Aggregators are tools that allow you to access the RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds from different sites.  You can tell that a site has a feed if you see this icon on the page.  Aggregators allow you to mix the feeds from many sites into a single place.  In other words, no need to surf when an aggregator can deliver the content to your desktop.
Some of my favourite aggregators include:

1. Drupal has its own built in aggregator.  I'm including it because of the overall utility of Drupal as a content management tool
2. Netvibes is a truly fabulous aggregation site allowing for all kinds of mixing and matching of information
3. NewsLife is an OSX 10.4 only aggregator that tries to simplify the interface and make reading feeds more intuitive.
4. Bloglines is a great aggregator/organizer of feeds.
5. Feeddemon is a desktop application that costs a little money (about $30), but is one of the most powerful and sophisticated readers out there.

If you spend much time reading news sites, blogs, and wikis and want to save some time, a reader is an invaluable tool.

Tagging on blogs can have multiple benefits.  The first is, if your blog is searchable, the tags prove to be a way for readers to find like content.  For example, on this blog (built on Drupal), if you click on a single tag it will return all results that match that tag.
Try clicking on "npsl" and see the result.  In Drupal, a function called Taxonomy makes this magic happen.  We could, in fact add navigation to the site that would match a given tag essentially creating navigation to content that will for ever expand.

Anshe Chung Studios in China has been quietly building an amazing Second Life space, managed by TechSoup, for non-profits. A site featuring multiple bloggers with offices in this space has popped up chronicling this group's experiences. Soon this empty space will start to bustle with Linden citizens for Social Good. Take a look.read more | digg story
Powered by Qumana

Today we were introduced to the nonprofit commons and the offices associated with them. As I've written before, Tech Soup, part of CompuMentor, is helping organize an amazing conglomerate, on Second Life, of nonprofits. The land donor, anshe chung studios, has done an amazing job creating a truly breath taking space.

The donation of the land is significant, but add the amount of programming hours that have gone into the sim and then the $200 or so it costs to maintain per month...well it is an amazing gift.

The commons has an amphitheatre for meetings, events and so forth. As you can see, the space is vast and the environment is pretty amazing.

The office spaces are huge. I'm not sure how we are going to furnish ours without the furniture becoming lost.

I think that the final product will truly rock and will generate lots of attention.

So, stay tuned and be ready to take a step inworld. I think it will be worth it.

Powered by Qumana

Today we had our weekly meeting with the Second Life Non Profit group.

Things are starting to come together with the group. The sim is going to be ready for non-profits to start moving in very soon. The group of non-profits is highly diverse as are the members. They range from arts non-profits, like the one I work for, to medical non-profits.

The meeting updated folks on

• The status of the NPSL Web site, which we are building in Drupal
• Solidified a few additional volunteer roles
• Updated the group on the sim.

CompuMentor is one of the primary organizers of the group and have done a pretty terrific job of herding the cats that are non-profit administrators.

Last night my daughter was baptized at the Wesley Foundation in Boulder. The Foundation is a United Methodist chapel that serves the student population mostly. What is the connection? My wife was the office manager there over a decade ago was baptized there. Eric Smith, in turn, married Paula and I in the Wesley Foundation in 1997.

Does this have anything to do with the Arts? One of the main challenges that the traditional arts seem to be having is engagement. How does an arts venue/product become relevant in a person's life? How does that art engage, nurture, and feed the consumer. How can you even get the consumer give your product a try?

Increasingly, the traditional arts, have lost audience. The institutions that serve and support arts organizations have become out of touch with today's consumer.

The arts community will complain that the general populace aren't engaging and how do we bring the audiences back to the theatre, opera, gallery, museum? How do bring value? Why aren't people engaged any longer? We can't reach them. Why don't they participate?

The nature of arts participation has changed so quickly in the last five years that many organizations/administrators don't recognize that participation is occurring.

• REVVER
• YouTube
• Flickr

These are three examples where participation in the arts runs deep.

Lessons from the Church

What I saw at Wesley, were deeply engaged young people who were playing musical instruments, singing, and using multimedia to strengthen the experience.

You'll notice that on the right of this picture there is a full band setup. On the left there is a screen--the screen had an LCD projector and an iBook being run by a young lady.

The Pastor was a young guy who rock climbs with his congregation. The service was made as accessible as it could be to anybody who was there.

• Listen to your audience
• Give them, at least a bit, of what they want
• When your audience looks at you, they should see themselves
• Alter your perceptions of what participation in the arts really means
• Find out where your targeted audience hangs out and what engages them--then seek them on that turf

Web 2.0 feeds into all of this. Young people hang out in MySpace, FaceBook, Revver, YouTube, SecondLife, and Flickr. They document large parts of their lives. They want to engage and be engaged. They want IN on the conversation, not be a passive viewer.

Powered by Qumana

I have been intersecting with the Second Life Non Profits group for a few months now.  It looks like WESTAF will be a tenant in the office space once the sim has been completed.
This group has put together a Google Group which has been very helpful in keeping the group informed with one another.
A Drupal site has been started that will keep the group informed and also act as a public face for the participants.

Second Life continually evolves.  When Reuters opened up a news office, the playground took on a level sophistication that it hadn't enjoyed before.  Other companies and services began to enter into the mix.  We began to see galleries and clothing sellers.  The economy of Second Life began to grow and now it boasts an GDP larger than some small companies.

It was inevitable that countries would start to eyeball it.  Sweden is the first--they are opening a virtual embassy. I am willing to bet that it will start out simply as an informational resource--but imagine, by linking it to the real world via the Web, they could set things up for application requests for passports.  The office could become a real tool to encourage young tourists to visit the scandanavian country.  After all, those who take part in Second Life are flush enough to own a computer and probably come from an affluent family.