I put it here, because this is not the first time I’m collecting links explaining k-collector in one e-mail :)
- k-collector at work
- Intranet aggregator, a model that explains the idea
- Recap: ENT, k-collector and WWWW, more complicated explanation
Once I started to write about k-collector, I’ll ask a question I have in my mind for some time… I’m thinking about possible uses of k-collector in companies and about motivation of bloggers to use it. I believe that the idea is great, but as a potential user I’m not motivated to use k-collector because:
I’m a liveTopics user. I use liveTopics because this tool provides me with a way to structure and access my own ideas. K-collector doesn’t (see also earlier post on liveTopics vs. k-collector).
K-collector provides a topic-based overview of different weblog posts. Fine, but Waypath does it better, indexing all blogs and not only small fracture that uses k-collector. So, why should I narrow it down?
To use k-collector before it gets smarter I have to add topics to my posts. I can’t use them to navigate my own weblog, so the only motivation is to make navigation between all weblogs easier. Nice and altruistic, may work for me, but my experience is that it doesn’t work for most people (e.g. people tend not to add keywords to documents in a corporate document repository even if it makes their own documents more accessible).
- And I’m also not sure how smart k-collector will become to suggest right topics. In many cases I use topic that says something about pattern behind a post and doesn’t have visible connection in the text. For example, the “suggest” button liveTopics does not suggest “technology adoption” topic unless I mention it explicitly.
At the end my main point is simple: I believe k-collector has more chances to be used if it offers more to endusers. Personally I’d like to have an opportunity to switch between “all weblogs” and “my own weblog” views :)
Update: Paolo and Matt answered some of my questions by demonstrating and explaining “to be released soon” k-collector version. The system is not perfect yet, but I like their future-customer-friendly way of working :)
And I missed one link – K-collector update: topic matching
Tags: blogs in business, citedCh3, k-collector, liveTopics, technology adoptionArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/09/30.html#a773; comments are here.
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