The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005

A very nice list of best of Web 2.0 software is to be found on this weblog.
If you want to get started, start here. But even for Web 2.0 addicts, there will be something useful here. Very nice.

ProgrammableWeb: the reference on web2

ProgrammableWeb is what it is: "ProgrammableWeb is a web-as-platform reference site and blog delivering news, information and resources for developing applications using the Web 2.0 APIs."
This, together with eHub, will let you stay up-to-date on Web 2.0. Very cool.

Netvibes

Have you seen http://www.netvibes.com/ ?
This seems to me like a sort of SuprGlu: a completely customizable starting page, simply for yourself.
I will try this one out, for sure. The company is based in France, BTW.
I came across Netvibes by courtesy of a weblog at the Open University of the UK; http://blogs.open.ac.uk/Maths/ajh59/005219.html (he, didn't they recently tell us that they are have chosen Moodle as their VLE of the future?).

IBM shows del.icio.us for the enterprise, and more

This came up today as one of the most popular reads on del.icio.us, tagged with 'folksonomy'. It's a long item on what IBM is doing. Very interesting for all the people interested in social software and the likes.
Source.

The digital divide sitting right next to you. Web 2.0 dreamworld & Web 0.75 realworld

Leigh Blackall, whose weblog I've been reading for some months now, just put a nice article about the long way we still have to go.
Leigh refers to an excellent article by Alan Levine, where he states that "One of my peeves is the pervasive use of email as a sole communication means. What I am referring to as almost daily, there are 4 or 5 fully formatted HTML, graphic laden emails about various events and programs in our college system, and there is no corresponding related information on our colleges' web sites. That means the only content "repository" is the inbox, which has no legacy record, no memory, no search."
Hum, yeah, right. I guess we are doing a little bit better at my University. Yes, I do get a lot of email, but mostly there is a URL in there where i can find more information. But on the other hand, indeed my content repository sometimes is my inbox.

How to Save the World

Please take the time to read the How to Save the World "The Social Networking Landscape" by Dave Pollard. This is an excellent piece on trying to define what social software is about. Not in a textual way, but in a mindmapping way. I need to do more with mindmapping, that's for sure.

eHub interviews Pierre Stanislas, creator of Atiki

I said it before on this weblog. You really should add this website (or RSS feed) within your attentioncloud whatever (?): eHub by Emily Chang.
"Thanks to Pierre Stanislas, creator of Atiki for this email interview posted October 24, 2005."

OPML feeds for education: Feedbooks

A new word, but a very fascinating one. Do you know the concept of Feedbooks?
Just start reading at the excellent weblog by Leigh Blackall from Australia: http://teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com/2005/10/feedbooks.html
"A feedbook is a living text. Students are getting material that is new. The material may surprise the instructor, but it gives them things to discuss, a real platform upon which to have a natural discussion rather than one forced by a lesson plan made weeks, months or even years earlier. As a final advantage, when the students leave the course, their feedbook goes with them, not a textbook slowly fading into kindling for your fireplace, but one that will stay current."

Flock

I just posted this through Flock, the new kid on the blo(g)ck.

I'm trying to grasp what I can do with this. Need to read this: http://www.flock.com/fiveways/togetstarted/13.php

Emily Chang - eHub

The site speaks for itself:
"eHub is a constantly updated list of web applications, services, resources, blogs or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), social software, blogging, folksonomy (..) "
At the time of writing, it listst 120 resources.... and rising.

Revealicious - revealing the way you use del.icio.us

Their own text says it all: "Revealicious is a set of graphic visualisations for your del.icio.us account that allow you to browse, search and select tags, as well as viewing posts matching them."
This must be number 5 (or so) of tools that visualize your del.icio.us entries. I wonder which one works best. Any comments?

Lazy Sheep Bookmarklet: coolest thing of the day!

The weather is quite hot over here, right now (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit or 26 degrees Celsius).
But, i just found this very cool tool, that makes posting and tagging interesting things on the web to your del.icio.us list a one-click affair. Very very useful indeed!
Go to http://ejohn.org/apps/sheep to check it out and start using it!
In their own words: "Lazy Sheep is a del.icio.us bookmarklet that auto-tags and auto-describes your bookmarks."

DeWitt Clinton’s unto.net � On Web 2.0

DeWitt Clinton tells us what Web 2.0 will be like: "Web 2.0 is about giving that data meaning and thereby setting it free. Web 2.0 is the syndication of data, and syndicating it in such a way that anyone, anywhere can use the results. Web 2.0 does not lock the consumer (who also becomes a producer) into rigid use cases — it intentionally forfeits that control in favor of much greater returns."
I would say that Web 2.0 can be seen as the natural successor of all that is going on right regarding social software and folksonomy: the user takes control!

What's hot? bottom-up is the way

Since del.icio.us is here, others make use it in innovative ways.
The idea is simple: since there are a lot of people around the globe who put their bookmarks in there, you can 'easily' derive conclusions from it. What's hot and what's not, in a bottom-up way. Decided by the people, and not by the news agencies or te TV networks.
So, check out for example:
1. CollaborativeRank. Here you can see the most popular tags, and (interesting!) the most influential users on del.icio.us.
2. Stamen: vox delicii. Here you can see a visualization of popular sites as seen on del.icio.us, organized by date and popularity.

Atomiq: Market populism in the folksonomies debate

Ok, i am back from vacation.
Today i stumbled across a few articles (if you will call them that way) that argue that Shirky is overrated, as a response to his blog that stated that Ontology is overrated.
Check out, for example:
Atomiq: Market populism in the folksonomies debate.

Vacation

Until August 22. See you then!

Keeping it simple - is it too late?

I found a very provocative post by Derek Morrison on the Auricle weblog.
Derek argues that we are all walking in a sort of tunnel, because of limitations of current VLE's.
Just a quote: "(..) VLEs are pretty poor content aggregators but yet, in the absence of alternatives, they've taken on that role in education by default. But yet, in the non-education world, I can set up my RSS aggregator and Podcast download application to either bring to my attention what's current or even to download automatically the content I've identified as valuable to me to my preferred player/reader device; that's an example of a discrete and very efficient tool which doesn't require a complex interface or an expensive recurring license to allow me to use it, but yet it does some pretty powerful things."

Watching Tag Clouds Over Time

The newest folksonomy tool is calledCloudalicious. Here you can watch how Tagclouds develop over time.
Try it with something that has at least 50 other people that have tagged the site or article on del.icio.us. Otherwise you get very strange (?) results.

What's the use of weblogs in education?

Recently I reread the news on Edusite that one of our oldest universities in The Netherlands (The University of Leiden) has started to use weblogs for educational purposes. I will try to give a very short description in English of what is developing there (all text etc is in Dutch).
There is directory available of the weblogs in use there. At the moment there are 8 staff and 5 students actively maintaining a weblog. There is one so-called 'onderwijsweblog' and 8 groupweblogs.
The 'onderwijsblog' is the most interesting, by far. At least for me. You wanna know why? Because it is actually a weblog by a teacher, where he actually tells his students that what he is doing there is an emulation what otherwise he would have done in Blackboard. But he makes one clear distinction: i want to get rid of the rigid way in which Blackboard puts the teacher(s) in the driver's seat, and therefor i use this weblog is a perfect alternative! Read his explanation in Dutch if you like:Rino's Blog.
So, is this the beginning of the end of Blackboard at the University of Leiden?

del.icio.us direc.tor:

del.icio.us direc.tor: Delivering A High-Performance AJAX Web Service Broker :: Johnvey: a tool to navigate through your tags in a slightly different way. Just try it out.

extisp.icio.us - scattering del.icio.us tags - now with images

I just stumbled on this neat little app, that makes a tagcloud of your del.icio.us tags.
It is called extisp.icio.us - scattering del.icio.us tags. Cool!

Feeds available

Hi readers,
If you want an Atom feed, go to http://folksonomy.blogspot.com/atom.xml.
If you really want an RSS feed, then you won't be disappointed. It can be found on http://feeds.feedburner.com/SocialSoftwareInEducation.
Feedburner rocks!

elgg.net :: the learning landscape

I've been coming back to this interesting project, called elgg.net :: the learning landscape.
What is happening there is very promising, in my honest opinion. Just take the online tour and find out what elgg can offer. The authors themselves call it an open source learning landscape platform.

Shirky: Ontology is Overrated

This article is a must-read for anyone who thinks that we can categorize the world as we used to do. We cannot anymore!
Please read: Shirky: Ontology is Overrated -- Categories, Links, and Tags

Technorati Tags

Technorati Tags: "Tags: The real-time web, organized by you". Need is say more.
Just check it out.

Folksonomy Encyclopedia of Terms

A sort of human-generated TagCloud: Folksonomy Encyclopedia of Terms

Wanna know what the world is consuming?

This is a very neat service, I think. Here you can let the world know what you are reading right now (or listening to, or watching, whatever gets consumed).
Right now Harry Potter is on top of the list of All Consuming. But what will it be in three weeks? Just get back to this service, and consume it :-)

Weblog policy: won't work

On Auricle I found a nice article on the use (or lack of use) of weblogs in Higher Education in the UK.
A little excerpt:
"Ok, all over the UK I now hear HEI's Directors of Marketing and Communications cry, (..) ... let's do it ... let's build a blog into our Web site ... but we've got to have a really tight policy about what people can and cannot write about".
Sorryeeeee ... :) ... Won't work. "

Cluster your del.icio.us bookmarks

Cluster your del.icio.us bookmarks is an experiment by tho PhD students of the University of Bremen.
As they say themselves: "This tiny application lets you cluster your del.icio.us bookmarks into tag clouds." Just provide your username of password and there you go!

Wired News: RSS Service Eases Bloggers' Pain

Wired recently featured a nice article on TagCloud. Just go to Wired News: RSS Service Eases Bloggers' Pain.
Wanna see my TagCloud in action?
Go to Elearning TagCloud to see the words that my collegues Wilfred, Pierre and Wijnand use. Beware: this is in the Dutch language.

The next hype: folksonomy?

I surely hope not.
Check my fresh URL's onthis subject on http://del.icio.us/wytze/folksonomy