Sharing Tool Wishlist

The following is an edited version of a wishlist I had been keeping on the side. The main idea is to define what would be, in my mind, the “ultimate social bookmarking system.” Which, obviously, goes way beyond social bookmarking. In a way, I even conceive of it as the ultimate tool for sharing online content. Yes, it’s that ambitious. Will it ever exist? Probably not. Should it exist? I personally think so. But I may be alone in this. Surely, you’ll tell me that I am indeed alone, which is fine. As long as you share your own wishlist items.

The trigger for my posting this is that someone contacted me, asking for what I’d like in a social bookmarking system. I find this person’s move quite remarkable, as a thoughtful strategy. Not only because this person contacted me directly (almost flattering), but because such a request reveals an approach to listening and responding to people’s needs that I find lacking in some software development circles.

This person’s message served as a prompt for my blogging this, but I’ve been meaning to blog this for a while. In fact, my guess is that I created a first version of this wishlist in 2007 after having it on my mind for a while before that. As such, it represents a type of “diachronic” or “longitudinal” view of social bookmarking and the way it works in the broader scheme of social media.

Which also means that I wrote this before I heard about Google Wave. In fact, I’m still unclear about Google Wave and I’ll need to blog about that. Not that I expect Wave to fulfill all the needs I set up for a sharing tool, but I get the impression that Google is finally putting some cards on the table.

The main part of this post is in outline form. I often think through outlines, especially with such a type of notes. I fully realize that it may not be that clear, as a structure, for other people to understand. Some of these bullet points cover a much broader issue than what they look like. But the overall idea might be fairly obvious to grasp, even if it may sound crazy to other people.

I’m posting this to the benefit of anyone who may wish to build the killer app for social media. Of course, it’s just one man’s opinion. But it’s my entitled opinion.

Concepts

What do we share online?

• “Link”
• “Page”
• Identified content
• Text
  • Narrative
  • Contact information
  • Event description
• Contact information
• Event invitation
• Image
• Recording
• Structured content
• Snippet
• Access to semi-private content
• Site’s entry point

Selective sharing

Private

• Archiving
• Cloud access

Individually shared

• “Check this out”
• Access to address book
• Password protection
• Specialization/expertise
• Friendship

Group shared

• Shared interests (SIG)
• Collaboration (task-based)

Shared through network

• Define identity in network
• Semi-public

Public

• Publishing
• Processed
• Reading lists

Notetaking

• Active reading
• Anchoring text
• Ad hoc list of bookmarks
• “Empty URL”
  • Create container/page
  • Personal notes

Todos

• To read
• To blog
• To share
• To update
• Projects
  • GTD
  • Contexts
• Add to calendar (recognized as event)

Outlining/Mindmapping

• Manage lists of links
• Prioritize
• Easily group

Social aspects of sharing

• Gift economy
• Personal interaction
• Trust
• Hype
• Value
• Customized

Cloud computing

• Webware
• “Online disk”
• Without download
• Touch devices
• Edit online

Personal streaming

• Activities through pages
• Logging
• Flesh out personal profile

Tagging

• “Folksonomy”
• Enables non-hierarchical structure
• Semantic fields
• Related tags
• Can include hierarchy
• Tagclouds define concept map

Required Features

Crossplatform, crossbrowser

• Browser-specific tools
• Bookmarklets
• Complete access through cloud

Keyboard shortcuts

• Quick add (to account)
• Vote
• Bookmark all tabs (à la Flock)
• Quick tags

Related pages

Recommended

• Based on social graph
• Based on tags
• Based on content
• Based on popularity
• Pointing to this page

Quickly enter links

• Add in place (while editing)
• Similar to “spell as you type”
• Incremental search
• Add full link (title, URL, text, metadata)

Archiving

• Prevent linkrot
• Prepare for post-processing (offline reading, blogging…)
• Enable bulk processing
• Maintain version history
• Internet Archive

Automatic processing

• Tags
• Summary
• Wordcount
• Reading time
• Language(s)
• Page structure analysis
• Geotagging
• Vote

Thread following

• Blog comments
• Forum comments
• Trackbacks
• Pings

Exporting

All

• Archiving
• Prepare for import
• Maintain hierarchy

Selected

• Tag
• Category
• Recently used
• Shared
• Site homepage
• Blogroll
• Blogs

Formats

• Other services
• HTML
• RSS
• OPML
• Widget

Features

• Comments
• Tags
• Statistics
• Content

Offline processing

• Browser-based
• Device based
• Offline archiving
• Include content
• Synchronization

Microblogging support

• Laconi.ca/Identi.ca
• Twitter
• Ping.fm
• Jaiku

Fixed/Static URL

• Prevent linkrot
• Maintain list for same page
• Short URLs
• Automatically generated
• Expansion on mouseover
• Statistics

Authentication

• Use of resources
• Identify
• Privacy
• Unnecessary for basic processing
• Sticks (no need to login frequently)
• Access to contacts and social graph
• Multiple accounts
  • Personal/professional
  • Contexts
  • Group accounts

• Premium accounts

  • Server space
  • Usage statistics
  • Promotion

• Support

  • OpenID
    • As group login
  • Google Accounts
  • Facebook Connect
  • OAuth

Integration

• Web history
• Notebook
• Blogging platform
• Blog editor
• Microblogging platform
• Logbook
• General purpose content editor
• Toolbar
• URL shortening
• Address book
• Social graph
• Personal profile
• Browser
  • Bookmarks
  • History
  • Autocomplete
• Analytics
• Email
• Search
  • Online
  • Offline

Related Tools

• Diigo
• WebCitation
• Ping.fm
• BackType
• Facebook share
• Blog This
• Link This
• Share this
• Digg
• Plum
• Spurl
• CoComments
• MyBlogLog
• TwtVite
• Twistory
• Windows Live Writer
• Magnolia
• Stumble Upon
• Delicious
• Google Reader
• Yahoo Pipes
• Google Notebook
• Zoho Notebook
• Google Browser Sync
• YouTube
• Flock
• Zotero

Relevant Blogposts

• iPhone Wishlist
• Flock as Blog Editor
• Blogging Tools
• TIU: Spurl
• How Can Google Beat Facebook?

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Online Research Tools: Zotero

Just saw this through Bruce Darcus’s blog.

Zotero – The Next-Generation Research Tool

Looks like a combination of the Scrapbook Firefox extension with Google Notebook (or Zoho Notebook), social bookmarking, and citation management solutions like RefWorks or Endnote. Haven’t tried it yet but it looks very promising.

Bookmarks and Tags

In response to Jess on organising one’s information.

FavoUrites: Social Bookmarking (PART)

My own use of social bookmarking isn’t that social nor that efficient. At this point, I tend to simply add things to my del.icio.us account as a way to remind myself that I would eventually like to blog about those links. Sometimes they’re academic items, but more often than not, they’re not.
On the other hand, I do tend to blog as a way to keep links handy for later reference. It reminds me of what I was thinking about when I approached the material at first. Those can be academic, especially if they come through academic mailing-lists, but they’re often ideas which connect to my research interests in some ways.
Reading notes, to me, are different. I tend to take notes on my Clié, with page numbers. I can then search through my Clié for a specific idea I was thinking about. I also take a lot of notes about different projects, usually linking them in different ways. Instead of sorting my references, I prefer to search through them. After moving 19 times since December 2000, I wish I had all my books and articles online.
Reference managers can be very useful and some of them are getting to feel a bit like social bookmarking. For instance, RefWorks is online (so you always have access to your citation data) and you can share those references publicly. In fact, you can even use RSS, comment on the references, and have some tagging “descriptors.” What’s more, there’s a RefGrab-It bookmarklet to help you insert references from webpages you visit. Especially useful if people use DOI.
In terms of database design, tagging is almost a revolution. In fact, the “Web 2.0” concept has a fair bit to do that information may be non-hierarchical because you can tag instead of taxonomise (as in “classify in a taxonomy-style hierarchy of paradigmatic concepts”). Of course, your tags can be in a taxonomy. But they don’t need to be. And the taxonomy can be completely ad hoc (yes, yes, “folksonomy” is the term used for those ad hoc taxonomies). Think Technorati and the benefits of tagging blog entries (which explains why my WordPress.com “categories” are really thought of as Technorati tags).
As for bookshelves… Mine are well-disorganised. I still wish I had everything online instead of having to go through shelves, all the time.
My Mac desktops have always been known to represent chaos, to other people. Yet I could always find what I was looking for, and I would only resort to folder hierarchies for very broad classifications (academic texts vs. homebrewing resources, for instance, though I still plan on publishing on homebrewing culture). Different courses usually have their own folders but folders for current courses were usually on my desktop and I would move between different things by using the outline view. Searching was always very efficient and Spotlight almost makes folders irrelevant. Metadata elements are more powerful than any folder hierarchy. Even the Piles interface is less needed now. Especially since desktop files and database items (including email messages) are integrated in the same search.
Having switched to a PC, I tend to have a harder time making my way through things, for several reasons. Cramps my style. I can’t be as “chaotic” as I used to be. Yes, there are “Desktop search” solutions. But they just don’t do it for me. And the lack of a high-quality outliner makes my life less fun than it was with OmniOutliner. I’m slowly discovering OneNote but it’s not the ideal solution to repurpose data.
So I end up keeping many things online. Especially on Gmail, actually. Or in Technorati-tagged blog entries. Or in del.icio.us. Or in Zoho documents (looking forward to Zoho Notebook!). Or in Refworks.
Well, to be perfectly honest. Many things I tend to keep in Scrapbook, with the firm intention of going back to them if I ever get a chance. I never do. I also use browser tabs as reminders that I should do something with specific pages. But I eventually end up keeping them on the back burner anyway.
Ah, well…

Refworks and RefGrab-It

The more I learn about RefWorks and their recent developments, the more impressed I get at how clueful those people are. Latest feature,  RefGrab-It, a browser bookmarklet to directly import references from pages that include Digital Objects Identifiers (DOIs), relevant RSS feeds, or ISBNs. Now that some journal publishers (such as Blackwell/Synergy) are enhancing their online offerings with features such as reference lists and alerts for article citations (“alert me when this article is cited”), things can become fun in academic publishing.

Scholarly Search

Was looking for a resource to import citations/references for book chapters into a citation manager. Turns out Google Scholar does export to several citation managers:

Google Scholar Help
How can I add the full citation of a result on Google Scholar to my bibliography manager?

Just visit the Scholar Preferences page and select your preferred citation format in the “Bibliography Manager” section. We currently support RefWorks, RefMan, EndNote, and BibTeX. Once you’ve saved your preferences, you can import a citation by clicking on the appropriate link in your Google Scholar search results.

Had been using Google Scholar since it came out but had never noticed this feature. D’oh! (Simpson 1989).

It’s not perfect, of course. The data for most citations is quite minimal (initials instead of first names, no abstracts…) but the principle is sound. Plus, Google Scholar links to a lot of external resources, including full-text articles, which usually do have much more data. It helps to either be on-campus at an institution which subscribes to most of the important resources or to have a VPN to such a campus. In that case, Google Scholar’s links do bring you to a lot of full-text articles.

No idea what the API for Google Scholar allows but chances are that some neat features could be added from within a citation manager. The open-source ones would be good bets. At this point, my favourite open-source citation manager is BibDesk. It uses the BibTeX format and takes advantage of several features of Mac OS X such as the Services menu and Spotlight searching.
While it’s not open-source, RefWorks is a very interesting citation management system which often available to all members of an academic institution. Because it uses a Web interface, RefWorks can be difficult to connect to some other tools. But it has a surprisingly large range of features and can be used as a central repository for references. Among its most useful features for courses, RefWorks allows for reference sharing.
Thomson’s EndNote has become something of a de facto standard in the world of academic publishing. It has several disadvantages, including a habit of expensive incremental updates and lack of support for a wide range of text editors and word processors. EndNote also has several interesting features, including connection to library catalogs through the Z39.50 standard and data visualization. Because of its prominence, it tends to be well-supported by most reference databases, including Google Scholar. Indiana University has site-licenses for EndNote and other citation managers.

And there are many other tools available, each with their own sets of features. The citation management scene has evolved nicely, in my humble opinion, but the perfect solution is still far on the horizon, it seems. Ah, well…

RefWorks, Reference Software

RefWorks
A "Personal Web-based Database and Bibliography Creator"

Apparently, people at IU South Bend asked several users for comments about different tools and ended up with RefWorks. Can see why. In terms of ease-of-use, it's very good. And it has many interesting features, including some that aren't found in the typical dedicated desktop applications.

I must admit, I'm rather impressed with their rate of release. They seem to follow the typical open-source model of "release early, release often."
In fact, although it's proprietary/closed-source/commercially-distributed (through CSA) and not necessarily inexpensive/free-as-beer, it's almost open-sourcesque in its approach. At least, much more so than Thomson/ISI products.
Funnily enough, CSA integrates with Endnote (made by ISI) better than ISI products do. 😉

Of course, there are several good bibliography solutions around. A cool open-source one is BibDesk. Originally meant for BibTeX data, it now does much more and serves as a cool solution to autofile PDF versions of academic articles (realising part of the dream of an "iTunes for academic papers"). What's neat about RefWorks is that it can be shared. Not only is it possible to make any number of accounts for specific projects (very cool solution for classes) but it has a specific tool for reference sharing. Didn't use it yet but the rest of the program is good enough that RefShare can't be all bad.

Well, this is getting into a pseudo-review, which would be much more difficult to do. One thing that's rather impressive for an online system is that it accepted a submission of tens of thousands of references from an Endnote file without complaining too much (apart from server delays). So they don't seem to have a limit in the number of references.

Which leads us to an interesting point on reference software. [Start rambling…] A given item, say a reference to a journal article, will be present in many people's reference lists. Most of the data should be standardized for all occurrences of that item: author name, publication date, complete title… Some things are added by the user: date accessed, comments, reading notes… In good database design, RefWorks should only keep one copy of that item (with the standardized information) and have links to that item in people's lists. The customized info could probably be streamlined and will probably not amount to a lot of data. Now, there's an interesting side-effect of this as common references should in fact be standardized. One of the most nonsensical things with online reference databases is that you might have "Smith-Black, John D.," "Smith, J.," "John Daniel Black-Smith," and "Black, J.D.S." referring to the same person. Many programs have ways to standardize references locally but the power is there to have, once and for all, one standardized author ID with all associated info. Sure, the output might still end up as "Smith, J." in some bib formats. But at least the information would be kept. And there could be author pages with a lot of info, from institutional affiliation to publication lists and professional highlights. The main advantage of having a centralised system is that changes could be applied globally (as in "across the system") as opposed to customised by each user. Authors could register themselves and add pertinent information. Readers could send comments to authors (if allowed explicitly). Copies of some publications could be linked directly. Comments by many users could linked to a given publication. Think of the opportunities for collaboration!
And the simple time-saving advantage of having, once and for all, the correct, "official" capitalization of the title.
One important point: reading notes. Bibliographies are great. The maximal information needed for a given item in a bibliography would seem quite minimal (author(s), date(s), title(s)…). Presentation/format became an important issue because some publications are quite strict in their opinion that theirs is the "correct" way to display a reference. Yet there's much more that can be done with a database of academic references.
Yes, including reading notes.
Maybe it's just a personal thing but active reading implies some type of note-taking, IMHO. Doesn't need to be very elaborate and a lot of it can be cryptic. But it's truly incredible to see how useful it can be to have a file containing all reading notes (with metadata) from one pass over a given text. With simple search technology, looking for all things you've read that made you think of a specific concept can be unbelievably efficient in bringing ideas together. Nothing really fancy. Just a list of matches for a keyword. Basic database stuff. But, oh so good!
Again, it might be personal. What I tend to is to create a file for a given text I read and write notes with associated page numbers. Sometimes, it's more about a stream of consciousness started by a quote. Sometimes, it's the equivalent of underlining, for future use. And, sometimes, it's just a reminder of what's said in the text. This type of active reading is incredibly long but the effects can be amazing.
Of course, we all use different systems. It'd just be nice to have a way to integrate these practices with reference software. And to PDAs, of course! And PDFs!
The dream: you read an article in PDF format on your PDA, you "enter" your reading notes directly in the PDF, and they're linked to your reference software. You could even share some of these notes with colleagues along with the PDF file.
Oh, sure, many people prefer to do their readings offline and few people have the inclination to type the notes they scribble in the margins. But for those of us who do most of our reading online, there could/should be ways to make life so much easier. Technologically, it should be quite easy to do.
[…Stop rambling. Well, for now, at least.]