Mathemagenic

Did some maintanance work on the blogs of KnowledgeBoard members: checking if weblogs were alive and adding missing RSS feeds to public Bloglines aggregation of KnowledgeBoard blogs.

Statistics:

• 50 weblogs in the list
• 12 do not have RSS feeds (were not find by Bloglines and by me looking at blogs' homepages)
• 6 were not updated within last 2 month
• 4 broken/not availiable

I'm thinking if I should generate missing RSS feeds via Blogstreet (is there better way?) or ask bloggers to do it themselves.

In case you don't know: RSS WinterFest has started (login to join webcast). The official site it's a bit confusing, I find underlying SocialText RSS WinterFest space more clear.

Things you may be interested to check:

• about page
• wikiblog + RSS(you can add as well)
• transcripts (including RSS feeds)
• RSS radar
  • Think outside the feed (A collection of ideas about the emerging use of RSS) and wiki page on innovative uses
• RSS and the Future of Internet Content Syndication, a report designed for senior level decision makers

I'm listening to the overview session with Dave Winer (notes by Ross Mayfield, more notes).

Bits

• An explanation of Dave Winer of the abbreviation: it's actually means "Really Simple Syndication" and not something else :)
• What is RSS? 

Dave Winer: Automated web surfing

Scott Mace: It's more like a smart librarian who brings useful materials to me. CORRECTION: More like a dumb librarian who works very fast with a large set of personalized search instructions.

I'm SO confused with a combination of so many communication channels...

Think of a company that wants to experiment with public employee (not group/project) weblogs, understanding that they would give more "human" face to its on-line presence. I wrote about possible choices and questions before, but this time I want to be more specific.

I could think of two "extreme" choices: (a) establishing a weblog space on corporate web-site and (b) personally hosted weblogs linked from corporate web-site.

Now I'm thinking about an ideal case somewhere in between:

• company provides a hosting space and centralised technical infrastructure for weblogs
• weblogs are clearly marked as a personal initiative
• employee has an opportunity to import/export content (see who owns narrated experiences?), company has an opportunity to aggregate/reuse content

Closest example: Weblogs at Harvard law (terms of use).

Bottom line: low threshold to start a weblog + high motivation to write + shared benefits

This post also appears on channel weblog research

Please note, that although posted in my personal weblog, this post was provoked by my discussion with colleagues, written during my work hours and it is a part of weblog research we do. I'm responsible for it personally, but my company is likely to expect some benefits from it :)