The Google Cache Decision

I've been reading a number of postings regarding the Google cache & copyright decision, and have posted some thoughts for discussion over at Slaw.

Related to this, check out Law Pundit's collection of blogosphere commentary.

Unlike Scott, who calls it "a sensible decision", I'm having some trouble seeing how it balances the rights of both online users and publishers.

For the record, I'm in favour of Google caching, or the Internet Archive caching. The larger problem around the web right now is the trend towards re-purposing the content of others. And I would rather consent (via the robots.txt standard) to let the 'good guys' in, than be forced to deny each and every 'bad guy' looking to cache my content... It's a very slippery slope to call the caching of online content 'fair use'.

David Maister's Expanded Voice - A New Blog!

Great news! Looks like law firm management guru David Maister has picked up the blogging torch! David's got a new website and new blog titled Passion, People and Principles.

In a very shrewd move, David has replaced his old 'Ask David' website feature with the blog. He's also co-launched a new podcast called Lessons I’ve Learned.

A couple of months back, David was kind enough to respond to my questions on legal KM & ROI. At the time I was thinking, wouldn't it be great to link back to his blog. Well, now I can.

Welcome to the party David. :-)

Crosby (not Sidney) on Professional Development & A New RSS Tool

A couple of quick pointers:

• Check out Connie Crosby's new LLRX article titled Do-It-Yourself Professional Development. You can also track Connie's new series The Tao of Law Librarianship as articles are added here.
  
  
• Second, as I just wrote about on Slaw, check out FeedXs - a new RSS tool that doesn't require a blog, CMS software, or any other web publishing presence.

Have a great weekend,
Steve

The Steak Behind Kevin O'Keefe's Sizzle

Most of the legal blogging community is familiar with the voice of Kevin O'Keefe and his law blogging service. What may also be of interest, especially to the code junkies among us, is Jessie Newland's blog - Jessie is the IT Director for LexBlog. He's tracking a number of the new web 2.0 technologies such as Ruby on Rails and AJAX. And like me, he also regularly updates a linkblog so you can see what he's reading online.

If you want to know what's coming down the pipe next, it's guys like this that you'll want to keep watch of.

[Hat tip to Oncee @ the law firm IT blog for the link]

KM Blogs List

Not me this time! :-) Jack Vinson has started a Blogdigger group to list the many and various Knowledge Management Blogs around the web.

Jack selected Blogdigger because it allows users to take a copy of the opml file, or subscribe to an RSS feed of the entire list. If you know of any others, get 'em in.

Nice work Dr. Vinson!

Personal RSS Feed Collections for Professionals

I was not pleased to see this Phil Wainewright article, and that he is ready to bury RSS! In fact, not pleased would be a major understatement.

Here's the key counter argument - when RSS stops delivering in a personal way, it will have regressed to be no more than traditional syndication, which lacked user control. It's no longer revolutionary, it's passive, and only marginally more helpful.

Relying on individuals like Robert Scoble or Dave Winer to deliver a 'river of news' to you is great in terms of evaluating a source's authority, but doesn't help the user determine subject coverage. Trusted sources are also only one part of building a great feed collection. How about some consideration for topical feed digests, search feeds, and keyword filtering of aggregated RSS collections? How about pulling feeds from the dark web, and pay-per-view materials? How about vanity feeds (corporate & personal)? How about using RSS for competitive intelligence? or just keeping track friends and family (blogs, photos, events, audio, & video collections)?

I understand that there will be naysayers along the way, but do not count out Personal RSS as an impact web technology!

I'll go out on a limb here... Mark my words, personalized collections of RSS feeds via Aggregators are going to be 'life changing' for the vast majority of business professionals online. And killing the concept of personal RSS collections, in favour of creating feed mashups for various targeted groups makes little sense when the true value of this technology is in its personal delivery.

In all honesty, there is going to be a learning curve, but the time savings and current awareness benefits of RSS cannot be ignored. There will come a point (in the not-so-distant future) when not having a well designed, culled, and customized collection of RSS feeds at one's disposal will put a professional at a distinct disadvantage.

Wainewright's piece may be written towards dumbing down RSS for the masses, but that doesn't wash for those in knowledge intensive professions. And in support of 'the masses', if they can configure an email account, they can surely figure out RSS. It's way too early in this game to bury RSS. [/Rant off]

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a prosperous and fun filled New Year, the VLLB will resume postings very soon.

And if it looks like I took 10 days off and didn't tell anyone, well, I did kinda do that... 'Tis the season. :-)