Talk Digger Beta 2.0: a totally new system and interface

Frederick Giasson
 

I talked about it in my previous blog posts. I worked on it during the last two months. Then the new Talk Digger website is released.

I will call this version Beta 2.0. In fact, I would call it the Beta 1.0 considering that the first version of Talk Digger was in reality an Alpha one. Everything is new: the underlying system, the interface, the design, the RSS feed, etc. Why do I re-programmed/re-designed everything? Because I wanted to get rid of the first mistakes I have done in the previous version; I wanted to design it in such a way that it would be a good base to extend it in a new type of service (that I will develop in the next months).

So, what is new in this version?

1. I designed a more traditional search engine layout. This one is much simpler than the previous one. I wanted to make Talk Digger simple (but not simpler!). I tried to make it more intuitive for new users.

2. Much more results are displayed by Talk Digger (between 10 to 20 depending on the search engine).

3. Some new search engines: Google Blog and Yahoo!

4. I added a really great feature to the system (thanks to Tom Sherman for the idea): the PageRank of each returned results by Talk Digger is displayed beside the title of the items. This is really great because it gives trustable information about each result: what is its popularity and credibility on the Internet.

5. New options have been added to the system. Now you can specify the maximum number of results you want to view per search engine. You can sort the results with the most recent entries first or with the highest PageRank first.

6. I created a hotkeys system that helps users with the usability and navigation of the website.

7. The tracking RSS feed system is now formatted using RSS 1.0 instead of RSS 2.0. I briefly explained why in that previous post.

8. All the duplicated results (the same article returned by two different search engines) are deleted (only one will be displayed). You also have the option to exclude results with the same domain name as the searched URL’s.

9. It works on IE/FireFox/Safari/Opera on both PC and MAC. The entire website is XHTML1.0 Strict and CSS validated.

10. A new slogan: “You talk, we dig!” (thanks to Bora Ung)

I also created a “Tour” section that show how Talk Digger works:

  1. Dig for a conversation
  2. Automatically track a conversation with a RSS feed
  3. Change your options
  4. Use hotkeys
  5. Use the bookmarklet

What is the near future of Talk Digger?

During the next month, I will work improving Talk Digger with the feedbacks from users; but I will also check the possibility to broadcast the TD results in RDF and/or OWL. That way, other services would be able to gather and understand the computed results returned by Talk Digger and being able to do want they want with the information (a first step into the semantic web…). I am currently designing the RDF Schemas (and the OWL ontology) that will describe the Talk Digger results. However I am not sure that I will open such a service right now (considering the network infrastructure it would need and my current lack of money).

In fact, it would be the first step to test Talk Digger as a Semantic Web service. The next phase of its development will go even further in that direction (it’s the goal).

What is The future of Talk Digger?

Two lines of research: (1) semantic web and (2) semantic analysis/management of web documents.

So, this is what is happening right now with Talk Digger.

Do not hesitate to contact me is you have any questions, comments or suggestions about that new version of Talk Digger: it is always greatly appreciated.

I would like to thank Tom Sherman, Jeff Nolan and Matthew Hurst for their comments and suggestions about this new version of Talk Digger. I would also like to thank Suzanne Morel at Les Graphoides for this totally new graphical design and the time she spent working, re-working and re-re-working on the graphics as my mind changed.

I hope you like this new Talk Digger version and find it as useful as I.

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The reasons why am I quiet these days

Frederick Giasson

My posting rate is lower and lower as days pass. It is not an illusion, it is the sad reality.

What is happening? Many things! It is the reason why I am quiet these days. I am currently working hard on the next version of Talk Digger. In fact, I am not really working a new version; I am working on a totally new piece of software.

What is new?

Everything and nothing. It is the same services, without any real innovation. But it is everything because it is a much more robust system, the Ajax interface is working on Internet Explorer / FireFox / Opera / Safari on both Windows and Mac, there are much… much more results, the pages are XHTML 1.0 Strict compatible for a maximal compatibility, validation are done everywhere in the system to ensure that nothing goes wrong, and the layout is totally new and much simpler.

Why?

For some reasons. First, I was ashamed of the current version of Talk Digger. In fact, it was not really a Beta version, it was an Alpha prototype. Second, I wanted a robust system that I could easily extend to implement all the ideas I have to upgrade and innovate with the service. Third, I wanted a system where I could easily broadcast the computed information to other web-services that could use it to do something (the current problem with that idea is the computer/network infrastructure); that way it would be a first step to enter Talk Digger in the Semantic Web: making it a semantic web-service oriented toward the conversations that evolve on the Internet.

This post is not complete, descriptive and is probably really not clear. However, have in mind that this new version of Talk Digger will be available in a week or two and then I will start to talk about it and his future at that time.

During that time, are there things that you would like to see in that new version of Talk Digger? Some wishes?

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The slow and powerful process of creation

Frederick Giasson

I am probably reading one of my best book in the last years. “If you want to write – a book about Art, independence and Spirit” by Brenda Ueland.

Praise to art, creativity, imagination, life, works, and self. I have been astonished to read what is her way to create, to incubate ideas, to think without thinking about ideas that are true and imaginative:

“In the same way what you write today you thought and created in some idle time on another day. It is another day that your ideas and visions are slowly built up, so that when you take your pencil there is something to say[foot note] that is not just superficial and automatic, like children yelling at a birthday party, but it is true and has been tested inwardly and is based on something.

[foot note] Though remember this: you may not be conscious, when you sit down, of having evolved something important to say. You will sit down as mentally blank, godnatured and smiling as usual, and not frowning solemnly over the weight of your message. Just the same, when you begin to write, presently something will come out, something true and interesting.”

It is the exact process I used to create Talk Digger. It is the exact process I am using to create the next generation of Talk Digger; that will be release in the next 3 months. I know, since some years, that it is the way my mind works, it is the way I can create things and find solutions to my problems. I let the flow of information get into my mind, then I incubate it for weeks, months, even years and somewhere in the future, I know that a seed idea will pop-up in my mind and that that seed idea will flourish in something true, imaginative and useful (at least for me). The seed idea was the alpha version of Talk Digger (in fact I wrote Beta, but it wasn’t, my unconsciousness probably knew that it wasn’t, but my consciousness thought it was a beta version because he didn’t know what was coming); now the real Beta version is coming… something new, something true, and something imaginative (at least for me).

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History and Future of Talk Digger

Frederick Giasson

Talk Digger is now 3 months old and many things changed since I had the idea to create the service and today.

I developed Talk Digger because I wanted to interrogate many search engines at once to know who was linking back to my blog. I wanted to create that application to save time and being able to quickly know who was talking about my writings and being able to contact them as soon as possible.

Then I choose to put the service publicly available to anyone, like me, that could benefit by using it. The answer has been instant: thousands of people used it less then a week after it have been publicly available. Some people even talked about a buzz.

This inflow of new users, with their comments, suggestions and questions, helped me to find new ways to use and implement Talk Digger. Then the concept of Talk Digger as a tool that help people to search for a conversation that is evolving around a specific URL is born. New ways to use Talk Digger have been developed such the bookmarklet, the creation of RSS web feeds populated with Talk Digger search results, and finally the creation of a link that a blogger or a webmaster can put on his web page to redirect their users to Talk Digger with a specific URL they predefined. Some usability features have also been developed during that time.

All these things have been developed, implemented and debugged during the first online month of Talk Digger. However, what happened during the last two months? Some people probably noticed that nothing really changed since two months, and they are right: nothing really changed; I only fixed bugs.

So, what is happening? Is Talk Digger service development stopped? On ice? Or even dead?

Definitely not!

Right, the development of Talk Digger in the last two months have been marginal, however it growth exponentially. In the last two months a worked with a client to implement Talk Digger in one of their product that permit them to use all the power of Talk Digger into their software. I will talk about it further when the new version of that software will be available, in the next week or two. This contract took most of my time in the last two months.

Then, why the development of Talk Digger growth exponentially? Because since the beginning of Talk Digger I am thinking about how I could develop the basic idea behind Talk Digger: “a social tool that helps people to find and follow conversations that evolve around a specific URL” even further. Since then, many ideas poped-up in my mind, most of them have been investigated, and some of them are on the way to be developed and implemented in Talk Digger.

The future of Talk Digger, for the next months, is simple: making the basic idea evolving in such a way that Talk Digger will be a social tool of choice to find, follow and analyze conversations evolving on the Internet.

People are talking about Web 2.0; personally I am talking about the Semantic Web. I am talking about a way to see and broadcast information in such a way that any application or software agent would easily be able to analyze and use that information. I already talk about the fact that I was orienting my professional career in that way. This said, the only way to go in that direction is by trying to implement the principles into a real application that anybody could use, knowing or not what the terms semantic web, blogs, information overload, or any other technical terms, mean.

Great, but what is the next step? The next step is to upgrade the basic framework of Talk Digger. The idea I have behind the next generation of Talk Digger only want one thing: information. So the next step is to gather even more information. There are the two next things I will develop in the next couple of weeks to make it happens:

  • Returning the last 10 results of each search engines instead of the last 3.
  • Supporting even more search engines.

I hope I answered to some questions you could have with that little article on the history and future of Talk Digger. A thing is sure: Talk Digger evolved in the last two months and many things are coming for the next months.

However, this service would not be what he is right now without you, Talk Digger users, and your feedbacks, questions and suggestions. This is probably the think I like the most: discussing of Talk Digger with people that use it, and to see how they use it or how they would like to use it. So do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to talk about it or to talk about anything else, it is always a pleasure to received, read and answer your emails!

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The future of Talk Digger

Frederick Giasson

I had a lot of time, in the last weeks, to think about the future of Talk Digger. What is the future the project belongs to? The semantic web.

Two months ago, I had the idea of Talk Digger. One month and a half ago, I built it. Now I think about the future of the project. The service appear to be reliable and people use and talk about it. I learned how the system could be use while talking with other users.

Now I have a better view of the system, a vision of how it could be used, and an idea of his potential.

The future of the Internet is the semantic web: a web where his documents are computer processable. It is in this web that Talk Digger will evolve and get his full potential.

Why? The current state of the semantic web is really exciting. Many technologies are already available and reliable to make the vision a reality. Now people have to use them to make it live. To make the semantic web a reality, we need to have access to a wide range of semantic web formatted documents. The only way to reach this state is that people and companies start to make their information available in these semantic web formats. It is in this direction that Talk Digger will evolve: make the information broadcasted by the service available, in RDF, to the semantic web agents. I will also create new sub-services that will (1) gather, (2) analyze, (3) process, and (4) display such information.

This vision is drove by a personal goal: make the semantic web a reality. This is ambitious and probably arrogant: I know. “Who dares win’ a SAS motto says. It is what I will do: dare.

Do I have a chance to reach my goal? I hope so, but I have no idea. The only thing I know is that it will be a reality only if everybody tries to do a little thing in that direction; there is the little things I will try do to:

  • Make Talk Digger results computer processable
  • Develop semantic web applications that will interact with the Talk Digger system
  • Write about the subject in such a way that any Internet users will understand
  • Educate people to this future reality through writings and oral presentations

This is the future of Talk Digger, my blog, and my professional carrier. As you know, I have been in Vancouver two weeks ago. The aim of this trip was to meet the guys behind Qumana, Lektora, and AdGenta. Last month I got a contract from them to develop a new feature in Lektora. Now, I got the contract to develop a new version of Lektora in the next months. Guest what? I will re-design it in such a way that I will be able to easily upgrade it to enter it into the semantic web era. In which way? Secret. But it is why I say that my new goal will also influence my professional career.

So what is next? The implementation of new search services such as Google Blog Search, Yahoo!, Altavista, and Alltheweb into Talk Digger.

After? I will come back on this later.

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