TopLinks plugin for WordPress

Thornley Fallis and 76Design have released two plugins for the WordPress blogging platform today: TopLinks and FriendsRoll.

“TopLinks replaces the manually edited blogroll with a widget that automatically generates a list of the Blogs and sites that I most often link to. […] FriendsRoll enables your readers to sign up to appear on your list of Friends. Any data they provide will stay with the blogger, not reside on some external site. So the relationship is directly between us.”

Joe Thornley, CEO, Thornley Fallis

I tried out TopLinks on my blog. It works well but I couldn’t get it to look right (yet). It doesn’t fit the way my sidebar is set up (1 custom column on top, and 2 widget-enabled columns on the bottom). Maybe I’ll find a way to customize it and reduce the width of the TopLinks box.

Not sure whether TopLinks really needs to be a replacement for the traditional blogroll. For my blog, I’d see it more as an addition.

Congrats to TF and 76Design for a great idea! if you have a WordPress blog, definitely check it out.

Does Europe lead in using web technology for grassroots democracy?

On Friday, members of a German grassroots democracy project launched a new website called Abgeordnetenwatch.de (that’s “MPwatch” in English), which allows people to find the members of the German federal parliament for their region, read about their voting records, and get in contact with them.

A similar site was first launched for the federal state of Hamburg in 2004. Now they have expanded it to the federal parliament. They have also received funding from BonVenture and attracted major media partners in German news portals Spiegel.de, Tagesspiegel.de and Welt.de. According to an article in Welt.de, not all MPs are happy about this development. One politician said the site is indirectly pressuring politicans to come up with responses or get a reputation of being “anti-democrats” (I’d agree that there might be unrealistic expectations for the speed of response but, in general, this politician might want to read his job description again. Maybe he skipped the part about communicating with constituents).

A little while ago, I wrote about another German grassroots democracy project, where people can submit questions to the German chancellor and get them answered by the Federal Press Office.

Today I read about great projects in the UK (hat tip to Neville Hobson). Simon Dickson has created a Google Map of all MPs in the United Kingdom, which links to a database of House of Commons Hansard Debates, Written Answers and Statements via an API by TheyWorkforYou.com. TheyWorkforYou.com is an awesome resource for citizens in the UK.

It is fascinating to see citizens - not governments - come up with all these ideas of using new web technology to make government and democracy more transparent and accessible.

Does Europe lead in this type of online grassroots democracy? What about Canada? And other countries? I am asking not as an accusation but because I have no idea about Canada yet and I’d like to find out more about developments. If you know about any projects, please let me know in the comment section or send me an email (see contact page).

Chancellor 2.0 - Bonding with citizens on the Web

First German Chancellor Angela Merkel started her own video-podcast series. Then a bunch of smart students and university graduates turned the tables on her and launched Direkt zur Kanzlerin! (”Direct to Chancellor!”), a platform where citizens can post questions for Angela Merkel. Anybody can submit a text, audio or video message for her on the site. Then people can vote for their favourite questions by mouse click. 

After getting blog buzz and media coverage for their idea, the students got Angela Merkel’s attention. The Federal Press Office has now stepped up and agreed to answer the top three question each week on behalf of the Chancellor. 

It is a different kind of Web 2.0 success story - a great little example of the potential that the ongoing spread of new, user-friendly technologies holds. What a great example of a couple people getting together and trying to make a difference through tech-driven grassroots democracy!

Consultant and author Anthony D. Williams recently blogged about the question: “is government ready for the Web 2.0 era?” Looks like the German government is playing catch-up with its people.  But the Federal Press Office deserves credit, too. At least they are ready to participate in the project. It’s a start.

Note: The “Direct to Chancellor!” site is only available in German.

(via Welt.de)

Radio Paradise meets Flickr

It is a good thing that Sun Labs researcher Paul Lamere loves Radio Paradise as much as I do (or more). He has created a mashup of Radio Paradise and Flickr which he calls Snapp Radio. He has found a way to connect Flickr images with songs that play on Radio Paradise (also works with Last FM). So instead of looking at weird geometric shapes evolve in your regular run-of-the-mill visualization program, Snapp Radio serves up concert photos from the artists as well conceptual images. Sometimes the choice of photos can be a bit strange but a) what a great idea and b) it’s addictive!

How does it work?

Snapp Radio will connect to Radio Paradise or Last.FM to figure out what song you are currently listening to. Snapp Radio augments this information by connecting to Last.FM and finding any social tags that have been attached to this song and artist. Snapp Radio then uses all of this information to fashion a set of queries to Flickr to find a set of interesting images that are related to the song. Snapp Radio collects the images, orders them in an interesting way and presents them to you in your Web browser.

Snapp Radio FAQ

Evoke 2006 demoparty and computer festival in Cologne

Great festival across the ocean: Evoke 2006 is starting today in Cologne, Germany.  Programmers, graphic artists and musicians are coming together to show off their skills in a number of categories. Demoscene.tv will be broadcasting live from the party.

(via heise.de)

Pandora vs. Radio Paradise

After reading about it on Mark Evans’ blog, I’ve been trying out Pandora for a few days. It is a great idea to let listeners create their own music radio station based on their favourite artist(s) and then provide recommendations of ’similar’ music. 

The intelligence behind the recommendation engine is still a work in progress, though. For example, how I got from my selections Buffalo Tom and Heather Nova to a recommendation of Def Leppard is still a mystery to me.

I did like some of the songs Pandora came up with and it is definitely a site I will return to. But Radio Paradise is still my favourite Internet radio station. Bill and Rebecca at Radio Paradise put together a program that I prefer to my own Pandora selections. They have introduced me to many artists that were new to me, and some of them I would have never come across on my own - even with a recommendation program.

Maybe it is a little bit like the chess matches between Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue. It is fascinating to see what technology can do. But I always wanted Kasparov to win. When it comes to Internet radio, I’m still in Bill and Rebecca’s corner.

JAlbum update

I love JAlbum. I downloaded it a few weeks ago because I wanted a better way to put photos on my website. Now I finally got around to trying it out. It is a fantastic program. And it is free (users can donate money if they like). JAlbum comes with the option of choosing different skins for the albums, and there is a whole “ecosystem” of people who design skins.

I have used the Fotoplayer skin for my new galleries (to see an example click here). Fotoplayer.com has a free trial version and can be upgraded to a Lite version and a Pro version, which even includes online shop capabilities for professional photographers. For a snapshot photographer like me, the trial version is enough, although I may upgrade to Lite at some point.

I keep reading about Flickr and Bubbleshare, which are easy to use and have great blog integration. What I like about JAlbum are the features, flexibility and design options. Blog integration would be nice. The Fotoplayer skin already comes with an RSS feed, so who knows what features may get added next. I also like that I can keep the photos on my own website, and don’t have to store them on Flickr or Bubbleshare. But I can see the attraction of their services. Now if the people behind Fotoplayer and JAlbum got together and offered a hosted online version… well, just a thought.

The Sleuth’s surprising online success: it’s no mystery

Just reading through the March edition of The Merchant of Menace, the newsletter of Toronto mystery bookstore Sleuth of Baker Street. It includes an online success story of its own. The Sleuth started an online store a few months ago. According to the newsletter, the owners were surprised about the number of non-mysteries that people ordered through their online shop.

Being a Sleuth customer myself, I think there’s a simple reason. The Sleuth is a great specialized store with outstanding customer service, which includes staff with passion, real knowledge and insights about the authors and books they sell. Those qualities are hard to find in the age of mega bookstores and online-only retailers, and they deserve support. Buying non-mysteries through the Sleuth’s online store is easy and convenient, and an additional way for happy customers to support an independent book store.

The online shop is powered by Canadian software TBM BookManager, which - according to its website – helps more than 400 bookstores across Canada and internationally. The first version of the point-of-sale software came out in 1986, and twenty years later it has a database of more than four million titles and added functionality that lets independent book stores create their own online store.

It may not be the type of Internet business that gets Web 2.0 enthusiasts excited. But to me, this is what much of the power of the Internet is really about – making self-service easy and simple for the interests of individuals and niche markets.

There’s an interview with TBM BookManager founder and president Michael Neil in the March print edition of book trade magazine “Quill and Quire”. I’ll see if I can pick up a copy next time I am in The Sleuth.

I’m giving JAlbum a try

For years I’ve been putting photos on my little personal homepage so my family and friends in Germany can see what we’re up to here in Toronto. I’ve tried Corel (Jasc) Photo Album, which wasn’t great, and Google’s Picasa, which was an okay if somewhat limited experience. And Flickr still doesn’t seem all that appealing to me, despite its great blog integration. But now I found JAlbum. It looks like a great free software tool that allows a lot of flexibility and is written for the exact purpose of creating photo albums on the web, so I will give it a try. It just seems to be in contrast to many of the other digital imaging tools which are treating web album creation as an afterthought. I’ve just started using JAlbum. Let’s see how it goes.