Probably most of you are aware of the recently launched website http://scienceblogging.org/
This site is essentially aggregating RSS-feeds from all known bloging networks out there related to science. Nice effort from Bora Zivkovic, the author of a Blog around the clock, Dave Munger, father of researchblogging.org, and Anton Zuiker, who had the domain scienceblogging.org and .com and who probably progammed the site.
So I had this idea the other day how this long long list of recent posts from scienceblogging networks can gain some value: What about tending topics in science related blogs? What about one website, where all the buzz of the sciencebloggosphere culminates to one tag-cloud (or list for that matter) which shows what is hot in science blogging right now?
Questions that need to be answered:
-Who can technially implement this? (not me)
-What is the data source for the list/cloud? (Headers? Tags? Full text?)
-Can this be extended beyond scienceblogging.org as source (considering as many science blogs out there as possible)?
WeiterGen
More thoughts (already with a similar one than mine) here:
http://www.science3point0.com/freescience/2010/08/20/wishlist-for-a-scienceblogging-aggregator/
Alternatively the twitter feeds of the networks could be used as data source. Maybe actuall blogpost-tags are most valuable, though.
It sounds like you’re thinking of something along the lines of Spacebuzz. http://www.strudel.org.uk/spacebuzz/ though this is solely astro-based.
Alun,
exactly! This is also tag-based and they weight same tags in different blogs higher than repeating tags in one blog. (about page).
I left a comment on spacebuzz, lets see if Stuart replies.
Cheers
p.s. moderation of comments switched off now on this blog.
[...] Trending Topics are so Science 3.0 [...]
Hi Tobias, are you simply asking for a copy of SpaceBuzz for all the blogs listed at scienceblogging.org? That would be pretty easy to do if you provide a list of blogs with titles, RSS links and website links.
[...] Sandy Gautam and his wishlist. Tobias and his ‘Trending Topics’. [...]
Cool idea, indeed! Did you know that the wordle software (Java) can be downloaded here?
http://friendfeed.com/yokofakun/9ea94521/didn-t-know-that-wordle-engine-was-available-for
Besides RSS is XML, so a XSL for fetching them and converting them to an output you like best could work. BTW, you can do this within PHP and it might be faster than any other parsing solution.
Stuart,
that should be doable. I’ll get in contact with the guys who set up scienceblogging.org.
joergkurtwegner,
a wordle-type display would even be more 3.0! I have no prior knowledge on XML, Java or PHP, so would definitely need someone else to implement this.
Where would we host this? Here on science3point0.com? See if the scienceblogging.com guys are interested to host it there? Or on a different domain, such as http://www.scienceblogging.de
Great stuff Tobias, make sure the scienceblogging boys know about it. I’ve started a mini version for our site here: http://www.science3point0.com/blogregator/ – We’ll try to evolve that one as well.
Also, on a bit of a tangent, would you be interested in running a science3point0.de if I set it up?
I wrote an email to Anton, Bora and Dave regarding the list for Stuart where I linked this blogpost. Lets see what they reply.
mark, I believe the German sciencebloggosphere is too small to successfully run a national science3poin0. Thanks for asking anyway!
Wietergen
I am grateful for scienceblogging.org, as I was for your Twitter list before the aggregation. I think your idea is great. Sadly I am less tech savvy than you. But I am full of ideas to make a lot of hard work for other people.
Is there any way that a single solution could be avoided? You have mentioned some of these, but I have a range of (often science) reading approaches:
>everything relevant to a specific area;
>different views on an issue;
>specific writer
>completely new writers (thanks to Boraz for continuing this on Twitter);
>a bit of humour;
>random (I like this Science 3.0 feature);
>avoidance of bloggers’ cat pictures.
There are probably others.
So my ideal aggregator would allow me to enter the site and form my own ‘tag clouds’ (e.g. neuroscience; blogging ethics; genegeek; humour), but also to ask for a random selection (within or without a trend/tag?) and to avoid bloggers’ cat pictures. Sorry cat lovers.
It’s about reader responsive temporary curation.
List are useful at times, but often limited. Have you had a look at the http://www.pearltrees.com social curation site. I’m really enjoying this way of gathering and sharing sources. Could it be applied to trends and tags in science blog aggregation?
Over the top idealisation would be Skyrails through the Flowing Data blog at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2d312_dXEs&feature=player_embedded . Dreaming.
jac
jac,
my first thought was: That’s what my RSS-reader provides. But then again, this is also static, so nothing like what you actually want.
Lets see how scienceblogging.org evolves. I believe the aggregated sites certainly provide the right content for your ideas. And if someone is motivated enough to implement those tools, maybe in a couple of years we have individualized skyrail scienceblogging worlds.
You’re right, that it’s the static approach that I don’t like. Nor do I like one which analyses my past preferences.
Dreaming again.
How would this idea be different from Postgenomic?
http://postgenomic.com/
Ultimately, that failed — you’ll see it hasn’t been updated since early 2009. But it’s basically the same idea, right?
John Hawks – yes, there are similarities.
Postgenomics seems to be designed to respond to how magazine readers flip and skim.
How do experienced scientists or academics read? Could those patterns inform the design?
John Hawks,
you are right, the approach is similar (aggregating and ranking). However, I think it would be far less effort to maintain. It should be just an add-on to scienceblogging.org
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