In my last post I argued that online bookmarking services (delicious, simpy, ma.gnolia et al.) are the wrong tool for remembering web pages with no clear future usage.
I guess the altered xkcd comic sums it up best:
As a consequence I just considered solutions that don’t make me decide which page I want to store and which not. Everything has to be stored automatically for me.
When Julian Cash told me in an email that he was very gateful for the paper Frank, Grigory and I wrote, he asked me for my snail mail address. I wondered what he wanted my address for, then one or two weeks later I found a block of plexiglas in my mail.
Thanks a lot to Julian for showing such appreciation. It showed me that my labour has implications to real life too. Holding a physical gift in my hand, coming from work done in a virtual blogosphere feels special.
Btw: He also thanked Frank for his part by sending him an inflated ball.
Keith Robinson has written a excellent article about hierarchical vs. hub like homepages:
What I’ve got a problem with is the idea that one way of organization is going to make everyone happy. This will never be the case, and, as with many other Web challenges a compromise will need to be reached. Unfortunately, the nature of the site map deliverable, and the process behind it, don’t really lend themselves to compromise or consensus. This creates a bloated process and quite a bit of effort that is, ultimately, wasted if it doesn’t help people find what they are looking for.
The comments are also very interesting and thought-provoking.
I so often was annoyed by hierarchical built sites where the keywords seemed to obscure to get the information I wanted. When this happens, I go first for a search and second for a sitemap.
