Comments on: The Widgetized Self

By: Jean

Jean — Sat, 26 May 2007 02:42:09 +0000

I don’t know if you’ve come across it yet or not, but Pageflakes is kindred example (like Virb) of what a widgetized personal portal might look like (from the music “consumer’s” point of view). Of course, it’s all about the RSS. Kinda the opposite view of Virb or Reverbnation, actually…while Virb is all about organizing media to be exported, Pageflakes represents a customizable page for importing things – bookmarks turned into widgets.

By: Nancy Baym

Nancy Baym — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:53:33 +0000

David — “what would happen if, say, our blogs became less portals of ourselves and more portals of our friends” — that’s what I want widgets to do — and in that sense Feevy fits right into what I’m talking about. When you go to myportal.com, you ought to see the things I want to see as well as the things I want you to see about me. It shouldn’t just be about displaying me to an audience, it should be about allowing me to engage with my communities and affiliations in a way that is (at least to some degree) visible to an audience, so that they see my communities as well as me if they drop by my portal. What I want in bringing the internet to me is to be able to focus on others without having to chase them all over the internet, and to be able to show other people who and what gets my attention when they visit my portal.

Imagine if you could use feevy not just to read the first line, but to expand the post and read the comments and respond to them WITHOUT clicking through to the blog. I think people will still leave their portals to go to “destination sites” and to tour the net, but I think we need tools to make our own homes on the net more social rather than using proprietary sites as homes for our social networks and affiliations.

BTW, the reason I moved Feevy off the front page was that it was slowing already-slow load times for the page a lot.

By: david silver

david silver — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:38:22 +0000

nancy – i see your points but don’t they sound a little too me! me! me! ?

one of the reasons i am such a big fan of feevy is because it gives more space to other voices and less space for my own voice on my blog. what would happen if, say, our blogs became less portals of ourselves and more portals of our friends?

i understand the recent move towards widgets: flickr broadcasts our pics, lastfm our songs, upcoming our talks, twitter our every narcissistic move. i understand this. but i’m not sure if i agree with it. seems to me that we are living in times when perhaps we need to focus less on ourselves and more on others – other people, other perspectives, other views.

By: neil Day

neil Day — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:26:25 +0000

I completely agree with your vision of the future. One of the goals of MediaMaster is to make it _really_ easy keep your friends up to date on what you’re listening to. Its the best way to find new music!

We’re heading in the very direction you sugggest. Stay tuned…