Tag: aggregation

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Aggregators Part two: Netvibes or Engage!

Finally, the long awaited sequel to my post on aggregators!

So the second aggregator I tried was Netvibes. Netvibes is a web application with customizable widgets for users to gather all their social media together into a “Dashboard” or homepage. From their webpage:

“Get your own personal dashboard to monitor all your favorite blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and all of your favorite interests. Just type in a topic and get your free personal dashboard now.”

They also offer some pre-designed dashboards built around particular interests. There is a personal and a business version of the application, the personal version is completely free. Kansas State University professor Dr. Michael Wesch uses Netvibes as an interactive teaching tool to engage his students, educate them with and about new web tools and social media applications, and have them collaborate on a variety of projects.

I spent over two hours customizing my dashboard, but I have to admit a lot of that was due to me trying to decide what theme I wanted for my title bar and background. I have two pages, the main dashboard and then one just for academic/ work. Finding and adding widgets was simple and intuitive. There are lots of options and you can add almost all common social media feeds and applications.  So far I haven’t found something I wanted to add but couldn’t.

Here are my two pages:

 

I have been using my Netvibes dashboard (which I titled “Engage”) as my homepage for a week and a half now. I have had to make an adjustment to my normal routine when I sit down to my computer and open my browser, but I am enjoying it. It does the one main thing I really wanted which is it has on one page all the sites I check regularly and it tells me when they’re updated. I can read my RSS feeds within the dashboard, or go to the site which is nice. Most of the time I still click through to the main website to read the updates.

So far my only real problem with my netvibes site is that there is no help section for when I’m having trouble with a widget. I haven’t managed to get my gmail calendar widget to update yet and Netvibes has no support to help me figure out what is wrong.

I can definitely see using this type of application to create a class or office homepage. I think it has a lot of possibility and it doesn’t take too much time to set up (if you don’t fiddle with colours for hours). Keep in mind though, it is more of a portal rather than a one stop shop. It is aptly named a dashboard. It will help you get you where you want to go, and hopefully do it faster and with less distractions along the way.

Engage will be my homepage for a while longer.

 

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Aggregators: Worth the Time? or A comparison of Symbaloo and Netvibes, Part 1

What are aggregators? They are not domesticated alligators used in “back to nature” agricultural programs. They are applications and tools that allow a user to collect information from disparate sources and present it in one place. My colleges Alison Dodd and Michele Ramos have a very good definition of Aggregation on the HLWiki Social Media Glossary:

Aggregation refers to collecting content from multiple social media sites (such as Facebook or Twitter) with the goal to organize and simplify users’ social networking experiences. While individual sites may offer unique features specific to that site, social networking aggregation collects the content that is produced on several sites and delivers it in a less overwhelming way. Aggregating content is performed by using tools to draw information from different sites into a single space. Aggregation services provide tools and widgets — either downloadable or web-based — that function to consolidate friends, bookmarks, messages and profiles in easy, digestible formats. Aggregation is done by an application programming interface (API). Some examples of aggregation include FriendFeed, Flock, TweetDeck, SocialNetwork.In, SocialURL, Digsby, Trillian/Adium, YooNo, and OrSiSo.

As someone who, prior to this unit, didn’t even use an RSS feed (such as Google Reader) I found the introduction to all these different aggregators extremely interesting. But how useful would I find these applications personally and as an LIS student? So I took two of the aggregation applications presented in the module Symbaloo and Netvibes, set up accounts and tried them out.

This post will focus on Symbaloo:

Symbaloo is an aggregator that colourfully and graphically presents your personalized bookmarks, RSS feeds, and some commonly used web applications like Google search and Wikipedia search. It is presented as a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) portal or a launch pad. There is a nice demonstration of the platform here.

The application is very simple and easy to use, but it does take time to customize the webmix for your personal use. I spent over two hours working on my “desk” webmix for all the bookmarks and feeds that I use regularly. I didn’t spend much time trying to make it pretty, but  a user has some options (tile arrangement, colour, icon) to customize the look of the interface to make it graphically appealing. This is what my personal webmix currently looks like:

My Symbaloo

I enjoyed making the webmix, but I don’t find it particularly useful for myself. I have my frequently used bookmarks well organized within my Safari browser and my less used bookmarks I currently collect on delicious. Sites that I check everyday are shown in my top sites display every time I open up a new tab in my browser.

For RSS Symbaloo works moderately well. If you click on the feed tile, the five latest posts will (usually) show up in the centre of the webmix, but it only displays the title of the post and the date it was posted. You have to click on the post to read it and there is nothing indicating if there is a new unread post.

The widgets that allow you to interact with different applications (like Google) from the centre box are few and most of them are already integrated into many browsers. Many of the widgets don’t work well and some not at all. I was excited to see a CBC Radio widget, but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to play.

For these reasons I don’t think I will continue with Symbaloo for my own personal use but there are a few ways I could envision using this professionally:

  • Webmixes are hosted in the cloud so if I was switching workstations frequently I could quickly and easily access all my bookmarks.
  • Webmixes can be made public, searchable and tagable. Webmixes would be a great way to share a collection of resources with your network in a friendly and appealing way. For example I found this great webmix for online children’s books:
  • Webmixes are very simple and visually appealing so they would be great portals for younger users. Here is an example of a webmix created by Melissa Techman, school librarian and tech lead, for students in kindergarten to grade two for curriculum related webpages.

Next up: Netvibes.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to…

Aggregators: Worth the time?

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