25 April 2008 Mylifebits and Web 2.0 Tools

Mylifebits is something I read about last week on Slashdot (something I only heard of for the first time last week). Microsoft researchers (and Gordon Bell) want to capture every moment of your life. Apparently it will all fit on a DVD. I find this idea interesting in terms of doing my own phd, though I think being able to record every thought or learning or emotion etc would be more interesting (and would not, I think, I hope, fit on a DVD!).

I am learning about Google Reader. I can tell it's useful. But I don't understand it yet. I just set it up last week. And now there are 255 messages in it now I think. So I need to look at it. The header says "Google Blog Search: Second Life". I click on one of the stories. It's about the Diversity Building on Princeton's sim [what's a sim?]. It's from SL iReports. I see a Subscribe button. I click on it. It asks which thingy [?] I would like to use so I see and select Google. Now I've subscribed to it too but I don't know what that actually means. It's tough knowing so little.

[Several hours later and I am still trawling through the 200+ messages in the one feed I signed up to] I have figured out that I can plug RSS feeds into Google Reader (or the Google Homepage). That's very neat. It took 3 iterations (3 signups) to finally grasp what was happening. Now the penny has dropped. Live Bookmarks is another way of doing the same thing. Ah-ha.

Now (several hours later), I'm thinking about Linkedin after a conversation with F.C. I also saw a reference to it in a blog posting (don't think I knew of it before that). The blog says that Linkedin is about identity but other social networking tools are about presence. They encourage you to "get the most from your professional network". Hmm. This is another angle on virtual worlds that I'm not considering yet.

"Social software". New phrase for me. I like it. I read about it on a Clay Shirky Terranova blog entry. I know that name.