UPDATE May 18th. Sorry for the delay on this note–I meant to do a pre-blog intro here introducing my guest blogger here: Brooklyn-NY based Derek Tutschulte is a freelance contributor to the Information Advisor specializing in Web 2.0, and is attending SYNDICATE and reporting here his observations on Intelligent Agent… Bob Berkman

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the first day of this year’s SYNDICATE conference being held in New York. SYNDICATE is an opportunity for those involved with the creation and distribution of information to hear from some of the web’s most influential voices on the subject of online content syndication. Throughout the day, sessions were held on topics ranging from podcasting and VC funding, to building online communities and the benefits of folksonomies. Among those prominently in attendance were ZDNet’s Steve Gillmor and LinuxJournal’s Doc Searls, as well as other luminaries stepping out from behind the veil of the blogosphere, like Buzzmachine’s Jeff Jarvis and Technorati founder Dave Sifry.

“RSS Sucks”

The above quote is attributed to Doc Searls, who has perfectly summed up the sentiment of this year’s conference, so far. It’s true. Content syndication won’t truly hit the mainstream until the “plumbing” or the underlying protocol (RSS) of online syndication disappears. By far, the majority of online information consumers have little idea what RSS even is, and quite understandably, merely want information to be where and when they need it. RSS will enable this to happen, but Mom and Dad don’t need to hear how the web-sausage is made. After all, when was the last time YOU heard someone in your field talk about TCP packets and HTTP requests when conducting research online? I won’t even get into the SMTP servers and MIME involved with sending emails.

We can largely thank Apple for the iPod and its complementary iTunes portal for helping many discover the underlying value of RSS, sans the techno-babble. And with the recent release of Apple’s video iPod, the first wave of quality, DIY online video entertainment, like RocketBoom and Ask a Ninja, is garnering mainstream attention. Add these successes to the already wildly popular audio content being consumed each day via daily podcast downloads numbering in the millions, and you can easily see the impact of a technology that remains largely invisible to the user.

Help is still on the way. Thankfully, all information consumers can look forward to products like PodcastReady, Microsoft’s new Vista operating system, and the continuous release of new products from major information portals (e.g. Yahoo and Google) that will continue to introduce quality syndicated content into our lives, without the obfuscation of unnecessary and complicated terminology.

Thanks, Doc for telling it like it is.

I’m blogging today from Prince Edward Island, Canada; a spectacularly beautiful part of the world. Although teeny and rural, it also has a very sophisticated population and advanced technology sector, with high speed Internet initiatives across much of the Island, some renowned tech firms and many outstanding bloggers, such as Peter Rukavina and Rob Paterson.

Since I haven’t had time the last few days to to all that much blogging or business research, (coming here directly from a presentation on Web 2.0 at the Connecticut Library Association’s annual conference), I’ll just pass along something I found to be a very pertinent remark from a fascinating book that I’m reading written by Ronald Wright and titled: A Short History of Progress.

Wright, in discussing how while culture and technology have advanced so rapidly but how little the basic nature of humans have changed over the last tens of thousands of years, and theorizing how this has caused us all sorts of problems, writes that it’s as if we’ve installed 20th century software in hardware that hasn’t been updated in 50,000 years!

Yikes…that’s one system in need of an upgrade….

A friendly competitor of the Information Advisor is VIP and VIP Eye and FreePint has published what looks to be a very worthwhile read by VIP Publication’s editor Pam Foster, titled “Trends in Business Information” a short article though filled with useful data on what’s important to know in the business information industry.

One of the many specific sites mentioned in this article is Congoo, which in the piece is described as:

“a new search engine that provides individuals with free access to premium sources of business information from the likes of FT.com, Business Wire, TheStreet.com, Institutional Investor, Morningstar, and PR Newswire, as well as trade mags such as Adweek, Brandweek.com, Billboard.com, and Editor & Publisher.”

I plan to do a full review of this search engine in an upcoming issue of The Information Advisor, and will report back here a few of the topline findings.

Technorati Tags: Business Research

Technorati Tags: Congoo

In preparing for a talk I’m giving on Web 2.0 this Tuesday at the Connecticut Library’s Association’s 2006 annual conference, I have been doing some research into how libraries have been using various Web 2.0 technologies, ranging from blogs and rss to tagging and encouraging patrons to create their own podcasts.

One library that I was very impressed with, and where I think there are some interesting lessons for the corporate information center is Georgia State University Library, which not only blogs, not only has a feed for its blogs, but has subject specific blogs with feeds.

What a great concept. If you can identify the hot topics in your firm: they can be companies, industries, emerging technologies, etc., why not create a feed of external news for each so your employees can keep up to date on narrow topic areas?

Would also like to hear from any of you that have actually tried this!

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

Technorati Tags: RSS

Technorati Tags: Connecticut Library Association