Integrated Information Solutions

Weblogging and news feed aggregation for knowledge

management

24 October 2002
KM in the current economy

q Individuals are breaking away from traditional KM to

do KM on a Budget.
q A Lucent customer is taking this approach

q Low cost tools are available to help with 2 core

concerns of KM.
q Knowledge creation (publishing)
q Knowledge sharing (XML feed aggregators)

q Tools
q Weblogs
q News aggregators
Some definitions

q Weblog
q A web site (usu. of personal/non-commercial origin) that is
frequently updated with information and links to resources
within a particular subject. The published information is
presented much like a journal on the web in reverse
chronological order.
q News feed
q A data file listing recent entries from a weblog.
q A data file listing recent news headlines from a commercial
source.
q Feed formats are in XML format (specifically RSS or RDF).
q News aggregator
q An application that retrieves and displays news feeds from
multiple sources.
q Client application -- runs on PC for individual use.
q Server application – runs on a web server for group use.
Weblog example
Authoring

Published site
News feed XML
Copy URL for news feed RSS-formatted
XML file
http://infoview.lucent.com/cgi-
bin/dbsearch/178?searchType=boolean&ste
m=on&query=(((wireless!(5n!)apple!)))&form
at=rss

View of news feed in RSS XML format

Using the XML in an aggregator
Add the URL for the feed to your
aggregator. This example uses Radio
Userland.

The InfoView feed appears in the

Radio Userland news aggregator.
Blogging from the news aggregator
In news aggregator view, user sees a story they want to blog

Users can
select feeds
appearing in
their news
Selecting the POST button copies that story’s URL and aggregator to
title to a new blog entry in the editing view. publish the link
on their public
site and write
commentary
for their
readers.
View of story published on public site
Alternatives for monitoring news

q News aggregation also works without having to

publish a weblog.
q Desktop applications
q Feedreader (PC, desktop app)
q NetNewswire (Mac OS X, desktop app)
q Amphetadesk (PC, personal webserver based app)
q Radio Userland (PC, personal webserver based app)
q Server applications
q Drupal (PHP/MySQL based server app)
Reading news feeds using a standalone
application
Feedreader is a free, easy to use news aggregator for the PC
News aggregators for the web
Drupal, an open source content management system, has a PHP/MySQL
based application for aggregating news feeds and displaying on a web site
(usu. commmunity weblogs).
Summary

q Weblogging is a low-cost KM alternative for

knowledge creation (publishing)

q Knowledge sharing is supported by weblogging and

feed publishing

q News feed aggregation is another technology for

monitoring public news
Further reading

q History of weblogging
q Rebecca Blood. “weblogs: a history and perspective”. Rebecca’s
pocket. Essay discussing the emergence of weblogs.
http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
q Media coverage of weblogs. A listing of articles related to weblogging
appearing in the news media. http://nethistory.urldir.com/media
q KM and weblogging
q John Foley. "Are You Blogging Yet?" InfoWorld. Discusses the value
of using weblogs in the enterprise.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020719S0001
q David Weinberger. “The 99 cent KM solution”. KM World.
http://www.kmworld.com/publications/magazine/index.cfm?action=rea
darticle&Article_ID=1337&Publication_ID=76
q John Robb. “A simple approach to KM”. K-Logs discussion group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klogs/message/313
q K-Logs discussion group. Email discussion group that discussions
klogging for KM. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/klogs/
q A Klog Apart. Phil Wolff's klog about klogging.
http://www.dijest.com/aka/
Applications

q Applications
q "BlogComp". A comparison of blog tool features. http://www.urldir.com/bt
q Radio Userland. http://radio.userland.com
q Feedreader. http://feedreader.com
q MovableType. http://movabletype.org
q Drupal. http://drupal.org
q Blogger. http://blogger.com
q News aggregators
q Jon Udell. "Personal RSS Aggregators". Byte.
http://byte.com/documents/s=7181/byt1022183228615/0527_udell.html
q Aaron Swartz. "RSS Readers". List of RSS reading applications.
http://blogspace.com/rss/readers/
q Syndication discussion group. Discussion of XML news, announcement,
syndication, resource discovery formats.
q Aggregators discussion group. Discussion focussed on XML aggregator
applications. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aggregators/
q News sources
q News is free. http://newsisfree.com
q Syndic8. http://syndic8.com