BLOGS, FEEDS AND MORE

Completed a two day workshop Blogs, Newsfeeds and RSS in Maastricht on 19 and 20 January 2006:

Dear colleagues, friends, sharing some new tools with you and explaining some new buzzwords:

RSS : Really Simple Syndication = information that is delivered directly to computers and updated when the information changes. Read more about the RSS principle on http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedfactory/ or http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss.
We (ECDPM) use RSS from other sites and produce our own.

"Web syndication is a form of syndication in which a section of a website is made available for other sites to use."

"An aggregator or newsreader is a type of software that retrieves syndicated Web content."

> Bloglines : http://www.bloglines.com/
A web-based newsreader. "A free online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install -- register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device". Read more about Bloglines.

Blogrolls. On many blogs, there are lists of links to other blogs. These lists are called blogrolls. You can incorporate your Bloglines subscriptions into your blog, as a blogroll, by including a small piece of HTML that loads a script from Bloglines.

Another news source is Google News : news as you like it. You can personalise news to focus on what you want. You can add your own custom news sections. Enter your own keywords e.g. acp-eu, acp-eu trade, maastricht events, new cameras, new bikes etc. etc. You will need to create an account and sign in with your email address.
> Google News : http://news.google.com/

Blog : a new feature of the Web 2.0. A personal homepage in diary format. A free, easy-to-use and interactive tool to communicate and to share interest, photos, links etc. It is a specific kind of website, without navigation or levels and postings in chronological order. If you want to interact with people, just register, create an account and in 15 minutes you have a page on the internet! It's good. No need to download or install software. p.s. Pay attention to the settings. http://www.blogger.com/start
Blogger creates news output to newsfeeds.





Social bookmarks = a collection of favorites that you can share with friends, colleagues, family, a projectgroup, consultants........

> del.icio.us : http://del.icio.us/
"Is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. Anyone can browse del.icio.us and see what others find interesting. The primary use of del.icio.us is to store bookmarks online, so you can access them from anywhere." But there are other uses. For instance creating newsfeeds from bookmarks and linking the tool to website Content Management System (CMS). Euforic started using it. When used as an institutional tool, correct tagging is important. Tags are one-word descriptors that you can assign to any bookmark. (Euforic will advise its members on the use of common tags).

> http://www.bircim.net/whattodo.html