SmartStream™ Alliance (http://smartstreamalliance.com/) just released a desktop newsreader for the Kerry campaign that uses technology from MyST Technology Partners. This demonstrates a unique perspective concerning smart Internet applications and the use of RSS in friendlier ways. Imagine the possibilities as you experiment with this free download.

The newsreader is not an endorsement of John Kerry as the Democratic choice for President of the United States.  Rather, it is an opportunity to highlight SmartStream and MyST technology in a highly visible application and in a way that will encourage new ideas for developing syndication with brand experience.  Behind the scenes, this reader makes use of a variety of MyST technologies, including SmartSpace™, Market Syndication Services (MSS), and Net Intelligence services.

The reader is available from many download sites, including this one at CNET:

John Kerry for President Newsreader
http://www.download.com/3000-9227-10297071.html

Please take a minute to download the reader (it's very quick) and let us know what you think.  We encourage you to rate the reader on the CNET site after you've tried it, especially if you like it!  <g>.  (Please comment only on the technological aspects of the reader and not on your opinion of the political content being delivered by the reader.  We are technologists, not politicians.)

Regardless of your party affiliation, this newsreader is a great way to keep up to date with the latest news from the Kerry campaign.  And more importantly, it’s a demonstration of a new, user-friendly, spam-proof technology for delivering timely, branded information on any subject matter.  It happens to be based on RSS, but mainstream users need not think about that.

Dave Pollard's "Pushing the Blogging Envelope" is an excellent set of guideposts for companies contemplating the use of Weblog technologies in their KM initiatives.

On a regular basis we get calls from "C"-level executives asking for enterprise features that support their existing and future blogging platforms. When we created the MyST platform, we attempted to embrace the many benefits of personal publishing and MySmartChannels represents a tilt toward a blog-like application. However, MyST is not about Weblogs and neither is MySmartChannels. Each provide levels of abstract services from which IT solutions may be constructed. Each went through years of design and development to provide the most abstract capabilities possible. As proof, our customers use these technologies for things as diverse as business intelligence applications and simple notification tools or personal publishing tools.

"Functions 7, 8, 10 and 15 would admittedly be difficult for blog tools to incorporate ... " -- Dave Pollard

We feel the same way about blog tools in general, but these items are just a few of things MyST and MySmartChannels provide with ease. For example...

"You can't edit or delete comments (in most commenting systems), you can't number the comments for reference, you can't clearly indicate comments-to-comments, you can't easily refer back to specific parts of the article you're commenting on or cross-reference to other URLs."

- our commenting system is architected with the idea that information objects can be topics about other information objects (much like a topic map). As such, a commenting environment can support multi-threaded topic-response dialogues as well as flat topic-response relationships. Furthermore, a comment may also serve as a new Weblog post. MyST uses typed associations to connect the information objects thus making it possible to design any type of commenting behavior.

"Integrated expertise/network finder - As many have said, LinkedIn, Orkut, Ryze etc. just don't do it. When we're searching for information while researching an article, or trying to decide who else might be interested in something we've just written or just read, we need to be able to call up a list of who knows and who cares about a particular subject."

- as described above, MyST provides typed associations for all information objects. In  sense, we have created a social map of the activity in our platform, but not necessarily for the same reasons LinkIn does it. We're more interested in who invites whom to consume what content - this is specifically done from a KM perspective and to demonstrate possibilities. We're not social networking experts but we certainly have the machinery to build social interaction systems. Skills finding, therefore, is relatively simple - we search associations, not data. You can see an example of this by creating a MySmartChannels account and look for words that might appear in Bob Dylan lyrics (i.e., "rain" is a good one). You'll quickly discover (through SmartPoints) that there are specific pools of knowledge on this subject and specific MyST users that, although they have not stipulated expertise in Bob Dylan lyrics, they are none-the-less called out as experts on the subject "rain", in the topic "Bob Dylan lyrics". Our belief is that no one will ever create a comprehensive FOAF profile, so why not interpolate expertise through the natural use of a Weblog environment?

Other area of the scorecard where it's good to look...

"Automatic conversion from/to other formats - Anyone writing a paper in MS Word and then trying to get it into shape to publish on their blog is in for a rude awakening."

We have a new technology called Office2Channel (which I used to author this post). It's pretty useful and provides essential Microsoft Word to Weblog functionality. We're also contemplating a wider use for it such that it may support the Atom API in the future.

"Content sorting, searching, indexing - Most of us have learned how to add a search bar to our blogs, and some of us keep detailed tables of contents or indexes of our posts and to use categories to post on different subjects. But the fact that we can only display our content in reverse date order (rather than by subject, by author etc.) is frustrating."

Yes, we do that well. Here's a link that reorders this weblog in a grid display sorted by title in ascending order. ;-) And how about searching a huge collection of RSS feeds or Weblohgs written by a wide array of blog tools? We make SmartSpace for that.

"Integrated VoIP - Skype is my choice for VoIP -- free, one-click and crystal clear."

Although not freely available, we have blog models that support direct connectivity via Skype to MyST users in a KM setting.

"Integrated collaboration - Especially for business blogs, it would be wonderful to be able to post a 'space' on your blog where others, appropriately permissioned, could add to or annotate, in an identifiable way, anything put in that space."

Yep - we do this too - it's called a Blogsite and it's designed to weave together one or more channels (blogs) to create a "space" that's best described as a blog portal. SmartSpace and many other MyST applications  utilize this application framework as the basis for KM portals. We can even integrate any blog's content into such a "space" and then integrate the content as a collection with Microsoft Office smart tags or Office Research Services (this link takes you to a Blogsite).

"Posting multimedia presentations - Rather than attaching a PPT file, or a video or sound clip, which the user must then open in a separate window, it would be very useful, especially on business blogs, to be able to have the files open and run right in the blog window."

We're not perfect [yet] at integrating large binary files with our platform, however, we've designed the system for this eventuality. But we do cover something very unique - a way to present a Weblog as a collection of slides (this Weblog in slideshow view).

As you can see, we built this beast for agility, not for Weblogs. It just happens that Weblogs and their users are pushing the envelope for new and useful business objectives.

Chad Dickerson’s article ‘Blogging to Ourselves’ inspired me to open the subject a bit further.

In early 2003 Andy and I started using the MyST platform (specifically MySmartChannels) to manage our business and operational information. MySmartChannels is capable of providing Weblog-like features, but also other capabilities like sorting, embedded link lists, and other transformations that business information requires.

Weblog tools in general provide a useful backplane to create good notes about any subject matter. However, most Webog products are designed as products, not application platforms. If there’s one thing about IT that’s predictable, it is constantly shifting requirements. MySmartChannels was created as an application based on the MyST platform, but is itself, an application framework for building more refined business systems. This affords our customers great agility when requirements shift – as they will.

We use MySmartChannels ‘blogs’ [for example] as a billing system, but before that, it was just a note-taking channel about our consulting work. We realized that the leap to creating a conduit of information suitable for our accounting person was very small. However, it required a security and permissions model which MyST natively supports. As we make notes about each project, we also include time and detailed descriptions. We also include links to completed pages and applications. The accounting process is met through an RSS subscription of each billing channel (one per customer). This has served as a unifying model of awareness which has now extended to our VAR’s; even they may subscribe to the billing channels. This makes it possible for the VAR’s to see (in real time) what we’re working on, and what their charges are.

One thing that becomes clear after doing this for more than a year – you need a comprehensive search model, which we have, but I’ll save that for a future post. So at MyST Technology Partners, we blog inward and it really pays off.

Other inward MyST Partners blogs include:

• Project Notes
• Architectural Designs
• Help for MySmartChannels
  FAQ’s
• Company News
• Software License Keys
• Banking Information (we really trust our security model)
• Corporate and Personal References
• VAR News Channels
• VIP News
• NDA Communications
• System Update Notifications

Blogging inward is simple, effective, and very inexpensive. If you'd like to use our platform for your own inward Weblog experiments, give us a shout.