For higher education Web professionals: tutorial on organizational Web identities and social software.

1. Monitoring Your Web Identity
GETTING STARTED
Higher Education Web Conference
Jay Collier, Bates College
October 16, 2007
www.jaycollier.net

2. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care about it?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• Why should we create our own feeds?

3. WHAT IS A WEB IDENTITY?
Online identity as personal freedom
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog

4. WHAT IS A WEB IDENTITY?
Online identity as organizational attribute
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/
2003/spring/3/

5. WHAT IS A WEB IDENTITY?
“Essential nature” reflected on the Web
• A Web identity is the essential nature of a person or
organization as it is manifest on the Web.
• Identities are perceived as core, enduring, and distinctive.
• Traditions, beliefs, competencies, and aspirations all
contribute to a total Web identity.
• Self-identity may differ from Web identity, due to the
influence of external contributors.

6. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• Why should we create our own feeds?

7. WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Why is monitoring important?
• Our constituents are turning to off-campus producers
for increasingly credible stories about us ... stories
that contribute to our organizational identity.
• We need to pay attention to this external content in
case, during a campus emergency, fast-moving
independent producers participate actively in creating
and distributing coverage.

8. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care about it?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• Why should we create my own feeds?

9. WHAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE?
RSS: Real Simple Syndication
• RSS is a simple method for notifying people when Web
content is updated.
• Most Web systems now provide RSS feeds automatically.
• RSS feeds are easy to monitor.
• Just click on RSS icon.

10. WHAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE?
RSS: Real Simple Syndication
• How a feed looks: in Firefox (Windows and Mac).

11. WHAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE?
RSS: Real Simple Syndication
• How a feed looks: in Safari (Mac and Windows).

12. WHAT MAKES IT POSSIBLE?
RSS: Real Simple Syndication
• How a feed looks: in IE 7 (Windows).

13. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care about it?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• Why should we create our own feeds?

14. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Using a desktop application
• FeedDemon ($29, Windows), Vienna (free, Mac).

15. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Using a free online monitoring service
• Google Reader: basic features with blog of favorite items.

16. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Using a free online monitoring service
• Bloglines: public feed collection, organized by folder.

17. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Getting started: open an account
• First, create an account.

18. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Add the subscription button
• Drag a “Subscribe with Bloglines” button to your browser.
Get the button at: www.bloglines.com/help/easysub

19. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Start adding feeds
• Go to a Web page
and, if there’s an
RSS feed, click on
“Subscribe.”
• Select the Bloglines
feed options.
• Click “Subscribe.”
• That it!

20. HOW DO I MONITOR FEEDS?
Organize your feeds
• Edit your folders and feeds: reorder, drag and drop, delete.

21. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care about it?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• Why should we create our own feeds?

22. WHAT CONTENT CAN I MONITOR?
Mainstream news searches
• News searches: via Google News, Yahoo News.

23. WHAT CONTENT CAN I MONITOR?
Community and personal blogs
• Google Blog Search, Technorati, Bloglines.

24. WHAT CONTENT CAN I MONITOR?
Wikipedia revisions and discussions
• Monitor Wikipedia articles.

25. WHAT CONTENT CAN I MONITOR?
Media and bookmark sharing services
• Flickr, Delicious, Google Video, YouTube.

26. WHAT CONTENT CAN I MONITOR?
Web pages with no RSS feeds
• Web-page-to-RSS-feed “scraper” services.

27. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care about it?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• Why should we create my own feeds?

28. HOW DO I SHARE MY FEEDS?
Use OPML (Outline XML)
• Share outlines of news feeds, playlists, and presentations.

29. HOW DO I SHARE MY FEEDS?
Mark feeds as public
• Select folders and feeds you’d like to share.

30. HOW TO SHARE FEEDS?
Share your public URL
• Public feeds (not private feeds) are now available to view.

31. HOW TO SHARE FEEDS?
Others can monitor public feeds with you
• Colleagues can import your public feeds into their reader.
They can download your feed list ... ... and import into their own account

32. HOW TO SHARE FEEDS?
Forward items on to colleagues
• Go to an item, forward the URL via e-mail.
jay.collier@thecompass.com

33. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Getting started
• What is a Web identity?
• Why should I care about it?
• What makes monitoring possible?
• How do I monitor feeds?
• What content can I monitor?
• How do I share my feeds?
• Why should we create our
own feeds?

34. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Share knowledge with the academic world
• A new way to promote campus stories to those who are
targeted interests: students, communications staff,
professional colleagues.
• A new way for faculty and staff to establish recognition in
an academic or professional field of endeavor.
• An important way to balance external contributions to
our Web identity.
• An easy way to join the social Web. Feed sharing is
already integrated with things you may already be doing.

35. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Share public bookmarks with annotations

36. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Share scholarly and research imagery

37. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Share literary reviews & recommendations

38. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Share film reviews & recommendations

39. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Share music reviews & recommendations

40. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Monitor restricted feeds

41. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Using RSS feeds in Web pages (WordPress)

42. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Using RSS feeds in Web pages (RSS2HTML)

43. WHY SHOULD WE CREATE OUR OWN FEEDS?
Using RSS feeds in services (Facebook)
FROM DELICIOUS FROM FLICKR
FROM LIBRARYTHING
FROM LAST.FM

44. MONITORING YOUR WEB IDENTITY
Now, it’s your turn
Please share your monitoring experiences ...
Jay Collier
www.jaycollier.net
jcollier@bates.edu