Print Blogs!

two links to possibly related [other blogger's] postings

2007-08-05T23:05:00.001+02:00

I just stumpled upon a pair of links possibly related to blog printing. The linked pages are in German, hence beware. One is Printed Net Culture -- Konr@ad First Issue. Two is Newsp Papers Online -- What will change the next three years.

Updates: none so far

Life in Babylon blog -- (CC) (BY) (SA) 2.0

2007-07-24T21:40:00.002+02:00

A non-regional blog under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike with a sports portion reading quite good -- for someone not interested in [passive, i.e. couch sitting] sports at all.

Updates: none so far

Netbib blog -- (CC) (BY) 2.0

2007-07-24T21:40:00.001+02:00

Noticed, the German language library blog netbib goes under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. Despite that's a rather small local relationship, however it might serve by some reliable background info.

Updates: none so far

Search for commercially reusable content under Creative Commons

2007-07-24T21:38:00.000+02:00

There are tons of "pages that are free to use or share, even commercially", findable by a search offered by Creative Commons.

On the page linked above, tabbed browsing metaphor gets used in a misleading manner: One might expect clicking on any of the tabs results in a search entry field below the series of tabs. But that's not the case. The tabs, apparently, became tabs only by accident.

Instead, the interesting part of the story begins when choosing a tab, then forgetting the tabbed browsing metaphor and use the one-liner text entry field at the top of the page.

There you enter the thing your looking for. Then, the search gets performed by the search tool you choosed before by selecting that "tab". And then, after you get the results of your search, the tabs suddenly make sense: The results appear the tab you chose. And clicking to any alternative tab results in quickly asking the matching search engine for a search, and the search results get displayed in the "tabbed area" also. Just as expected. Only the initial part is confusing.

However, that results in the conclusion this blog has achieved its goal yet: Although manually I found only less than a dozen sources yet, the search engine site reveals "all the rest" (of course, not all of the rest, but a big-number share of it).

Hence, now, I can narrow what to search for. Pick only sources that relate to local issues, look for pictures or text only, maybe entertainment audio files or local even podcasts, and last not least, for sources in a non-foreign language, as that might appeal local 'strangers' most. -- Or, I could go ahead and see which sources might look credible and which don't.

Updates: none so far

Pro Linux -- individual re-use agreement

2007-07-24T21:36:00.002+02:00

German language Linux news site Pro Linux allows an educative or personal re-use of its content. Also, re-publication and distribution for non-commercial purposes is allowed.

If the interest is a commercial one, the re-publisher needs a written permission.

Updates: none so far

KDE wiki -- GNU FDL

2007-07-24T21:36:00.001+02:00

Content of the KDE wiki is subject to the GNU Free Documentation License.

Updates: none so far

Netzpolitik.org -- (CC) (BY) (NC) (SA) 2.0

2007-07-24T21:35:00.002+02:00

The German politics x net site Netzpolitik.org gets licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike.

To get something of that site republished might be either as simple as just asking Markus -- or nitpicking with the license: In case anyone had a paper republishing content under this license, there might be a price for that paper, but that price were for the work only (selection, compilation, printing, distribution), but not for the content itself. -- I didn't look at the license that deep until now -- as I said, that would become a dirty nitpicking.

Anyways, currently I am looking for re-publishable sources, not after getting anything certain republished that is under (CC) (BY) (NC) (SA) 2.0. However, the (CC) (NC) issue has to be kept in mind.

Updates: none so far

Electronic Frontier Foundation Site -- (CC) (BY) (NC) 2.0

2007-07-24T21:35:00.001+02:00

Content of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as its home page indicates, is under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

The indication is rather small, somewhere in the left sidebar of the site, above the sponsors.

Updates: none so far

Content of Wikisource

2007-07-24T21:34:00.000+02:00

Content of Wikisource is subject of different terms of license, for the English and the German content: German Wikisource content is public domain ("gemeinfrei"), while the English license simply points to the GNU Free Documentation License.

Updates: none so far

How to comply the different licenses?

2007-07-24T21:33:00.000+02:00

Wiki Commons contributes a kind of HowTo describing how to comply to the several licenses.

Updates: none so far

Wikinews -- (CC) (BY) 2.5

2007-07-24T21:31:00.000+02:00

The German version of Wikinews is under Creative Commons, Attribution 2.5. Same so for the English version.

That means, under these conditions (German) the content may be re-published.

Updates: none so far

Merging found freely re-publishable sources to Print Blogs!

2007-07-24T21:21:00.000+02:00

I was out for searching freely republishable sources -- a hundred of them, to be exact, to get a base stock to choose from. For that I set up a collective blog. Here's its introduction:

meta blog for re-publishable sources

What is this blog about? This blog is about to collect a 100 freely..conditionally re-publishable web sources. This blog is a helper blog to Print blogs! to collect the sources to actually get done a First Issue of Blog Press.

The blog here is a meta blog. It references external sources.

As I quickly found and figured how to use the Creative Commons search tool, the need for a hundred determinable sources dropped. Therefore, the need for that explicit sources collecting blog disappeared.

Also, I found local news might not the relevant news to shift over the news gap. Therefore I copy only the Creative Commons search tool introducing post and some sources not related to my local neighbourhood. -- The copy gets included to the current, the Print Blogs! blog.

Updates: none so far

Fostering a meta blog to collect re-publishable web sources?

2007-07-22T11:25:00.000+02:00

What about keeping a meta blog that references sources of the web which may be used for a local print-out of that web news? Such meta-blog postings could tag the source linked by a license tag, plus several tags indicating the source's issue//content.

That way, it might become possible to focus down a newspaper issue to local field of sight rather than a regional view only. In other words: I could set up a selling box near the post office and another one near the work exchange, and both issues would differ by addressing different kinds of backgrounds, although both boxes might stand within sight.

Updates: none so far

Newspapers begin to switch to using blogs as their primary news channel

2007-07-21T14:08:00.000+02:00

Chicago Tribune switches to blogs as its primary news channel. Publishing 2.0 reports on that issue.

Updates: none so far

an issue with treemap rendering to a text

2007-07-09T08:35:00.000+02:00

Treemap layout related to graphics and related to text might be a bit different: Text might require some high-end rendering, i.e. without stairy characters nor with any visible anti-aliasing. Hence, the available treemap generators cannot simply get re-used to render whole articles: Printing the resulting images inevitably would cause that stairy look, and antialising it would become visible too.

Alternative might be to apply treemap division of text areas of a sheet. That could be achieved by using tables as known from HTML source code: Larger areas would get merged by something like a colspan. Therefore, to get a chance to get treemap cells of decreasing sizes, originally, the raster needs to be fine-grained, e.g. a hundred by a hundred cells -- to be able to address cells of at most one percent in height/width of the sheet.

Such tables, could get rendered to HTML or to LaTeX -- and from there to any format one can imagine.

However, there is an issue with that, still, left over: Where the ruby text treemap (mostly) gets it done to let the text end at the cell boundraries. -- In a TeX file that might miscarry since the text renderer might 'choose' the more simple approach: blow up the cell so that all the text given fits there, into the boundraries. -- Which would violate the total size of the table and might contradict the visual impression of the tree map too. Might it be, some of the cells would grow larger than initialized by the treemap, and others might shrink because of less text than those overgrown cells?

That's an issue that remains to be solved.

Updates: none so far

links on rendering text to tree maps

2007-07-09T00:48:00.000+02:00

Since having decided already to apply treemaps to any postings printed, I looked around for some tree mapping tools for text, especially for LaTeX -- since that can easily get rendered to top-quality print output.

So far, I noticed:

To gather the postings themselves might be technically simple: They could get collected by RSS [or similar] feeds.

Updates: none so far

Dear visitor, thanks for the link!

2007-06-21T19:17:00.000+02:00

Today, another page lander revealed another page dealing with blogs about to print. Amongst them something like "Print 2.0". Might be worth a read. -- It's a technorati search results page.

Updates: none so far

Set up a publicly manageable calendar that lists the events someone otherwise provides manually, not automatically processable

2007-06-10T08:47:00.000+02:00

Just the moment I encourage you to tell me your assessment of any my news sources, also for calendars, I get the idea about -- What about to set up an own calendar that lists the events other sites provide - but not as RSS? -- Any publicly manageable calendar tool might suffice for that aim, and, maybe, the original event reporters might get won to publish to that calendar or any compatible instead of to continue their manual work, unreliably to automatic processing.

Updates: none so far

Find freely republishable news sources, sources for upcoming events

2007-06-10T08:17:00.000+02:00

Strategy changed. Now, there are two concrete goals to get done with this project, at least for a first issue.

locate freely republishable sources -- also for content unusual for print republication, like audio and video, and content unusual for mass media, like calendars or other (what other formats do exist?)
determine upcoming events so that free sources can be selected beforehand, so that their content can get compared to the mass media news coverage.

Also, any mass media that would allow for republication might support the process to compare mass media and net originated news.

And, as Print Blogs! is the initiation of a project from the ~~readers to the readers~~ -- from people to the people, some of them might help to broaden the pool of known freely republishable sources.

My goal is to establish a credibility of net sources amongst offline people. Therefore, I want all the sources I select to match one important criterion: Be objective! At least, be neutral!

If the source obvously tends to inject propaganda into its sight or myths like conspiracy theories, it's not mine for republication. - These topics are not excluded, but at least I want the sources make clear that what they say is speculative. -- A witness who sees a German armed forces tank near a demonstration, want to film the military and they hide. Because of that, the witness claims, they hid, hence their operation was illegally. -- What is worth such a source? Mixing what he witnesses and what he believes, apparently unable to discern the one from the other -- what a value has such a witness? -- I think: none. Hence, such reports shall not be part of my newscoverage-by-republication. I want the sources the reports rely on be clear, and I want reliable witnesses. -- How else could anyone achieve credibility for the news organ you provide?

As the republishable sources might cumulate over time, I'd really like to learn your assessments for the credibility of the sources I might list. Not only for plain news sources but for calendars also. Your hints on other sources might become quite helpful!

Updates: none so far

Print Blogs? Who else is discussing this topic already? Hewlett Packard? Triathletes?

2007-06-08T09:16:00.000+02:00

Today, someone landed on a sub-page of Print Blogs! after searching Google for "print blogs", i.e. including the quotes. I wondered whether it might someone interested in the project or whether there might be other, similar projects around. -- A quick google on the same search revealed there are about 1,150 google hits on the term "print blogs". Another thing found, is that "print blogs" apparently is a homonym: It might be "Print blogs!" as intended by me, and it might be "Print blogs", i.e. blogs related to print and the press.

However, seeing all these search engine results, I became curious whether or not there might be any other project around, like mine. I crawled through about 150 of the search results. What I found, what might be relevant for an intention to print blogs:

Blogs Need A Separate Print Button? -- The article on Techdirt, I read few days ago. I had the impulse to add an reply there, but I knew, currently I have no time to do so -- since I am after to get a new job.
How to print blogs -- Some triathletes have figured the blog they're logging their progress by might be a nice item to be printed, posterized and hung onto the walls. -- Well, my effort in getting blogs printed is more after a tabloid format for the printed blogs, so one can read them in the bus or train. Additionally, Print Blogs! is not after printing single blogs as a whole but to compile them -- user-driven compiled -- to a news survey, just as newspapers do. (Hence, I also think, HP's idea to print blogs is just a step behind: If you'd start to read printed blogs you probably don't want to carry around dozens of printed blogs and a newspaper, but better off all in once. -- If you could get the newspaper articles embedded into the blog news survey, it would be even better, but I thing newspapers might prefer perform withdrawal skirmishs (cf. Techdirt on horse-drawn carriages) rather than getting on the new bandwaggon.)
Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen... -- In the comments, a reader of that blog mentions that he cannot print the posting and want it fixed: "[...] i usually print blogs and read it on the subway home." -- That matches one intended audience for Print Blogs!, commuters.
Blurb is Open for Business -- TechCrunch on blurb.com/, a service to print blogs and other privately created content to books. TechCrunch readers comment on similar services. -- From the Print Blogs! point of view: Not a great deal. But for users willing to get a blog printed as a whole likely a starting point.
HP tries to tap into explosion of Web content. Page was not available directly, hence linked to Google cache. -- Another article showing interest in HPs approach to get blogs printed. -- Especially that "Now Palo Alto-based HP is [...] working [...] to make it easier to print Web content." and that mention of MySpace made me think of how to print content of YouTube. And the answer is -- at least could be: by a flip-book. Maybe not a rate of 25 frames a second, but 16 might be enough to get an impression of the content. - Ten seconds - a mere 160 pages block. Sounds reasonable and doable.
The Tempest in a Teapot—Of Course They Don't -- A reader's comment in another blog, who's pointing out how press people try to cash in by printing blogs and how they strip out critical commentary and how they "look down their noses at their readers and consider them a necessary demographic, ignorant to the max and decadent to the core." -- Hints on how to better not to approach any Print Blogs! project.
[in German] RP goes Print-Blogs. mentions an experiment like Print Blogs! two years ago, initiated by someone of a German Newspaper. Apparently planned to get the blog readers read newspapers, i.e. without recognizing the demands of the audiences, but nice to see that there was such an effort already. It lacked the feedback channel, and the content was picked by the editors -- which might be rather far from what blog experienced readers might want. However, might be interesting to find the people who initiated that project those day and find out about their experiences. Maybe they'd be able to contribute an important part to a new effort.

That were the results out of about 150 Google results dealing with the topic to print blogs. I omitted the results pointing to blogs from the print sector as well as articles primarily dealing with blogs press might experiment with to keep readers. -- The latter, in my eyes, is a backwardly oriented approach I think noone being after embracing print my new media can learn from. -- The print people obviously are mostly after embracing new technology by being after keeping the established.

Updates: none so far

Ryan Sholin on obvious things about the future of newspapers

2007-06-04T09:14:00.000+02:00

The next one thought about the future of newspapers. This time, it's Ryan Sholin of Invisible Inkling who provides a 10 points list on "[...] obvious things about the future of newspapers [...]".

While the first two of his clues are really obviously, on his third point I don't agree with him: To the newspapers, he suggest, they should write locally, meet local cooks, poets, artists, because all the other news people would get of the net. I don't agree because my daily experience doesn't match with that: In the local labour exchange office, the clients are perfectly educated on topics being relevant locally but not on their rights and duties when coping with the office. In that point they completely rely on what the officials in charge allege. That situation was one of the causes for my efforts to get net content re-published to that 'real world'.

However, Ryan Sholins list looks quite inspiringly: Partitially it reads like a cook book for how to make Print Blogs! a success. Alone his direct invitation to meet local artists, cooks and poets lets one imagine how the news might look like if 'citizen reporters' would unite locally to produce local content in print and digital. -- Audio, for example, might be DAP loadable and reduce the hurdle for people not comfortable with reading.

And so on... Sholins fourth point, to stop navelgazing but educate people to get over current problems, especially for the people over at the labour exchange office might be rather beneficial.

The imagination of digital local content, Sholin picks up by his point #6, and to take "new technologies" (information gadgets, SMS, Podcasts, etc.) into consideration, is anything new to him. For Print Blogs!, I am stuck with the idea to open a feedback channel for offline readers. Voting by SMS comes into mind. Both are quite ubiquitously available, and to set up such a channel might be simple.

Since the benefits of such ubiquitous tools and basic mechanisms like voting tools and user/reader participation are so obvious, I wonder why they aren't yet as ubiquitously applied to newspapers as the tools and gadgets are common amongst their readers.

A more recent posting of mine links to two postings of Steffen Büttel. The second deals with what might happen to the German newspaper market the upcoming three years. Steffen was so kind to intro my links in English, shortly, in the comments. Also, he hints to a similar study performed by Howard Owens which does "the same" (Steffen) for the US market.

Updates: 20070807: added the mention of Steffen's postings and hints

Schneier hints on television's influence on people

2007-05-18T02:24:00.000+02:00

Nice to see that even security specialist Bruce Schneier queries the influence of television on people. Matches with my doubt on mass media in general.

Updates: none so far

How Print Blogs! might affect existing markets

2007-05-14T06:21:00.000+02:00

The recent posting about how the Print Blogs! project might evolve strongly influences how the project might want to achieve its final goal -- to tear down the barrier that hinders net-originated self-education (sometimes misleadingly referred to as "content") to transgress//materialize//gush into real life.

Where today there's a pool of software, free software, simply to choose from, by Print Blogs there might uprise a sibling pool featuring content freely to choose from.

Where today people feeling having something to utter keep blogs -- and there are many of them --, by Print Blogs people might begin to compile magazines collected from free content.

Where today traditional dead tree media newspapers struggle because of online competition, by Print Blogs, they might disappear completely: People having something to utter, by Print Blogs these people can do that (instead of being restricted to higher-effort readers' letters). Instead of being restricted to single postings, pages, or topics, compilations can span multiple topics, and a pool of known free content eases for everyone to create such a compilation; for press people as well as for laymen.

Where today newspapers make a living for their writers by charging their readers as well as their advertisers, Print Blogs! might influence that business a way that it results in a living for the compiler only, and only if they charge for the publication [which does not conflict with any restrictions (of the content) against commercial use so long as the charge is for not the content but something else, e.g. the delivery, print, logistics backend to serve newspaper boxes]. Writers might make a living when compilers share their profit with their content creators/the authors they took/take content from.

Print Blogs might cause a flood of cheap/free special interest papers/magazines/compilations. At least it might improve the way news make it to the audiences and how audiences feed back to the stage and blackboards where everyone can notice ("read") it, assimilate from, discuss it. News don't originate from the prominent only but from every single individual too. Why should these believe in what others say only? Why should their own contributions be less important? Why should they themselves ignore what they think and say and ponder and conclude? Why should noone else listen to them? Why should the chance to be heard depend on others who 'discover' you, like record labels practise?

Updates: none so far

Print Blogs! might be: community project -- piece of free software -- social platform

2007-05-13T22:30:00.000+02:00

I continued to wonder whether or not a free software project should be initiated to support the approach to 'print blogs'. Up to then it was clear, that -- at the latest after an initial issue -- creating the news magazine should be/become a community project and the content compilation shall be freely downloadable and redistributable.

To set it up as a community project might help to share the workload to more shoulders but a few. -- A freely downloadable version of the content would support anyone who wants their net news paper variant to become distributed widely: The more people can read it online, the more people will. The more there's a permission to print and distribute that online available version, the more will do so, the broader the audience of the derivate maker will be. Therefore, also to create some kind of software that supports making other variants of such a net news would make sense: The software could launch with something as simples as fetching news feeds, select keywords -- maybe, by whatever way, even hot topics -- help to search/find other sources that cope with those topics. That would be useful especially to find sources that allow republication -- or to skim through sites yet associated to provide the net news with content the net news are allowed to republish.

Not only would it make sense to create a piece of software that helps in finding alternative -- publishable -- sources, but even to provide a whole platform that enables small interest groups, even single individuals to create their own variants of net originated news: The bundled intelligence/competence would help to pillow up a resource of articles which are free to be republished. Every other platform user could select articles from that pool without any need to worry about legal issues: the content listed there simply would be free and freely republishable.

Some of the platform users might be authors by themselves. They might release their own works only to their own net news issues. But they could exchange such rights with other authors: If any two platform users published anything of their own under restrictions, author B might ask author B for the permission of republication. In exchange for that permission he might permit the other author to republish a restricted article of himself. Similar to patent exchanges amongst companies.

The audiences of issues might tag republished content. (That could be achieved by utilizing pagers or something else.) The tag might go to the pool of content yet known to be republishable freely. Having the items of that pool tagged, the search tool looking for specific content could be improved to have a look on that pool of tagged items too.

Updates: none so far

"Print Blogs!" -- What this approach is about.

2007-05-13T22:01:00.000+02:00

About the handle "print blogs". "Print blogs" is a handle. In fact, that "blogs" refers to any net content, and that "print" refers to an republication to any audience not linked to the web.

"Print" currently refers to provide with the net content by technology people are familiar with an that's easily available in the physicsal world. That might be to print content to the common display technology known as "paper/print" as well as to copy content to a new but yet familiar replay technology, named "digital audio player".

"Any net content", currently, primarily refers to texts and might refer to audio data, the second glance, but as the comfortable display technologies evolve, net content to be republished might grow to motion pictures as well.

And what is the approach about?

The approach is about to acquiring net content, do something not yet figured out in between, republish it to the real world. That republication might be on a regular basis or not. The republication might make use of the same format the net content originally appeared in or in any different format, e.g. a piece of net content originally published as text might be republished as an audio-file, e.g. daily news for commuters, or vice versa, or as a show or in stripped down versions to make them fit any pre-given time frame.

Updates: none so far