While some of my activity on the Internet is recreational, I continue to play with web tools to learn about the ever-evolving technology.  While the average person has become comfortable with e-mail, web feeds are still pretty much a mystery to many.  The RSS and Atom specifications first used by newswires has become the principal form of web syndication for blogs and social media.

I’ve recently rearranged my pattern of web use (again).  To encourage readers to think about how they use the Internet, let me pose four questions.

• 1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?
• 2. How do I post content, and flow it?
• 3. Why have I recently changed my use?
• 4. What consideration should web users have for their content?

With the way that technology continues to evolve, the specific web applications may change … but the pattern should remain the same.

1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?

My attitude is reflected in two ideas:  (a) open content with attribution, and (b) open platforms with interoperability.

(a) Open content with attribution reflects that I like to share my learning with other people.   Posting the content on the Internet improves access and distribution.  I understand the workings of copyright — there’s a Creative Commons license on this blog — which means that I retain ownership of my words, on the condition that if someone wants to formally cite the work, he or she should cite me as the source.  I’m not an author who makes his living at writing, so simple acknowledgement is normally sufficient.

(b) Open platforms with interoperability means that I don’t want my content inappropriately trapped in places inaccessible to others.  I appreciate instances when content should remain private, respecting the needs of others and/or commercial conditions, but secrecy should be the exception rather than the rule.  The content should flow freely (i.e. free as in liberty), rather than having to stumble through technological obstacles.

2. How do I post content, and flow it?

With these principles in mind, I’m reforming the way that I interact on the web.  Here’s a diagram (linked to another page in an interactive map).

I write content on four blogs, all using WordPress software (which is open source and free).  Distractions, reflections has become a photoblog of my travels, on my personal domain.  Coevolving Innovations is my professional blog, on a separate domain that I had originally started with colleagues.  The Media Input Queue is a trail of MP3 audio lectures and talks that I’ve found worth remembering.   I’ve recently started In Brief as a microblog to retain short messages based on the new P2 theme.  These last two blogs are  on the free hosting provided by wordpress.com, as I expect their volume to be relatively light, and I can observe how new features are added to the technology by professionals.

When I leave responses on the blogs of others, a Firefox plugin ensures that my words are tracked on cocomment.com.  These comments become available as a feed — just as with my blog posts.

I bookmark items in three ways.  Topical items, such as newspaper and magazine articles, are saved with the bookmarklet to my Google Reader Shared Items, with a snippet and a personal comment.  Research content is saved in my Diigo library, enabling colleagues to subscribe (e.g.via e-mail) according to interests.  Other web content is saved in my Delicious bookmarks, normally without comment.

In the hopes of coincidentally meeting friends and colleagues in cities where I’m destined, I post my upcoming trips on Dopplr.  Since I have an appreciation for varieties of food, I reviews on Urbanspoon (who reciprocate by providing links back to my photoblog).  To learn about the emerging location-based technologies, I’ve been regularly updating landmarks and visits on Brightkite.

I don’t post this content just on my own web site, because much of it naturally belongs to communities that won’t all coincide (e.g. people who listen to podcasts aren’t necessary the same people with extensive business travel).  Through web standards established on the Internet, it’s relatively easy to pull content from one place to the other.  I’ve recently created a consolidate view as a webstream on my personal domain — I don’t call it a lifestream, as I do have a life outside of the Internet! — taking advantage of the Lifestream plugin for WordPress.  Every 30 minutes, Twitterfeed sends out notifications of these web activities to my Twitter account (with the promise of some notifications being sent out immediately with PubSubHub and RSScloud coming soon).  With the format of some feeds not being exactly as I’ve wanted, I’ve been hacking Yahoo Pipes to beautify some feeds.

I’ve had ups and downs on the amount of content that I put on Facebook.  I used to change the status message once per day; then I increased the number of feeds imported it, and now have cut back to a minimum again.  My primary use of Facebook messages is — since I travel so much — to let my family and friends know which city I’m in.  If anyone really wants to know more, all of the other web content is available on the open Internet.

3. Why have I recently changed my use?

While I’ve now experienced blogging for a few years, microblogging — known by most people as tweeting or twittering — is something new to understand.  The medium can be noisy, but it helps me keep tabs on people with whom I have a real connection.  The most recent changes in pattern are (a) separating microblog content from medium, and (b) consolidating content into a webstream.

(a) Separating microblog content from medium means that I’m using Twitter as one channel for communication, but it’s not the only channel.  Although some people use it as a one-to-many broadcast medium, I don’t see Twitter as a conversational platform and prefer either one-to-one or one-to-few (i) instant messaging, (ii) e-mail, or (iii) teleconferences.  I publish content on the web for others to learn, not as a recreational agenda.  I want to increase the ratio of signal-to-noise in Twitter.  I scan through Twitter messages the way that I scan through a newspaper: I can speed-read through headlines, and sometimes find ideas that I wouldn’t naturally seek.  Serendipity has advantages.

(b) Consolidating content into a webstream is a way of evolving content to be more person-centric, over topic-centric.  I don’t know why any particular person would be interested in following my webstream, but it’s technologically feasible to do so.  This is part of the ongoing experiment that is social media.  I’ve also set up accounts on Profilactic and on Lifestream.fm, as a way of benchmarking the technology.

I’ve been a fan of Friendfeed over the last year, as the above two patterns were satisfied by that technology.  However, there’s been some question as the future of Friendfeed since the acquisition of the company by Facebook has halted development.  The platform is still available, and its life may have actually been extended since fewer people using Friendfeed reduces the load.  Still, the uncertainty is discouraging.  I’ve just noticed an OpenFF group has formed, looking into an open source version of Friendfeed, and will monitor their progress.

4. What consideration should web users have for their content?

Based on the above demonstration of web technologies, people active on the Internet should think about (a) what content is being put on the web, and (b) where is that content going.

(a) What content is being put on the web? I’ve previously written that individuals should take control of their web personas, because it will be shaped passively unless active management is undertaken.  Just entering your own name (or aliases) into a search engine may produce a profile that may or may not be appreciated.  The division between business personas and personal personas has fallen.  It’s almost impossible to remain invisible in the Internet age, so each person will be judged — appropriately or inappropriately — by the content that he or she creates (or has had created about him or her).

(b) Where is that content going? Almost all web technologies have adopted web feeds as foundational technologies, so the original venue for content may be only a starting point for its further distribution and reuse.  This has both upsides and cautions.  The upside is that good content is readily accessible to interested audiences, and can aid in the development of social capital.  The caution rests with traceability of the ideas back to the originator.  Intellectual capital is mobile, and some effort is required to maintain claims on personal works.

How is reading blogs different from reading e-mail and using search engines?

Most peers at my age — I’m a later era baby boomer, now called Generation Jones — are comfortable receiving e-mail and using search engines. This population hasn’t yet fully embraced social technologies such as blogs. This is changing slowly. Jeremiah Ohyang, in “How Baby Boomers Use Social Media“, describes that:

• 71% of younger boomers (age 43 to 52) in 2008 were active with social technologies, as compared to 52% in 2007, and
• 65% of older boomers (age 53 to 63) in 2008 were active with social technologies, as compared to 45% in 2007.

A further breakdown of the social technographic of boomers shows a bimodal (i.e. two-bump) distribution.

• The largest bump of boomers (67% and 62%) is readers as “spectators” of blogs and forums — probably arriving at the web site via a bookmark or a search engine.
• Of boomers reading blogs, fewer are “joiners” who maintain a profile on the web, or “collectors” who are receive updates as feeds.
• Contributing content, boomers show a smaller bump as 35% and 34% as “critics” who leave comments on blogs and forums.
• Less than half that number are “creators” who upload and publish primary content, which means bloggers under age 43 outnumber bloggers over age 43 in a ratio of 6-to-1.

What are boomers missing? They may not want to become authors (i.e. “creators” or “critics”). As “collectors”, however, they can become more productive readers. Moving into this segment requires (1) embracing the ethos of a blog reader, (2) adopting tools that streamline reading blogs, and (3) establishing a personal style for tracking content.

Boomers are comfortable with e-mail. E-mail is a person-centric way of receiving information. It’s easy to sort out the importance of content by the sender of the information. The widespread alternative on the Internet is content-centric search. Put some search terms into a browser, and locate information sources. It’s worth remembering, though, that the credibility, reliability and usefulness of web sources is better if you know and/or trust the author(s).

[Side note: I first encountered the idea of person-centric from a tweet by Luis Suarez, leading to an interview of Euan Semple by Joshua-Michele Ross, and then a 2007 interview of Euan Semple by David Weinberger. The person-centric approach is also evident in the Cattail project at IBM Research.]

Moving up to the level of a “collector” takes advantage of web feed technologies such as RSS or Atom. Web feeds enable a person-centric way of receiving information from web syndication, i.e. content made available through publishing on the Internet. A reader can subscribe to individuals from whom he or she wants to read more, and bypass the noise from unwanted search results and junk e-mail. Following the ideas of a trusted colleague is more productive than relying on an anonymous source found with a search engine.

The three behaviours of becoming a “collector” are described below.

(1) Blog readers socially engage with blog writers

Blogs are communications direct from a writer. Marshall McLuhan would probably describe blogs as a “hot medium” as compared to other “cooler” web content. In an April 2008 ACM CHI presentation and paper on “Exploring the Role of the Reader in the Activity of Blogging”, Eric Baumer, Mark Sueyoshi and Bill Tomlinson (all at U.C. Irvine) find that blog readers have characteristic common practices:

Habitual, like checking e-mail:

Blogs can be compared to other routine media use, e.g. watching television, reading the newspaper, listening to radio.

Not information overload:

Readers don’t feel the need to be constantly up to date with everything posted in the blogs they read.

Non-chronous — timing less relative than position:

Blogs are experienced in the temporal order in which they are written, but recency has more to do with is the number of posts than the time that has passed.

Identity:

Offline and online identities are overlapping, and both bloggers and readers feel an obligation to each other.

“Being a part”:

Regular reading can give a sense of community and a sense of connectedness.

Interactional approach:

Blogs are not a genre, but a medium for multi-directional communication.

Frequent blog readers can therefore perceive an author’s content like a serial form of e-mail newsletter. Since messages target an audience rather than an individual, the interaction style can be more relaxed. Expectations of required action or an impending deadline that can be enclosed in an e-mail will be absent.

(2) Social media tools make reading syndicated feeds easier

In the above social technographic, a “spectator” or “joiner” will likely access a blog by selecting a bookmark to a home page on a browser. Blogs conventionally show the most recent entries first, requiring the reader to then either read the content in reverse chronological order, or to locate where he or she last left off and step forward entry-by-entry. This pattern really slows down reading blogs.

I use four technologies to read feeds: (a) Facebook; (b) Friendfeed; (c) FeedDemon (with Newsgator); and (d) Twitter (via Twitter4Skype). Each has advantages and limitations.

(a) Facebook is easy to use, containing content within a walled garden

Facebook initially required affiliation with a university or college. It’s now open to anyone with an e-mail address. It’s easy to find bloggers like me, and some of my social network. The user interface is so well-designed that novices don’t appreciate that they’re really following web feeds. Facebook applications enable “creators” to automatically import content written outside of Facebook, and “critics” have easy ways to post comments and responses.

Facebook is not without disadvantages for the reader, though.

• Imported content (e.g. blog entries, bookmarks) is only as good as the application that accesses it, possibly hampering readability from its original form.
• Low-intensity “creators” may contribute less-than-compelling content (i.e. noise) that requires a lot of filtering.
• Graduating from a “joiner/collector” to a “critic” grants ownership of contributed content to Facebook, under its Terms of Service.

The technologically-challenged and most private individuals may be satisfied by Facebook. It’s good for lurkers who want to remain as “joiners” or “collectors”.

(b) Friendfeed has high signal-to-noise, for a sophisticated community

I’ve recently become a fan of Friendfeed, and maintain a consolidated web identity over there. Friendfeed isn’t a walled garden, as Facebook is, and enables “creators” and “critics” to integrate all of their web activities into a unified stream.

From the reader’s perspective, Friendfeed has a higher signal-to-noise ratio than Facebook. The digerati hang out on Friendfeed, so if you’re a sophisticated reader, you’ll appreciate a deeper level of discourse. Friendfeed’s content is all on the open web, so graduating to a “critic” instantly means that your likes and comments are accessible to everyone.

I’ve found Friendfeed to be too much a good thing, i.e. the amount of content that it aggregates overwhelms my patience in a browser. There’s an easy solution, though: Friendfeed not only imports web feeds, it exports web feeds. Thus, I use Friendfeed in conjunction with an offline feed reader client, FeedDemon.

(c) FeedDemon speeds up reading in a fat client, with a Newsgator synchronization

FeedDemon is a Windows-based offline feed reader, now available without fee from Newsgator. There are clients available for other platforms, e.g. Mac, mobile phone. In addition, FeedDemon synchronizes with NewsGator Online, so it’s possible (i) to read content via a browser, and (ii) maintain your list of read and unread items even in the event of a crash on your PC. I had previously chosen and analyzed other feed readers, and moved over to FeedDemon last year as the tool that best suits my needs.

I have used FeedDemon to subscribe to blogs directly from the source. Since “creators” tend to use a wide variety of web services — social bookmarks (e.g. Delicious, Digg, Diigo), status (Twitter, Facebook), photos (Flickr, Picasa), etc. — Friendfeed serves as a way of aggregating the other web activity by an individual. I now have three feeds for each of the people I follow most:

• the direct feed from the blog;
• the Friendfeed “Comments and Likes”, which filters on responses and pointers to other web activity; and
• the Friendfeed “Feed”, which comprises all of the web activity syndicated by that person.

This redundancy may seem obtuse, but within an offline reader such as FeedDemon, it’s easy for me to quickly read through feed items with the delete key, until I find something interesting.

Some people don’t like the idea of yet another fat client on their computer, and would therefore prefer to use a browser with a web-based feed reader such as Newsgator Online or Google Reader.

(d) Twitter streams up-to-the minute thinking, with a potential for distraction

Twitter was designed as a micro-blogging platform, whereby 140-character messages — primarily of “what are you doing?” — could be readily transmitted from mobile phones, as well as web browsers. It’s evolved to be used more broadly than just communicating statuses, potentially even displacing e-mail messages. I’m a regular but less frequent Twitterer, enabling interested parties to track my location, since I travel so frequently.

Twitter is great for following “creators” with the greatest intimacy. Since I use Skype chat as my preferred instant messaging platform, the Twitter4Skype service pops up Twitter messages as they arrive.

Individuals whom I don’t want to follow so closely (or I find too distracting) are often in Friendfeed, where I can subscribe to tweets to read asynchronously.

3. A reader can accumulate content, or discard old headlines

In comparing my style of e-mail and reading web feeds compared with colleagues, I’ve identified two styles:

• (i) the executive style for action: process the in-basket as soon as possible, dealing with each message immediately to minimize handling, resulting in an empty folder; and
• (ii) the reflective style for thinking: handle urgent messages immediately, maintaining a backlog of items to think about, working down the queue as time permits from both ends, i.e. from most recent and least recent towards the middle.

Since I’m a researcher, I find that I’m in the latter category, and maintain a long list of e-mail messages and web feeds that get handled at different paces. I know of colleagues who are happy to “delete old news”, as older messages lose relevance and/or are handled by others. The above web tools can support either style, so it’s up to each individual use them in the way they find most natural.