Microcontent has been around for years

2. Microcontent has been around for years • Blogs – short post excerpts, quoted text and post/comment feeds • News sites – slideshows, embedded videos, tickers • PowerPoint slides – pictures, video, the theme from Star Wars Then came YouTube and all that 2.0 stuff • Embedded video & audio files and playlists – free for anyone • Tweets, Facebook statuses, other ADHD fodder • Mashups – AJAX & other developer tools Where are you taking me? • Journal article of the future – embedded data you can play with • Online software applications which live in “the cloud” (ooh!) • Communication and collaboration environments • In general - la carte content & functionality shared widely

3. These definitions are imperfect and broad - perhaps criminally so There is way too much content in these slides to cover in a presentation – consider them the handout, not the class (“CiL style”) These slides are dull – no images, code or diagrams – sorry! The examples should or will be more exciting The Presenter and Presentation The Subject Matter at Hand • Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should • If you build it they may not care • If they don’t know about it they definitely won’t care • Technology doesn’t solve problems, it’s a tool for problem solvers to use • Content is king

4. RSS Feeds – the workhorse of microcontent • News headlines • Blog post and comment feeds Widgets – make a personalized info dashboard or start page • Google Gadgets (and PageFlakes, Yahoo, etc) Embeds – lively up your blog or website • YouTube videos • Google Maps Installables – turn your browser into a Swiss army knife • Toolbars • Bookmarklets

5. Websites • Your library • Departments, schools and other collaborators • Professional library organizations or societies LibGuides & other pathfinders Learn@UW and other learning management systems Current awareness or other services • Create a set of Google Gadgets for an audience or subject • Create a feed from internal or external sources for an audience or subject

6. Your content • News, classes & events • Journal tables of contents • New books • New articles – RefShare and the like • General information (i.e. highlights, blog posts) Their content • News, classes & events • Journal tables of contents • Funding information • Clinical trials • Politics & appeasement (“our Beloved Chancellor’s musings”)

7. Your content • Logins, request forms and other rapid access gateways • Anything you can get as an RSS feed Their content • Anything from your vendors (i.e. databases, e-books, journals) • LibraryThing and other bookish or library things • Anything you can get as an RSS feed

8. Your content • Camtasia and other tutorials (audio, screen capture) • Classes and other instructional content (video capture) • Calendar of events (i.e. Google Calendar) • Map and directions (i.e. Google Maps - basic or customized) • Presentations (i.e. SlideShare) • Anything you can get in an RSS feed Their content • Tutorials and instructional content (“serious”) • Teaching examples (i.e. YouTube popular media clips – “fun”) • Professional conferences, other events – Tweets and Flickr pictures

9. Your content • General library toolbar or more specific (i.e. EBM, departmental) • Bookmarklets (I.e. FindIt, RefWorks, ezProxy) Their content • Search engine plugins • Bookmarklets (i.e. PubGet, Mendeley, LibraryThing)

10. PubMed & other literature database results • Saved searches – basic or advanced • Journal tables of contents Forward, AquaBrowser - catalogs & OPACS • Searches for updates • New content Prominent search boxes • UW-Madison Libraries • Ebling Library • Xerxes (database select & search)

11. Handouts and other documentation YouTube and other video embeds • Common Craft tutorials • Vendor product tutorials • Scribd embedded document viewer • Google Docs shared files Interactive Tutorials & Coursework • Pharmacy resource & searching tutorial in Captivate • Supplemental assignments from face to face classes

12. Feed parsing and display • Google Reader Clips (display widget), shared item pages • Feed2JS (hosted or local install – very simple to use) • SimplePie (local install – more powerful, complex)* Feed filtering and cleanup • FeedRinse – filter, combine existing feeds • FeedBurner – easy subscription, statistics and some cleanup by magic Feed customization & creation • Yahoo Pipes – do just about anything to any feed, in a GUI environment** • Google Reader – create custom OPML bundles (Feeds as Blog Roll)

13. Video & Images • YouTube, Google Video, ForaTV, SciVee TV • Embedr (playlist - supports different video sources) • Jing (quick and dirty screen captures/tutorials) • Flickr (images hosted remotely) • Lightbox, other software (local images -Jquery, Scriptaculous, Moo Tools)* Documents • Scribd, Issuu (embedded document viewers) • Google Docs (document, spreadsheet, presentation) Other • Maps (Google Maps, Bing, Mapquest) • Professional (SlideShare, LinkedIn) • Social (Facebook, Twitter)

14. Widgets • Google Gadgets – create or browse existing* • PageFlakes, etc – also allow creation or browsing* Installables • Toolbars - Conduit • Search engine plugins – Firefox extensions page

15. Feed-based • Single basic feed • Multiple feeds HTML or application-based • Login or other form • Social gadgets? • Other more complicated functions – above my pay grade! Getting started • Gadgets API and documentation • Google Gadgets Editor • Find an existing gadget and look at the source code

16. From: http://www.freshgasflow.com/flight401.htm

17. Microcontent can be low key and high impact • Microcontent can be epic fail and no (or even bad) impact • Need to devote R&D time but tools can be dead simple • Don’t have weak content - be useful (or really really funny) • Users may prefer “a la carte” content, not ponderous sites • You too can have a site that doesn’t look like its from 1995!