Tech Women On Search Champs and ETel

I wish I had met her and knew her name. I bet Liz Lawley would know

Nancy White
Link Co-Editor NPO/NGO ( http://209.59.186.51/~blogher/?q=taxonomy_menu/1/2... )
Full Circle Online Interaction Blog ( http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm )

I think Scoble has a tendency to go on the defensive and I've never understood why that is. I can relate to feeling attacked or discounted because your not mainstream, average or outside the normal realm. All of the discussion surrounding this event has been really interesting.

Is this librarian who didn't get to finish blogging? It sounds like her comment was something that would interest me.

~Denise

Some people wonder why women want to go to a conference that's not dominated by men, and I think you have provided the answer. That's so distressing to hear how a woman could not finish her statement without being interrupted.

As for whether "you are an edge case" is an insult or not, it looks like Scoble took it really seriously, based on his response. He claims it's not because he personally felt insulted, though, but because he cares about usability of software. He makes some really good points, I thought, as does Liz in her post about it. I think it's a great example of blogging conversation in action.

Anne Zelenka ( http://www.annezelenka.com )
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Technology & Web ( http://209.59.186.51/~blogher/?q=blog/anne-zelenka )

My take in the room was that Robert took it as a digg, where Liz intended it as an observation and later clarified in her blog how important edge folks are. What made me chuckle in the whole exchange was Scoble trying to defend himself -- in that room of people. It felt like something else was below the surface of his response.

Speaking of responses, at one point a woman librarian made a comment about the negative impact of people just reading select RSS feeds. She did not get to finish... 2 or 3 men jumped in disagreeing loudly with her. Before she finished. She tried to finish and one guy said "you already had your turn." I turned to Dori, who was sitting next to me, and rolled my eyes. When things get passionate, it seems out-shouting is the mode. Which is a pity because I wanted to hear the woman's FULL thoughts.

Nancy White http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm

Yes, I agree, I couldn't get everything I wanted out of summaries or keyword search or bubbling up the articles most likely to suit me. Reading blogs is not just like reading news. In reading news, you mainly want to know what happened. In reading blogs, there are lots of other things you want to know: what's happening with the author, what's her opinion on something, did she use an interesting phrase or metaphor to capture something, etc. You can't keep track of those things without looking at the individual articles themselves.

It will be interesting to see how we are reading feeds five years from now.

Anne Zelenka ( http://www.annezelenka.com )
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Technology & Web ( http://209.59.186.51/~blogher/?q=blog/anne-zelenka )

Look at the improvements that have already been made - there will no doubt be more. So while Scoble is an edge user, that doesn't mean we ought to be discounting him or his practices.

Here's my problem though - when I reduce my feeds significantly, I'm not nearly as prepared when someone needs help finding an example of something or information about something.

I'm good with a search engine. I'm good with delicious and various other social bookmarking tools. But it still takes me longer to find examples than if I'd kept my feeds high in the first place.

So when you talk about newsreaders that provide services like keyword search, recommendation of articles - I cringe a little. The technology has to make some serious improvements before that would work for me. I'm pretty sure it will happen, but for now it feels very far away.

~Denise

I added another link from Scoble where he discusses this further ( http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/01/27/more-on... ). He suggests that people tapping into the 10,000 sources of Google News are doing the same activity as he is. I disagree with his argument, if I'm understanding his activities correctly. I think he actually checks through articles from all 840 of those feeds, while the Google News user does a keyword search or looks at just the headlines that appear on the front page.

While it may be true that in the future most people will track 1000 news sources or more, they're unlikely to do it using the current paradigm of read-every-article-header feed reading. Instead, we'll have newsreaders that offer keyword search of sources, that prioritize and recommend articles, and that eliminate sources that aren't providing good value to us at the same time that new information-rich sources are suggested. And we need interfaces that look more like Google News than like Bloglines.

Still, I think Scoble had an excellent point that activities that seem like outliers today may very well be mainstream tomorrow.

Anne Zelenka ( http://www.annezelenka.com )
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Technology & Web ( http://209.59.186.51/~blogher/?q=blog/anne-zelenka )

I was sort of leaning toward Scoble's point... is he really an edge user? Sure but that's because he makes a living doing this and not because he reads 840 feeds.

Am I an edge user at a freshly weeded out 509 feeds (down from 586 feeds, yea me!)? Or am I the mainstream user of tomorrow? I think I am.

I understand how difficult it is to juggle work and family and a life and still have time to read these feeds. Sometimes they don't all get read. Sometimes I clip or save as new the items I just don't have time for and then I never have time for them and I make them disappear.

But more often than not, I skim it all and read my favorites in depth and a week later when someone is in need of information about X, I know where I skimmed it and I can find it. When the boss gets all excited about Y, I know where to go and grab that. I probably didn't read either X or Y in detail the first time, but I saw and skimmed and remembered...

Edge user? Maybe for today. But tomorrow? Ah tomorrow, that is something else entirely. :-)

~Denise

Exactly, Denise! I also saw the possible double-entendre of the "edge case" as "head case" -- which is obviously not what Prof Lawley was saying.

As someone who has spent the past ten years working to interpret product features from the perspective of shameless user advocacy, I very much appreciate the reality check Liz gives this conversation. 840 feeds and Robert's the future mainstream user? Not with today's technology and my lack of a nanny, personal chef and full-time maid.

Let's be clear - I would love to have the time, tech interface and personal capacity to absorb or even effectively scan 840 feeds in a given day. Finally, I'd be caught up with the world! But quality is hard to find and what's relevant to me changes from day to day. On Monday I need industry updates. On Friday I'm thinking about film. That's why I think a guide such as yours, Anne, is so valuable. You read 10-20 feeds so that I could read one, mark it as a keeper, and plan to return. What a relief! Many thanks.~L

Lisa Stone

OK how many feeds makes you an edge case? And who has the most feeds in their aggregator? And, at what point would someone addicted to RSS need to seek "medical assistance" for the addiction?

~Denise