A few days ago you will remember how I created a weblog entry regarding one of the latest releases from Google to help webmasters get some more statistics from the web sites they may have under their control through the usage of Google Analytics and free of charge. Back then I mentioned as well how I was trying to set up an account over there to check, first, how it would work and, secondly, to get some statistics on elsua. That way, I would be able to get to know you a bit more about where you may be coming from, how much time you spend over here and so forth.

So far I have been using Miarroba for which I still have got an account and have got some really useful data that I will be weblogging about every now and then to give you some further stats. And the same would happen with Google Analytics; once I start getting some results about those statistics I will be surely sharing some comments over here as well with a couple of screen shots so that you can get to see who you all are.

But in the mean time and while all that data gathers itself further how about some instant feedback directly available from my weblog template? That would be neat, right ? Well, it looks like there is a way now. Check out ClustrMaps. A new beta offering that allows you to have a web site counter that will graphically tell you where the visitors are coming from and place them as a red dot in a worldwide map. Pretty amazing, eh ?

Indeed, lately, there has been a proliferation of different online tools that would help you get some online awareness for whatever the type of web application you may be using. And ClustrMaps seems to be a pretty decent attempt at that. In fact, I doubt there would be a much easier user interface to get that kind of information directly from whatever the online service and have it added into your web site with such ease of use.

Again the interesting thing about ClustrMaps is the fact that groups of people, whether they are teams or communities, or whatever other group gathering, have now got the opportunity to explore further web presence in a much more powerful way while navigating and visiting web sites. So, for weblogs, for instance, team / community members would have an opportunity to see right away where those hits are coming from and somehow that may also help out define the type of content shared in those weblogs in order to suit the needs from the audience, if they would want to accommodate that, that is.

Certainly an offering worth while considering and adding to your web site if you are planning to get some instant feedback on web presence from those folks who may be coming forward and visit your weblog, for instance. I have now got mine added into my weblog template and it looks like that it will get started providing some data from tomorrow onwards so I will be looking forward to getting some more information about elsua’s visitors, you folks. I bet you would also be interested as well in getting your own and add it to your weblog. So you may as well go ahead and do it ! And the sooner, the better !

Technorati Tags : ClustrMaps, Metablogging, Counter+Map

If you have been visiting my weblog going through the direct link as opposed to the actual syndication feed you will have noticed by now a couple of changes on the actual weblog template itself. The most notorious one and the one for which this weblog post is meant is Swicki. And the reason why I think it is worth while mentioning is because this is a relatively new offering that tries to fill in a gap in the searching world out there. That gap is the one of a community-powered search where community members help build up a common set of keywords and their results from a community perspective as opposed to an individual perspective, which is what you would get with traditional search engines. In short, and like it is mentioned on the web site itself:

Swickis harness the collective intelligence of and strengthen your community.

Pretty neat, eh ? But it gets better, folks. Now consider the fact that most of those community members may be dispersed and may have an already existing connection through the usage of particular collaboration tools to share knowledge like Wikis or weblogs or even Instant Messaging, but were missing the fact that they didn’t have a common repository of keywords they could search on from all of the different resources they would be using. Now with Swicki things are different. The circle will be closed since community members would have the opportunity to collaborate offline through Wikis and weblogs or in real-time with Instant Messaging and, finally, with the chance to put that altogether into a dynamic search engine that community members can refer to back and forth and help it grow further as time goes by. 

And that is the real power from Swicki. Not the fact that it may be another powerful search engine, but the fact that it establishes a connection between the different community members by allowing them to build that powerful search engine based on their sharing of sets of keywords. And that would be the main key success factor from this, so far beta, offering. Worth while watching it how it evolves for sure, which is why I have decided to include it in my weblog template and continue to use it more and more. And later on in time I will be weblogging about it some more to share with you folks what my experience has been so far.

Thus if you are part of a community and want to build up that community-powered search engine I would certainly recommend you give a try to Swicki. It will help you build those stronger links and trust levels and become much more integrated with the rest of your fellow community members. So you may want to go ahead and create your own Swicki now !

Technorati Tags : Swicki

Where will you be from December the 1st till 3rd ? Got any plans that would make a difference in the world we live in today and perhaps in the near future ? No? No plans? Then you may want to stay tuned and register to join Habitat Jam. The United Nations-Habitat (UN-Habitat) is currently preparing (With the help and support from IBM) one of those online events that not only would it be unique on its own but that it would also have a significant impact in the way we live in this world in the next few years to come.

Indeed, for the first time ever the world will stop and think what it can do to make a significant impact by hosting one of those worldjam events that I am sure would not leave people unaffected, all the other way around. There have been some folks who have been weblogging already about the online event itself (Amongst them Nancy White in Habitat Jam :: Another Online Event to Watch and Nick Aster in Habitat Jam Offers Online Discussion of Urban Issues Dec 1-3) and I am sure there will be more. But here is your chance to get to know a bit more what Habitat Jam is all about:

Imagine tens of thousands of people around the world just like you connecting in real time over the internet to discuss and debate some of the most urgent and controversial issues that face a rapidly urbanizing planet. Imagine world-class thinkers leading the discussions. Imagine the results that could be achieved by this unprecedented global conversation and collaboration. This is Habitat JAM.

The Habitat JAM is about adding your voice into the global conversation about the future of our cities. It’s about having your say on important issues that affect you. It’s about building new global networks of people who wouldn’t have connected before. It’s about working together across the globe to agree on solutions.

As part of the preparations for the third session of the World Urban Forum, the Government of Canada in partnership with UN-HABITAT is sponsoring this 72-hour internet event. From December 1-3, 2005, the Habitat JAM will gather your input and add it to thousands of others to turn ideas into actions for the Vancouver World Urban Forum agenda and influence the Forum’s content.

As you have been able to read above this is going to be one of those online events worth while not only listening in but also participating to whatever the extent. As you will be able to read from the About Habitat Jam web link there actually will be six different forums in place:

• Improving the lives of Slum Dwellers
• Sustainable Access to Water
• Environmental Sustainability
• Safety and Security
• Finance and Governance
• Humanity: The Future of Our Cities

And everyone is more than welcome to participate not only by reading the different discussions but also by engaging into the different suggestions and great ideas that I am sure will float around all over the place. I know I could go on talking some more about what an event such as this one would eventually mean to us all but I think that would be enough for the time being. However, I do want to point out a number of different resources where you could get some more information details on the event just to get yourself ready to participate in it:

• Habitat Jam: Where you will find all the necessary information about the event plus whatever other details you may be looking for. So go and register today !
• Unprecedented Global Event: Tens of Thousands of World Citizens Unite Online to Debate Urban Sustainability Issues December 1-3, 2005
• And IBM and the Future of Our Cities: the latest one of the IBM Investors podcasts series on The Future of … where you will be able to hear from Charles Kelly (Commissioner General of the World Urban Forum 3) and Mike Wing (IBM Strategic Communications) all the inside outs of the actual event itself, how it was born and what the different expectations are. Quite enlightening to say the least if you want to be ready for what is to come on the 1st of December. Certainly a must-listen if you are planning to participate.

So what are you waiting for ? Go and register now and get ready for the online event of events. The one that will change the way we are, the way we live, in short, the one that will change the world as we know it ! And best part of all this is that we get to define those changes with our ideas. Now it is no longer the time to complain about this and that. Now it is just the time to take action and continue to have a much more positive impact in the world we live in. It is up to us to do so. Thus where are you going to be from December 1st till the 3rd ? Got any plans ?

Technorati Tags : Habitat+Jam, IBM, IBM+Podcasting, Podcast, WorldJam

Some time ago a good friend of mine mentioned to me, while we were talking around online music, to check out a relatively new offering out there on the Internet called Pandora. I am sure that by now most of you would have heard about it or read some more around this same topic. He did mention back then (a few weeks back) that I would certainly enjoy such offering as it allows you to build up on your musical taste by being able to find other pieces of music related to the same one(s) you have already listened to. And he was right. I really loved the experience !

If you are ever looking for an online service that would allow you to play the music you want at your own leisure and with instant feedback about the different tracks that are played then Pandora is your choice. Besides that, not only has it got a very appealing design but you would also be amazed at the ease of use and how quickly you can build up on a lovely set of tracks to keep on playing back and forth.

However, what most people may not be familiar with though is the fact that there are some tricks out there that would allow you to actually save those tracks in an .mp3 format which you can then upload to your favourite .mp3 player. Check out, for instance, Pandora Streaming Radio Caches to Your HDD. In that particular article you will see how it is describe how you can grab those .mp3 files and then upload them into your .mp3 player. And although it describes there how you can grab those files from both IE or FireFox I thought I would let you know the trick to get them from Opera while you are still playing the tunes.

In principle you would need to go to this particular folder location: C:\Documents and Settings\[Windows User Name]\Application Data\(Opera)\Opera\profile\cache4 and from there sort the folder by size as in most cases those audio files would take some more disk space. Once you have done that you will find out that you will have a file name following this name convention: opr0D5QY.tmp, as an example. From there onwards just rename the .tmp file to .mp3 (And whatever filename you would want to give it) and you are ready to play that file with your favourite .mp3 player or upload it whatever the audio device.

Pretty nice trick, indeed, and as I have mentioned before, a very handy one in order to help Pandora build up your music collection with your taste in whatever the tunes and then have the opportunity to save all that searching and listening to your .mp3 player for later enjoyment.

Kudos to the Pandora development team for such an outstanding service and thanks a bunch to Wilson for sharing this great tip with us and for letting us enjoy the Pandora ever so much more !

Technorati Tags : Pandora

Some time ago I created a weblog post where I was mentioning how RSS (Really Simple Syndication) was no longer meant just for webloggers. Back then you would have probably thought that RSS and web syndication had made some good progress into becoming mainstream. However, things may not have moved that quickly just yet. At least, that is the initial impression you would get after you take a look into the following white paper: RSS — Crossing into the Mainstream, available over Joshua Grossnickle’s weblog.

Indeed, it looks like although a very useful technology to keep up to date with multiple web resources it still needs to catch up further with the big majority of Internet users. Here you have got a screen shot with some of its key findings:

As you can see from there it looks like we still have got plenty of ground to cover but one thing that would seem to be a key success factor would be the simplicity and ease of use of the technology to make it through into the mainstream. Most end-users would not really be bothered about wanting to use RSS feeds in order to have access to the information. What they would certainly like to have is a simple way of keeping up to date with their favourite resources and all of that from a single point of entry. And that is mainly what web syndication should be about. Just access to information. Pure and simple. And forget about all the different complexities. Thus it would be interesting to see how things would develop further into facilitating the faster adoption of syndication for Web resources.

Either way a very interesting read that I highly recommend to all those folks who may want to have a look into what is happening around the world of RSS. You can download the white paper from the following URL: RSS — Crossing into the Mainstream.

Technorati Tags : RSS, Web+Syndication, Ipsos+Insight

As weblogging becomes more and more popular by the day and as it starts grabbing some more focus and attention from the non-techie communities out there who see this relatively new medium as a new way of sharing knowledge and information with one another where content is published and commented on right away and without any further content editor approvals of any kind, one always starts to wonder what are the options out there to start publishing your content in a weblog with the least effort possible.

It is not the first time, nor the last, I am sure, that folks ask me for some advice as to what weblogging platform they could go for and venture themselves into giving it a try. Obviously, ease of use, reliability, scalability, maintenance and a few other capabilities are put together into a single thought when providing that advice and so far to me the winner weblogging service is WordPress as most of you can see from my weblog. Not only because of the fact that it is Open Source, but also because of its great support capabilities, its ease of use in the installation and maintenance but also for the good amount of customisation you can do to make the weblog match your needs and requirements.

However, I can imagine how this weblogging platform may not be everybody’s favourite so whenever somebody asks me about which option they could use I always refer them back to the table hosted under Blog Software Comparison Chart, where you can see an extensive comparison document of the most popular weblogging platforms at the moment, along with a comprehensive list of features that every weblogger should be aware of. Certainly, after going through that table you would be able to have a very good idea of where you are and where you may be going in the end.

But if that is not enough, and if you would want to have a look a bit more in detail to three of the most popular weblogging services potentially self-hosted at your own server, I would suggest you also have a look into Blog Software Smackdown : The Big 3 Reviewed as you will be able to get some really good input from Vinnie Garcia on Movable Type, WordPress and Textpattern. Then after you are done with all that reading I bet you would be in a much better position to make a good choice for your own weblog. And from there onwards time to get busy and get started with it ! Let’s go !

Technorati Tags : Metablogging, WordPress, Movable+Type, Textpattern