BLOGGER
Blogging, in existence for less than five years, has made the jump from diary for the tech-savvy to genuine communication tool and is even, "beginning to make inroads into the enterprise as an informal tool for communicating internally, as well as externally with customers," according to EContent writer Ron Miller.
Perhaps the single most popular weblog tool, Blogger offers users a way to automate the process of publishing a blog and eliminate the need for hand coding. Users provide Blogger with a template of their page, indicating where they would like the site to reside, then submit updates directly to Blogger. "Blogger (now owned by Google) provide[s] a relatively easy way for people to not only get their thoughts and ideas onto to the Web, but also to allow people access to simple Web design tools," says Miller. For those who already have a Web site, starting a blog is as simple as getting FTP access to the site; Blogger will create sites for users without existing ones. Blogger is free for basic use, although they ask that users include a link on their site back to Blogger.com. Until October 2003, Blogger also offered Blogger Pro, a subscription version that included a variety of advanced features, but that service has since been discontinued and most of the features have been rolled into the free version.
(www.blogger.com)
FIRSTGOV.GOV
If the United States of America were a corporation, then FirstGov.gov would be the best intranet from sea to shining sea.
Historically, few have looked to the government for technological innovation, but FirstGov is changing the way many citizens find a variety of valuable information. The portal, administered by the U.S. General Services Administration, originated as the gift of a search engine by Internet entrepreneur Eric Brewer and his non-profit organization the Federal Search Foundation and went live September 22, 2000. Since then it has grown to include more than 186 million pages of searchable information from federal and state governments. FirstGov also includes information on local governments, tribal information, sections for children, seniors, and military personnel, as well as information on everything from applying for student financial assistance to renewing your driver's license to getting a passport. "Turns out that one of the most important innovations in EGov is also the simplest: provide access to federal information and services without making the citizenry guess which agency Web site they have to slog though," says EContent contributing editor Tony Byrne. "Technically, FirstGov is a 'portal,' but really it is a large (and very successful) experiment in content classification and citizen intention analysis."
(www.firstgov.gov)
FREENET
2003 saw its share of file-sharing frays, but one name has not yet made it into the average American's lexicon: Freenet
Freenet was designed as a free software that allows users to publish and share information anonymously; the way it routes data makes it virtually impossible to track who supplies or requests information, or what that information may be. Freenet's creator, Ian Clarke, started from less of a freedom-of-speech standpoint than a technological one when he realized that storing replicated documents in multiple locations would enable faster retrieval by users. Freenet does not follow the usual rules of peer-to-peer networks, as it does not allow users to control what information is maintained in a given data store. Files are expunged or held based on their popularity and all data is encrypted to avoid censorship. Currently boasting almost two million users, Freenet seeks to use its P2P powers for good by offering more than Napster and its ilk ever did, including message boards, content distribution, and publishing Web sites.
(http://freenetproject.org)
IN-Q-TEL
In-Q-Tel is as hip and forward thinking as, well, you never expect the government to be.
Its mission, "is to identify and invest in cutting-edge technology solutions that serve U.S. national security interests" and that investment usually comes in the substantial amount of one to three million dollars. Supplemental resources include access to In-Q-Tel's network, an in-house technology team, and a group of experienced business personnel. The enterprise is funded by the CIA and runs as a private, non-profit; it has no vested interest in government-specific solutions, but seeks solutions for the challenges facing the intelligence community at large. In-Q-Tel launched in 1999 and has since reviewed over 3,500 proposals, primarily from companies who had never worked with the government before, nor ever planned to. Approximately 40 strategic relationships have developed from the proposals and In-Q-Tel has grown to support a 50-member staff operating venture and technical teams. Key areas of focus for In-Q-Tel are: Knowledge Management, Security and Privacy, Search and Discovery, Distributed Data Collection, and Geospatial Information Services.
(www.in-q-tel.org)
INTERNET ARCHIVE
"Libraries exist to preserve society's cultural artifacts and to provide access to them," according to the Internet Archive site.
"If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it's essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world." Thus, the Internet Archive seeks to build a digital library of sites and content in digital form to prevent the "cultural artifacts" of the Internet from falling into obscurity--or worse, disappearing altogether. Just like a traditional library, the Internet Archive is freely available to anyone interested in visiting, but it has some more powerful collaboration partners than your local branch, including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. Growing at a rate of 12 terabytes per month, the
Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which houses archived versions of Web sites, currently contains over 300 terabytes of data--more than the amount of text held by the Library of Congress.
(www.archive.org)
Midgard project
Back in the late 1990s, Henri Bergius and Jukka Zitting needed a system for Publishing material on the web for their small Finnish history association, Harmaasudet.
Since Harmaasudet did not have the resources to maintain such a vast undertaking independently, they adopted the open-source model and Midgard version 1.0 was officially released in 1999. Thus began the Midgard project, an open-source CMS built on Apache, PHP, and MySQL frameworks. Applications are written using PHP scripting language and interfacing is done using a regular Web browser, which eliminates the need for special tools for developers or authors. "Midgard is the predominant PHP-based, open-source CMS," according to contributing editor Tony Byrne. "It is getting a lot of traction in Europe, though suffers from lack of a critical mass of proponents in North America." Midgard distributes core content using the GNU Library General Public License, under which the software can be distributed freely so long as users can link to new versions of the libraries. Solutions based on Midgard can be used to manage Web content, as well as intranets or extranets. Midgard is designed for developers, while end-users are encouraged to check out Aegir CMS and other Midgard-based content management systems.
(www.midgard-project.org)
PaidCcontent.org:
PaidContent.org is a self-described, "independent service for the digital media and technology executives," led by business and technology journalist Rafat Ali.
The site covers anything and everything related to for-fee digital content, including wireless content and services, digital delivery of print materials, subscription technologies, and corporate initiatives; and also offers links to other news coverage and relevant resources. Information is presented on the site, as well as via daily enewsletters to subscribers highlighting headlines and links to information from a plethora of sources.. Newsletters can also be delivered to wireless phones or AvantGo-enabled PDAs. "Rafat Ali's PaidContent.org is all content all the time," says contributing editor David Scott. "The site and daily email newsletter covering the 'Economics of Content' is a refreshing addition to a world where too many commentators focus on gadgets and widgets and technology at the expense of the content itself." Recent additions to PaidContent. org include a classified page, a vendor subsection, and a separate micropayments category with archived material from the past year. The site's target readers include CEOs, CTOs, marketing chiefs, entrepreneurs, analysts, service professionals, journalists, and other executives.
(www.paidcontent.org)
Questionpoint
As digital reference services encroach more and more on the traditional role of the library, the function of reference libraries has shifted as well.
QuestionPoint, a collaborative reference service created by the OCLC and the Library of Congress in conjunction with the Global Reference Network, leverages the knowledge of individual librarians with the convenience and collaborative capabilities of the Internet. An outgrowth of the Library of Congress-sponsored Collaborative Digital Reference Service, it is a Web service that allows patrons to submit queries by visiting the Web site of a participating library. If the library is unable to effectively respond to the query, it can use the collaboration features of QuestionPoint to send the query to all participating libraries, or to members of a particular consortium. An optional, enhanced module also includes streaming video, chat, and voice-over IP capabilities. "QuestionPoint is the major virtual reference service provided by the professional library community," says Mick O'Leary, EContent contributing editor and library director at Frederick Community College in Myersville, Maryland. "This distinguishes it from the hodgepodge of Web-based services, a group of variable and uncertain quality. As the largest library-based service, it combines a sophisticated data-management system for routing and replying to questions, with the reference expertise of hundreds of prominent libraries." Libraries interested in ordering QuestionPoint should contact OCLC, where they can receive pricing information on the three different subscription packages available.
(www.loc.gov; www.oclc.org; www.questionpoint.org)
WeatherBug
A word-of-mouth movement has made WeatherBug arguably the most successful push-content technology available.
With virtually no marketing or advertising, WeatherBug has amassed approximately 12 million users and now offers both a free download and a premium, ad-free version for $19.95 a year. The popularity of the free model lies in both the practicality of its content, and a creative approach to advertising. "WeatherBug has been wildly innovative in bringing new business models to the content space involving advertising especially," says EContent contributing editor, Steve Smith. "Its sponsorships literally wrap an adclient around the memory-resident WeatherBug for a full day so that the user gets exposed to the brand all day." And yet WeatherBug manages to do so without blocking information or taking up valuable desk-top real estate; the window can be minimized to just the current temperature. When a weather advisory or watch is issued, a "bug" chirps and flashes over the temperature icon to unobtrusively alert the user that important weather information is available. WeatherBug receives information from 6,000 local weather stations and its parent company, AWS Convergence Technologies, Inc. has been tapped by the National Weather Service to provide forecast models to government agencies, the military, and emergency managers as part of a public-private partnership to bolster homeland security.
(www.weatherbug.com)
Worldwide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was formed in 1994 to establish recommendations to promote interoperability on the Web and its impact grows stronger each year.
Comprised of approximately 400 member organizations worldwide, the W3C is hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Laboratory of Computer Science (MIT/LCS) in the United States, ERCIM in Europe, and Keio University in Japan. Although the W3C does not technically create standards, they are perhaps the most influential body concerning the adoption of standards. The three main long-term goals of the W3C are to make the Web universally accessible to everyone, to develop a semantic Web where individuals are able to use the Internet and its resources to best suit their needs, and to create a Web of trust where thought is given concerning the legal, commercial, and social issues raised by the Internet. One of the most significant contributions of the W3C has been XML, which they began as a project in the 1990s and accepted as an official recommendation in 1998; it is currently supervised by their XML Working Group.
(www.w3.org)
KINLEY LEVACK (kinley.levack@infotoday. com) is EContents editorial assistant.
Comments? Email letters to the editor to ecletters@infotoday.com.
