Periodicdesign

No, I’m not talking about a flock of birds, I’m talking about a browser and a rather nifty one at that. I stumbled across their home page the other day, although I can’t recall how I ended up there, and signed up for their announce list. Well, just last night, I received an announcement about an alpha/beta release for testing. I then proceeded to download both a copy for my home machine and one for my work machine. I have tinkered on both platforms with the browser and am very pleased with what I see so far.

As far as I can tell, this browser, for all intensive purposes, looks to give the major browsers like Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox, a run for their money. Of course, some of you may argue it’s just another browser and that market is already saturated with the aforementioned browsers as well as many others. To this I say, you are correct and Flock is dead, conversation over! Well, I’m not going to say that, because saying that would be down right ludicrous I tell you!

This thing is more than just a browser, it’s an interaction with the digital life around you. Thomas talks about the Personal InfoCloud and I think this browser moves in that direction. Flock brings what you want on the web, to you, without using web applications or scripting plug-ins for your current browser. This thing ties into your blog and your del.icio.us bookmarks, bringing a portion of your digital life to you. Now granted, it may not bring all of your digital life, but it is a start.

Browsers themselves have faced an unfortunate doom in the past few years. They are all on the same path of rendering valid mark-up being the basis of what a browser should do. On this level, I believe all browsers should be the same and I hope that in that aspect the browser wars are from over. Where browsers will take off is in the functionality and how they tie into the web and the data you want. As Thomas has already said:

In a “come to me web” this is very important.

The browser itself is rather slick in appearance and a rather usable interface to boot. I’m anxious to see what comes of this browser, as it is still in its early stages of development and testing. Will it die, or will this browser become something in the near future? Will this become as valid a browser as Firefox and IE or will it only be embraced by the blog and geek communities? Time will tell I guess.

You know, the web is a huge place. I mean, ha…uge. The down side to this hugeness, is finding what you need, when you need it. Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking to myself about the concept of tagging and what it does to help the user. Now granted, tagging is nothing new and anyone who blogs, knows of Technorati, Flickr and the like, knows what tagging is. My point is this; tagging seems to be growing and at an exponential rate. I read many feeds everyday and a few have been growing in the sense of how you get to the information at hand. Thomas, has been doing this for as long as I’ve known him, but others, such as Dan, James, Brian and Rob have taken on this tagging technique as well (Jared seemed to be heading in this direction for a while). Maybe they have been doing it for a while and I have just now noticed, but the concept works well with finding data and similar concepts tied to the same data.

The popular CMS, WordPress, allows for the categorization of the content on ones site. It does this through “Categories,” which seemed like an odd term for the information at hand. When I first saw this word, I thought to keep things simple and that the less categories, the better. Now I’m seeing differently, that these categories serve well as tagging and at large expanse, need a better place than in the sidebar of WordPress. The list can become rather long and almost unmanageable. Finding data in the lists and sub-lists can be somewhat tiresome and mind numbing at best.

I really like the idea of tagging in a CMS as opposed to categorization. I think along with my redesign will come the expansion of my categories into a tagging system along with a way to manage those tags. Does anyone have any plug-ins or ideas to make the integration of tagging easier? If so, I’d like to hear them.

A friend and colleague of mine, Thomas Vander Wal, made the New York Times today in an article titled, “’Folksonomy’ Carries Classifieds Beyond SWF and ‘For Sale’,” which is quite an interesting read. Thomas was my boss when I worked at FHWA in 2003 and 2004. He has since moved on (October 6th, 2005) from INDUS and FHWA to start his own consultancy, InfoCloud Solutions, which, from my understanding, is still in the process of final business paperwork.

Thomas focuses on all things information based and how users relate to their digital life around them in the form of their “Personal InfoCloud.” More on this subject can be read about on Thomas’s “Personal InfoCloud” site, and on his personal/professional site under “Off the Top” which is a place of frequent thoughts, ideas and musings.

Thomas coined the term “Folksonomy” in late 2003 when it first appeared in del.icio.us, a social bookmarks manager. His work has raised eyebrows in the technology community and has put people, mainly developers in the beginning, on a new path of thinking and how individuals truly use, not just web, but the information that surrounds their lives. Thomas has spoken at several conferences on this subject including Webvisions 2005, BayCHI and MIT, just to name a few.