Embedded music player from last.fm February 13, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Music, web2.0 , 3comments
Last.fm, the personalised online music station have just made a very clever move. They’ve allowed their music player to be embedded in any site on the web. Here’s an extract from the email I received, as a label owner:
Our most exciting new feature is the ability to embed the Last.fm player in your own website or blog. This means that you can make your Last.fm label playlist available all over the internet as well as on Last.fm itself.
There is no limit to the amount of tracks, or the number of playlists, that you can set up as a label.
Once you’ve done this, all you need to do is head to your label page
(http://www.last.fm/label/AndyRoberts), select ‘Playlists’ and you’ll find a code to copy and paste to your site.(Please note: You can also use the Last.fm player on your MySpace page, however due to their policy of blocking external links, the player will not link back to your Last.fm page so you will have to add that yourself.)
…
The great thing about these is that they promote your artists not just on Last.fm, but everywhere, without you having to do any work. So now, more than ever, you can really benefit by making your music available as full length previews or free downloads on Last.fm.
I think this stands a chance of spreading throughout non-musician MySpaces and blogs bringing in many new listeners to unsigned artists and to the brilliant Last.fm service.
Meanwhile, by comparison, my Sellaband page just sits there without any such means to connect to it.
You can see code which generates the widget here
( OpenID + MS ) vs Google February 12, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : web2.0 , add a commentI didn’t make many predictions this year, the colour orange being a tough act to follow, but I did suggest that OpenID versus Google might become a significant battle.
What is OpenID?
OpenID: an actually distributed identity system
OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.
It’s ony February, but already we have the news that Microsoft is backing OpenID.
Wired.com
Microsoft has joined forces with the Web 2.0 vanguard, as Bill Gates announced Tuesday in a keynote at the RSA security conference that Microsoft was going to support a distributed identity system known as OpenID. OpenID is an open and distributed system that allows a user to log-in to multiple sites via a single user-name that is a URL. When trying to log-in to a service, the user is diverted back to their authentication site, where they enter their password, and the identity site tells the web service that the person is who they say they are.
and
InfoWorld
The announcement was made Tuesday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco during a joint keynote by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie that was long on vision and short on specifics.Microsoft pledged to work to integrate OpenID with its CardSpace identity management software, which is now available in conjunction with Windows Vista. “The marriage of CardSpace and OpenID 2.0 is actually a giant step forward,” Mundie said.
Of course it’s always possible that Google will embrace OpenID as well, then Yahoo! would have to follow suit, meaning the end of the story and a happy one too.
How I would like to use SecondLife February 12, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : distributed research, online facilitation, tools , 2commentsI don’t know how the marketing of SecondLife works exactly, but the buzz is not going away, it’s building. At present there are educator orientated communities bumping into each other as they clamour to organise tours of the 3d graphical world and attempt to analyse how it might be utilised to support educational community purposes. I’ve endeavoured to tag along myself a few times, albeit hindered by technical and timezone problems. The sheer number of people who want to book their place on the tourbus is proof in itself of some kind of excitement being generated, even if it’s only by the prospect of some free tuition in an unknown environment with free registration. But these organised large groups have proved problematic, while providing some individuals with worthwhile learning experiences.
* There’s the communication problem. In-world text chat takes up screen space and includes anybody within a certain distance while skype conferences can leave a bunch of zombie avatars doing nothing, with their owners just talking about it from afar.
* Then there’s the problem of bandwidth lags, freezing action and waiting for the scenery to refresh, which to my understanding logically seem to get worse when increasing numbers of dynamic objects, avatars, are gathered in one area.
* Different operational skill levels make it hard to orchestrate a learning session, with new arrivals asking questions which are time consuming to resolve whilst relative veterans get bored.
* There’s a strong sense that all of this is missing the point!
Perhaps the immersive 3d environment is designed to be explored and experienced by individuals, encountering others tangentially to interacting with the environment itself. In our working lives, we tend to meet people whilst we are doing other things, or because we have a purpose. We don’t just stand in a room and start demanding to be told who is supposed to be the tour leader, well not unless we are on a package holiday to China.
So some people are coming to early conclusions that while Secondlife can provide an exciting and possibly addictive experience for some, it doesn’t have much to offer for groups or leaders who wish to use it as a tool for supplementing their community building communications channels. And they may be right.
But what can it offer over and above the normal asynchronous social software tools such as listserves and web conferences? Personally I think I’ve had the best experiences through encountering small groups of two or three people in one location where I will return on the rare occasions these days that I launch the SL application. But there can be long gaps equivalent to watching the paint dry in between times. If there’s nobody else at all on that particular island, I’ll mooch about for a while then maybe try somewhere else or give up. The places with more than a handful of avatars present always seem to increase the probability of trouble though.
I’m reminded of one of the four dichotomies which emerged from my research into current thinking about distributed communities of practice last year.
Technology as tools for communities to use - as opposed to technology as environments in which new communities may evolve.
Secondlife seems to me to lend itself much more to the environment end of the spectrum.
So my ideal scenario would be to be able to drop in to a regular hanging out spot, and have a reasonable chance of meeting somebody I know, or a friend of a friend, and then most usefully random people who are attracted to the in world geographical location through having common interests, facilitated by the various related communities which used that location as a starting off point. The place in question is called Boracay Island, perhaps I’ll catch you online there sometime.
( “photo” by Nick Noakes )
Meanwhile, here’s a quote which I think begins to give an idea of the type of casual
encounter which I think points towards the unique advantage which 3d graphical environments may eventually offer.
From Cool News:
Sure, you can shop on Amazon but you have no idea how many other people are there, shopping with you. “There’s no way to notice if you and another shopper are looking at the same product, and start up a conversation about it.” What Second Life might do is provide an alternative, browser-free entry point to the Amazon store, and enable you to interact with shoppers and clerks.
One more thing. Is it just me being a bloke or is a lot of the appeal really just about dressing up and shopping?
Cognitive Edge: Hubert’s error February 10, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Community, blogs and community, COP, tools, Wiki , 3commentsDave Snowden provides a strong response to two comments made by Hubert St Onge ( one of the authors of an important modern book about communities of practice 
1. That Blogs and Wikis are publishing tools not collaboration tools, and in the case of blogs the publishing is individualistic/egotistical.
2. That an organisation should mandate one tool for collaboration, rather than allowing diversity; but that participation in the use of those tools should be voluntary.
I can see exactly why Dave would need to take to his blog and strongly oppose these ideas, but on the other hand I can also imagine possible contexts in which the comments can be valid.
Certainly blogs tend to be individualistic, and the much vaunted “conversations” which they may faciliate can tend towards the networking type of interaction rather than the many-2-many model which I believe to be more powerful in some ways.
Whilst Dave’s experience of blogging has been something to enthuse about:
Cognitive Edge: Hubert’s error
In over 15 years of taking part in collaborative spaces I have seen less intimacy, less exchange and less learning than in the six months that I have been writing this blog.
he still likes to invest a fair amount of thought and time into taking people to task in the various “listserves” (email groups), and develops the practice which I do a bit of myself, namely finding inspiration through conversation in groups, and then working the content up into a blog post, or sometimes the other way around.
The second point, about standardising on one tool, could also make some sense in terms of avoiding the draining effect of dissipation of conversation through the proliferation of channels, but it really depends again on the context or organisation concerned.
I think my own views about this have been evolving and I no longer see the opportunity presented by blogs for anybody to self publish as being something which may threaten to supersede or diminish the established format of online communities, in fact the boundary crossing nature of the tools is just as likely to pull new people in to them.
Turkey Ham? February 10, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Bird Flu, UK , 3commentsWhat is Turkey Ham?
When I wrote on Monday 5th ( Wild birds not to blame ) about the Lorries from Hungary, mainstream media were still reporting the sparrow through the ventilation shaft story, and the Bernard Mathews offcial line seemed to be that the outbreak of H5N1 in Hungary was not connected in any way. “All our birds are British,” he said. “The fact that we have a Hungarian operation is immaterial”
Now the truth is beginning to emerge .
Bernard Matthews, Britain’s largest turkey producer, imports 37 tonnes of partly-processed turkey meat from Hungary every week
And now the Telegraph reports
Supermarkets are facing a possible nationwide recall of processed turkey products in an attempt to halt the spread of bird flu.
What are processed turkey products?
From Is Bernard Matthews stuffed?
He invented the “self-basting” Golden Norfolk Turkey, to address the bird’s tendency to produce dried-out meat. And he followed that over the next two decades with products rejoicing in names such as Turkey Breast Roast, Turkey Fillets, Crispy Crumb Turkey Steaks, Golden Drummers, Mini Kievs and - dubious though middle-class parents may have found it - the UK’s first shaped poultry product for children, Turkey Dinosaurs.
….Turkey Twizzlers - became the object of the chef Jamie Oliver’s scorn. He singled them out for criticism in his campaign to improve the nation’s school dinners in his television series Jamie’s School Dinners. The product, in which processed turkey was combined with pork fat, contained - Oliver complained - outrageously unhealthy levels of saturated fat. The firm dropped the product, a move that coincided with a £13m drop in operating profits.
Bernard Matthews is the No 1 brand of cooked meats in the UK - one pack of its Wafer Thin Turkey Ham is sold every second, perhaps as a low calorie or cheap alternative to real ham.
What is turkey ham made from? Well it turns out that is does contain some turkey, but no pork meat. There is a cow product though, about one third water, and far too much salt. Ingredients:
“turkey (60%), water, salt, stabilisers, potato & rice starch, milk protein, dextrose, whey protein, flavouring, antioxidant, acidity regulator, flavouring, preservative, yeast extract, garlic” So that’s what turkey ham is made from.
Subscription by email February 8, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : blogs and community, tools , add a commentWith a little help from John Reinke from the LinkedIn bloggers group I’ve made a couple of small improvements here.
I’ve removed the illegal “ ” code from the talkr plugin which was breaking the RSS1 feed. I could have switched it off, the plugin that is, and may do so in due course, except the stumbleIt and deliciousIt links are in there too.
I’ve switched the Feedblitz settings so that it takes from the RSS2 feed which means that subscribers by email now receive one email per day containing the entire posts instead of just a silly extract. I hope this makes life easier for somebody, and if you have any further suggestions for tweaking the communications systems then please say so.
RSS newsfeed reading is the way to go, but if you would like to subscribe by email here’s the form below:
But will I get home again? February 8, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Pajamanation, London , add a commentThe forecast was for four inches of snow and severe disruption to all transport, so I checked before setting out this morning.
My journey was possible, but I had to walk very carefully in the slush and if it continues there’s the threat to means of getting back.
I really should have stayed at home, with or without pyjamas. It’s mad!
Crawl to work in worst snow for seven years | News | This is London
The heaviest snowfalls to hit London in seven years caused misery for commuters today.
11 Businesses you can start in your pyjamas February 7, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Pajamanation, UK , add a commentTop Stories - 11 Businesses you can start in your pyjamas
Here at Enterprise Nation we don’t like to peddle the myth that homeworkers hang out in their pyjamas but we do like the slideshow at www.inc.com that profiles 11 businesses you can start at home in 2007.
That site is well worth exploring, but I’d like to examine the reference to pyjamas because the author at Enterprise Nation clearly feels that this is an unfortunate image they want to get away from whereas pajamanation has incorporated it into the brand name!
Was that a big mistake that will put people off or a nice human touch which helps to attract attention? I wonder if there’s a demographic aspect as well, I mean we nearly all have central heating and nice warm duvets these days don’t we. Who still wears them? Also, pajamanation is very much a global enterprise so I wonder how pajamas or pyjamas are perceived in different cultures. Please don’t snigger at the back there, this is a serious business question!!
Dave’s Art Project - the wreckers February 7, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Art, Music, UK, web2.0 , add a comment
Dave left a comment about his art project which includes drawings and text about the Branscombe beach shipwreck.
This is a project I’ve just completed:
http://dev2.manme.org.uk/~davem/wreckers/
It’s an interactive work on the subject of the Devonshire ‘wreckers’.
My idea with this is to make what I call a ‘debate drawing’. I wanted to make drawings that were more connected to a subject, and I wanted to have a debate going on inside a picture - or even a debate that creates a picture. So I wrote a computer script and hooked it up to web feeds. The comments you post are mixed in with other comments from a web feed, and then converted into shapes and lines. Please have a go and post a comment, as every comment is added to the system and makes the pictures more interesting. The best pictures will be printed big, and I’m also thinking of doing T-shirts, if anyone’s interested - please email me.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your comment on my blog bringing attention to your
interesting art project. I’ve had a look and generated a few pictures.
I did manage to break the URL system for the .png files though, by
including punctuation I think. I tried pasting in the lyrics to my
song, which I’m guessing is what brought you to my blog in the first
place.
I do like your idea of using mashups with RSS to create art, and I
like the original drawings. It made me question the way in which
combined media are used, for example as a writer, I normally consider
the meaning of words to be primary and their visual impact unimportant
as long as the reader can understand. But here you are taking people’s thoughts
and arguments and turning them into almost random patterns, with just
little hints of meaning. Like a conversation out of earshot.
I would also expect the conversations, here represented by overlaid
text areas, to be dynamic, flowing across the images. An animation or
movie other words, and with sound too!
If you are interested, there is now some music to the “wreckers
prayer” song - only existing as a home demo for now, but I intend to
record it again next week.
See if you think there may be scope for further mashups.
Wikipedians at war February 7, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Community, politics, Wiki , add a commentAdmin and SysOp privileged wikipedians slug it out in access protected IRC channels.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-02-05/Arbitration and IRC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Only fragments of the story make it through into the public sphere but you can get an idea of the rancour which develops when you start setting up groups within groups within groups at the same time as sending out the impression of a democratic process for general consumption. An all too familiar pattern, unfortunately.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
