Deep Jive Interests

Back in 1995, I remember how websites were designed — and that was using a whole lot of tables. Things have changed tremendously since then, and I remember just before going to medical school (around 1999) or so, this thing called “cascading style sheets”, and the importance of web standards. Well, things have changed remarkably since that time, along with many (but not all) incompatibility chestnuts due to the browser wars, in no small part due to Jeffrey Zeldman. I always find that tech (and web) history isn’t always easy to find. If you’re like me and got stuck in a time warp about web design, read this article courtesy of Businessweek to get yourself up to date. Tables died as a way to structure design, and thank Zeldman (and all of his standards zealots) for that. (1) # // 8.7.07 @ 23:43

Well, I guess all of this was a ruse. Have a gander at his latest movie. Guess he played me [and perhaps, only me] like a monkey! :) Nuff ’said. (3) # // 8.7.07 @ 9:58

CNet claims that Plaxo’s new social networking initiative called Pulse is more like Pownce with its micro-blogging / tumbing / twittering features. I’m not so sure. The fact you can leave notes behind is hardly the providence of Pownce (although with its finely tuned “who your message goes out to”, I suppose it is). Once upon a time notes left behind in reverse chronological order were called blogs. But I digress. The mishmash of notes, your ability to leave messages on other members, and your ability to pull in feeds from anywhere really sounds like Facebook rather than anything else. From Plaxo’s point of view, I’m sure whatever makes their users more social — and therefore, get more out of it, is probably A Good Thing. For more on why the “social” in social networks is a good thing, see why Jeff Pulver has left LinkedIn for Facebook. Will this herald a change of more “business” social networks to be more “social”? Time will tell. (0) # // 8.6.07 @ 11:41

In response to my initial post on Madkast, the widget that is enabling me to “share” posts, Doug Ludlow the co-founder of Madkast says that they will in fact have their analytics package together soon. Apparently they are brushing up on their web interface first. Hopefully this will provide some interesting information as to who or when or what is actually being shared on this blog (my money’s on “my mother”, “almost never”, “posts that I would never predict”). Incidentally, Doug — if you’re listening? I’m finding that the share widget pops up on a fairly inconsistent basis. Sometimes its up … sometimes it doesn’t show up. Is this going to be fixed too? (1) # // 8.6.07 @ 0:13

After the news earlier in the week of the sale of the WSJ, it turns out there’s actually quite a bit of drama behind the sale. Family in-fighting, the question of impartiality in the advice given to the Bancroft family, the Bancroft’s mis-step in publishing that their intent to possibly sell, and Rupert Murdoch’s wiley move to offer a price of a 60% premium in addition to paying the Bancroft’s legal fees were all part of the equation. A very interesting read, indeed. (0) # // 8.5.07 @ 23:55

Looks like the BBC has invaded Facebook. The BBC network has over 10, 000 members, which dwarfs usage by other organizations such as, say, CNN. Apparently this represents something like almost half of all BBC employees. If the CBC has one, I wonder if the BBC has a Facebook policy as well? [tip: bivingsreport] (1) # // 8.5.07 @ 10:04

Over at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), it seems like they’ve put together some sort of short guideline about Facebook. Something to the effect that you shouldn’t “friend” sources for a variety of pragmatic reasons (don’t want to let others see what you’re communicating with them), but also, it seems, to maintain some journalistic distance. I think getting something down in writing about this is probably a good thing, although they should probably make it social network agnostic (and not the strict purview of Facebook). In the same blog, however, the CBC is laying down the groundwork for a blogging policy which seems utterly ridiculous. In a nutshell, employees, for *all* _personal_ blogs where you identify yourself as a CBC employee have to get them ok’d with their supervisor, because these _personal_ blogs are not allowed to discuss or advocate for controversial issues or partisan politics. I’m not sure, but telling your employees — even ones that aren’t journalists — what they can and can’t write off the clock seems to be a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, like the part about freedom of thought and expression, anyway. (2) # // 8.5.07 @ 0:41

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