the commercials to finally add to the Radio 101 Docs. The new tutorial is for How to Add a Script to Open Links in a New Window. Maybe more later if I can fit it in.

Whew! A close one, but the Jayhawks pulled it out. I hope Miles looks back at the tape to see some of the shots he should not have taken. Hawks undefeated in conference play, though - one big goal down. Two more to go.

From ESPN

Okay, here we go. KU versus MU in a revenge match for the Tigers who lost by 32 points in Lawrence last time they met. Good thing I've got my rubber Bad Call Brick ready. Rock Chalk Jayhawk KU!

I've been remiss in getting around to reading Jon Udell's article Radio UserLand 8.0 Is a Lab for Group-Forming, but Jim's message prodded me forward. I'm glad I did, because Jon makes some excellent points. Now when I describe Radio, I'll be using Peter Drayton's description, as highlighted by Jon:

"WYSIWYG Blogging+Navigator Links+RSS Syndication+Referrer Logs+FTP Upstreaming==Topic-Oriented Web of Smart People."

Jon also expresses one of the thoughts that has been bubbling in the back of my mind.

"Monitoring the flow and interconnectedness of this meta-conversation, by means of citation indexes, is central to the way science creates shared knowledge."

It's a lot like the print science citation indexes you find at academic libraries, exept it's much more immediate. What you lose though, is the subject access that is suddenly becoming so important to me as both a reader and a publisher.

This whole "group-forming activity" is going to be huge during the next few years, in addition to the impact it will have on information (eg, my new-found belief that news aggregators will change the way we view and use information). I really want to get libraries started as one of these groups.

And thanks for the link, Jon!

Proposal May Save State Library 

"The State Library, facing extinction in the state budget crunch, might be spared under a proposal gaining support in the Legislature. The new plan, which is backed by the State Library Commission, library staff and lawmakers of both parties, would transfer part of the agency to the Secretary of State's Office and other parts to the state archives office." [Library Stuff]

Let's hope this passes for Washingtons' sake, although there is concern that cutting up the Library's services and putting them in different departments still doesn't save enough money. I can't imagine living in a state with no State Library. It would cripple Illinois because the ISL is the glue that holds it all together, visions for the future, pushes and prods libraries forward, and (hello!) distributes the money. Not to mention the statewide purchase of access to FirstSearch for every Illinois resident, supporting the regional Library System online catalogs, and providing grant monies.

Non-librarians don't understand how devastating this would be, but for librarians it's somewhat analogous to what would happen if Network Solutions/VeriSign/whatever-they're-calling-themselves-these-days suddenly disappeared and there was no global whois for routing anymore. It's that drastic, except libraries are a bajillion times better than NS/VS and they exist for everybody, not just commercial interests.

I'm especially surprised that this is happening in Washington because:

• Such a high-tech state should understand the importance of libraries at all levels;
• Washington started the whole Find-It! program, although I believe it was more a project form the State Archives than the State Library;
• Paging Mr. Gates, Mr. Bill Gates.

Check out the following excerpt from the Site Information page from Access Washington:

"Wa Wiz Quiz
We would like to make a special acknowledgment to Shirley Lewis, Information Specialist and Liz Yeahquo, intern of the Washington State Library who were instrumental in the research for this project."

And that's exactly what you lose at the STATE LEVEL - information specialists. If you live in Washington, I encourage you to contact your representatives and let them know how important it is to maintain the State Library's presence.

Unwiring Your Home in the Seattle Times

"A Wi-Fi network is made up of individual radios on each computer and a central hub, called an access point, which coordinates traffic from the individual machines. The hub often can be plugged directly into a DSL, cable, or dial-up modem, too." [via 80211b News]

A great introduction to wireless that I will be using as a handout in my future presentations. One of the best things I did last summer was install a WiFi network at home. I can't wait to lay on the hammock this summer and blog! A particularly enjoyable thought in light of the eight inches of snow and arctic winds outside right now.

Kevin comments on my comments about the music industry.

"I too worry about what will happen with libraries and their ability to maintain media libraries. I've seen several good documentaries and historical films from libraries, all of which were copyrighted. I wonder why music feels it is somehow different? If the entertainment industry had it's way, it would do away with the notion of "public libraries" altogether. I for one won't stand for it. Keep up the fight!"

Mark Lemmons: Six Degrees - Weblog. "There's interesting new[unknown entity]research about all this from Xerox PARC via Ted Smalley at TRN News. "In a case of make-do evolution...the humble email program has become a primary organizer, haphazardly covering a far broader range of functions than it was originally designed for." This isn't all bad. Most good apps are used in ways that were never intended. The more troubling aspect of this research is the suggestion that the more experience we have with email, the less efficient we are at managing it. The complexity of folder structures gets deeper. The number of messages goes up. The filtering gets more complex. We get swamped." [Which supports why Mark Hurst's Good, Easy Email system works so well. It eliminates your email client as organizer. Six Degrees takes another view of the problem and the methodologies can be (should be) complimentary.] [Archipelago]

True, true, true. At SLS, I am consistently mocked for the size of my email mailbox. In fact, we just bought one of those huge network storage devices, and they joked that it was for me. But I'm a librarian and I just can't seem to get rid of potential information and unfortunately, the software companies didn't build categorization, linkage, and meta data into the system from the start. I'm really intrigued by Six Degrees, but I won't be able to use it at home because I'm not running the right version of Windows. However, I will likely try it at work now that we're upgrading to Windows 2000.

Things to do in the morning - check your referrer log. I'm happy to announce that someone searched Yahoo for "sexy librarian .jpg" and Yahoo/Google pointed them to my site. I was gloating about this until I read the referrer underneath that one from the same source - "latest invention in fabric industry." Hmmmmm... which one should I Google Bomb? Decisions, decisions.