Times People: Old News Gets Social
Finally. The New York Times added a very interesting and eye opening service to its online presence, Times People. Put simply, Times People is a social network inside the Times. For people who spend a portion of their day at the site, this is a wonderful addition. For people who live and die by their RSS reader, this may be the kind of thing that could change news reading habits. It serves as a simple, yet elegant, recommendation managment tool for people you know who read the Times. Each article has a “recommned” link that takes the title and link to the article and drops it into a “drawer” that can be shown and hidden from the top of the Times website. I am currently using it with my wife to see how it works — I am really interested in seeing what this looks like with a bunch of people sharing.
“Times People is a social network for Times readers. But it’s not a social network like Facebook or MySpace — you won’t have Times friends, and it won’t get you Times dates. Instead, you’ll assemble a network of Times readers. Then you’ll be able to share interesting things on NYTimes.com with others in the network. For example, when you recommend an article, comment on a blog post, or rate a movie or restaurant, these activities will become visible to other Times People users in a special toolbar at the top of every NYTimes.com page. You’ll also have a personal page that keeps track of your Times People activities and lets you browse your network of readers.”
Old media is working their asses off to create innovation in a very stale and static place. I doubt this does much for the circulation numbers for the Times, but I can assume that if it catches on it could drastically increase page impressions … and that, of course, could very positively impact advertising revenue.
Times People
No matter how you slice it up, there is a gem of an idea in this little addition that we should think about. Imagine that type of functionality replacing a big portion of the course management system. Essentially a CMS that follows you around and that you can collect evidence of learning in while you work the web. Clearly there are other social tools that do this kind of thing already, delicious instantly comes to mind, as do instant blogging buttons, and other basic sharing tools. But, I am curious about the potential here to slim down the CMS and have it work for me instead of me working for it — the current pardigm drives me crazy, I have to log into it and then go outside to read things an instructor has linked to. I just wonder how taking a slightly different approach would change the way students use the web for learning.
Imagine opening your browser and seeing a small to do style toolbar that is populated from across your required learning activities. Hitting these sites triggers a check mark next to the readings/activities assigned to you. Making it a two way street would enable students to tag things for other students to read. One could even tag a writing activity completed in their own blog that would show up in the instructors view of the system. I don’t know, maybe I am really reaching, but the idea of having something that looks and feels more bottom up and organic leads me to believe we could see more active engagement online with content. Am I making any sense? Any thoughts? And oh, join the Times People feature and let me know so I can follow your recommendations.
New Publishing with the Embed
My friend and colleague, Ken Udas, had asked me earlier in the Summer to contribute to his excellent Terra Incognita blog but I kept blowing deadlines and missing obligations. Ken gave me an extension and has been gracious to allow me to squeeze a guest post in between a few very smart people. I had a good time working up something that was very different than what usually shows up at his site and I hope he isn’t too put off by it. My post addresses the changes in big media and their evolving and emerging interest in embracing the social web. It looks at big media and their amazing move into allowing us to embed their property — legally! It asks what it means for us in higher education and how we should be addressing this move.
I would really appreciate it if you took the time to bounce over to read the post and leave a comment for us to chew on and discuss. Besides, if you are interested in open content and learning then you should be tracking Terra Incognita. Thanks!
Trick or Treat
Quick note to say Happy Halloween to everyone! It was a great evening filled with lots of sweets and some perfect time walking the neighborhood with my two little ones. They both had a blast — even little Max who right up until we walked out the door didn’t want to put his Teddy Bear outfit on.
One treat to share is the discovery of a new online music site, LaLa. LaLa is a store and a streaming music site with a wonderful twist — it allows you to share the tracks you already own back into your online account so you can listen anywhere you have an Internet connection. I tried it today and used the LalaMove application to scan my iTunes library and send up some sort of identification that I own all that music. Doing that unlocks the same collection of songs at the LaLa site. Very, very cool. So, now I don’t need to burn CDs of music just to take them to work to listen to. Sorta feels like the RIAA is getting it? No idea, but perhaps.
LaLa.com -- My Music in the Cloud
LaLa is also a store where you can buy online only versions of songs for a dime and downloadable, DRM-free tracks for 89 cents. It even recognizes my Apple DRM tracks, so I can listen to them anywhere, but on my iPhone. No problem. Add in the social components and it is a very sweet treat. Nice little trick!
iPhone and My Mobile Voice
Last week I read a post by CogDog where he talked about a voice recorder app for the iPhone that looked really promising called, Recorder. It reminded me of how much podcasting I used to do and how much I would like to be able to do it on the fly with my iPhone and the nifty little headset/microphone combo. I didn’t end up trying Recorder, but this morning I downloaded an application that does recording and syncing back to the Mac. It is iTalk by Griffin.
Here’s what is so cool about it (other than the free price) — it has a separate client that runs on the Mac that syncs your file back to your Mac via WIFI. For me that is killer as I don’t sync my iPhone with my work laptop … but in this case I simply make my recording (using the headset), launch the iTalk Sync client on my MacBook, connect to the iPhone with two taps, and drag the file to the desktop. For the sample below I then took it into GarageBand to put the cheesy music under the voice. All in all it took no time at all.
Now, if the application would allow me to do some simple editing … say place a bumper at the front, perhaps a little music under the voice, and mix it all down before I move it to my Mac we’d have the perfect mobile podcasting kit. Even without those features this thing is a winner and the quality is actually quite good!
Supplemental Activity
So after my post the other day where I was lamenting the lack of opportunities I see for engagement in the school system I got a handful of comments telling me the same thing — “take matters into your own hands.” Good advice and it really got me thinking about some things. My wife and I have always spent time reading with our daughter … as a matter of fact, the little lady has always really been into reading, talking, singing, and all sorts of other really creative and engaging activities. She pushes us more than we push her and that is really cool. But, I’ve never really taken the time to bring my own interests, research, and perspectives home to her.
Night before last, she and I sat down at the kids’ eMac and opened up iWeb for the first time. I decided that I was going to find a way to work with her to create a digital portfolio, journal, blog, or whatever where she and I could spend time reflecting on the work she was doing in school, the things she was thinking about, or anything in between. The goal for me is to get her used to the idea of actively reflecting on her activity in an ongoing way. As a sidebar, I personally think it is an incredible opportunity to develop a life-long story about her intellectual development … that is, if it sticks.
So we created a website with iWeb and published it into a password protected space within my .Me account. Very easy and relatively flexible. The real win here is that with only a little instruction she is getting the hang of it. Last night, for example, she wanted to publish a story reflecting on her kitty, Misty. We sat at the desk searching for a picture at Flickr tagged Misty and she dragged it into iWeb. She then proceeded to dictate the words and I was surprised how she spent time really reflecting on what Misty had meant to her … Misty passed away almost two years ago. The time we spent reflecting was good for both of us. She talked while I typed, but then ran and got her Mother so she could read her reflection to her. She was really proud and I was happy to have spent the extra time with her.
The other thing we’re trying to do is capture some of her analog work and put it into her space. Two nights ago she was showing me a picture and the story she wrote to accompany it on a piece of paper. I grabbed the camera and snapped a picture of it. She helped me import it and drag it into iWeb. She then told me the story of how she drew it, what it meant to her, and when I asked her where the story came from, she looked at me at said, “from my mind.” I probably should have known that. Either way it is reflection and that is something I now can trust she is engaging in.
The Six Children
