Potential to integrate into the new Microsoft’s Live product package
Privacy option to item level
Cons
No permalinks
Ads
WordPress
WordPress is a highly regarded blogging platform. WordPress is offered in two ways: a blog on WordPress.com or software package to run a self-hosted blog.
This blog is WordPress itself.
While WordPress has limited social networking features, one can use plugins or external service to achieve this goal.
For example, MyBlogLog connects readers with the author(s).
Pros
Professional platform
Free plugins developed by many supporters
Free theme designed by many supporters
Good SEO optimization
Full control over the contents on self-hosted blog
One’s own domain
Privacy option to item level
No ads
Cons
Limited built-in social networking features
Tumblr
Tumblr is not a blogging platform, but instead a tumblelog, which is much more of a free-form log.
There are interesting features of Tumblr:
You can Follow other tumblrs. All posts of yours and people you follow are displayed in the Dashboard
You can reblog other tumblrs, which means copy exactly the content into yours
Privacy option to item level
No ads
It is much different from a regular blog in ways that:
There is no comment function
There is no category or tag
Then why would people want to use it?
Just log it, no need for meticulous and time-consuming editing
Tumblelog creates a much different experience so it is incomparable to a full-pledged blogging platform. Try it and see it.
Other global sites
The services that I mention here are perfectly social network sites with blogging, photos sharing and communication channels. Explore them as you please
YuMe’s features and design remind me of Vietnam 360plus Vietnam. However, I find the themes more attractive.
The team behind YuMe is also high active and helpful.
A data migration tool from Yahoo! 360 is provided.
faceViet
faceViet is a Facebook clone built by a team based in San Francisco.
faceViet also provides the data migration tool from Yahoo! 360.
TheGioiBan
Among Facebook clones for Vietnamese, TheGioiBan is the most advanced in terms of design and features.
Until this entry is written, certain features of TheGioiBan is under construction, however.
Trivia
Technically speaking, Blogger and WordPress are purely blogging platforms with certain connecting features. Others are social network sites that provide blogging feature.
You might be interested to read my ponders over Content-centric Social Networking one year ago. One year has past and I’ve witnessed Follow feature standardized by Twitter it has spread to Blogger.
Tai Tran’s presence
While the majority of my blog content is right here on this blog, I am present on all the sites that I have mentioned.
Kindly comment if you want to connect to me via any site listed above.
The blog craze started in 2004, MySpace came out in 2002. From then till now, Web 2.0 has penetrated deeply into our lives.
You may have heard the buzz: it’s all about communications, exchange information and expressing the ego.
Have you thought of utilizing all those things for learning?
Recently I’ve been very aggressive on the net to see how we can use the applications for learning, and here I am with my key findings:
The requirements
Let’s imagine a very familiar study scenario: you’re assigned into a group to do a research on topic X.
Traditionally, the group would rely on emails, phone calls and IM to communicate and collaborate. Have you found these media difficult to classify your information?
This is how I would use Web 2.0 for learning
1. Search for information with Search EngineS
Obviously, information searching starts with search engines.
I have some hints for this:
Don’t just use Google. Try Yahoo! search, Live search, Ask search and other engines. They give different results and thus, relevant information might be found from ones other than Google
Try Google on different region settings. google.com/ncr (international version) yields different results from google.com.vn
Try different keywords and keyword combination. Also, exploit the operators
Also search for images. At least Google, Yahoo! and Live support this. Images are useful for illustrating your ideas and, in some cases, give you additional information.
Addendum: academic requirements. Some institutions forbid the use of wiki-like sites and dot-com sites.
5. Blog your group’s findings on group-blog powered platform
WordPress supports multiple-author. I would want our group members to blog our research everyday on our blog. This is not superficial. It helps us
Collect information, thoughts, findings, analysis and intermediate conclusions
Track each member’s progress
Present to the lecturer our growth
5b. Share micro details
This is optional though. Some information might be very detailed and we want quick sharing methods. I would connect my mobile phone to Twitter and quickly update my thoughts on the way.
Publish your research as presentations on slideshare or documents on scribd to share your knowledge engage in discussion on the topic.
12. Consolidate them all into one page
There are just so much!
How’re you gonna navigate around them all?
Well, one solution is to use a homepage service like netvibes to put all these services together.
Why all these?
Too complicated? Well here are the reasons why I would do it this way
Better organization of information. No email confusion
Exhaustive analysis. You write on the way so no information is missed
Better collaboration
Man, isn’t it fun?
I know it would be much easier for you just to email. But how much time have you spent searching for information later on? I’d rather spend the time to get things organized first, then make it easier later to focus more on creating contents.
And I’m pretty sure of one thing: just next year, this entry will be outdated because many new services will come out. Semantic web, mobile apps are just a few to predict.
It’s not a fashionable fad or a time-killer, it’s a shift in the way we can be more effective. Do you want to miss the train trend?
Digital Divide
But you know, all these will never happen if digital divide hasn’t been closed.
Technology proficiency and more importantly, community habit is a big gap. I want my team to do so, but other teams may not, so some of my team members may argue “why do we have to!”
With the internet connection speed in Vietnam, using Google Docs et al is insane.
Today, a world that is flat is till a romantic dream for me.
Resources
I’ve already tried out these services. Kindly see mine as example of how things may end up evolve: taitran.com/blog/resources
Pipes is a new mashup from Yahoo! that provides a GUI for building applications that aggregate Web feeds, web pages, and other services, creating Web-based applications from various sources. At the end of the process, user can choose to publish those applications.
The site works by letting users “pipe” information from different sources and then set up rules for how that content should be modified.
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