More on Feevy

David Silver has more to say about Feevy and what's so new and interesting about it. David's point is  that by turning the standard blog roll into a collection of live excerpts, Feevy does more than make the blogroll more interesting. It changes the blog into a portal, with a collective authorship and new possibilities for reading in a distributed way. It shifts the point of view slightly toward the "we" side of the I / we continuum.

This strikes me as important, because it makes the distributed conversation of the blogosphere one bit more transparent. You can see right on my blog not just who I read but what they're saying today. My blog becomes a portal into my slice of the conversation.

I've added Feevy to my blog, as you can see in the margin here, and I'm pretty pleased. And, as you can see, the layout and presentation aren't perfect. I'm using the "liquid layout," because the default fixed-width layout doesn't fit in my margin. It looks a little funky--but I'm ok with it, to tell the truth. The content is what matters, right?

I initially had a quibble with the information design of the Feevy widget, because it looks a little strange to me to use the title of the post as the header and the name of the blog / author as a wee little link at the bottom of the excerpt. Now that I think about it a little more, though, I'm starting to see the presentation of the content as primary and author as secondary as an interesting shift away from viewing the blogosphere as a collection of identities and toward viewing it as a collection of voices.

In other words, a standard blogroll uses the author as the organizing principle, and the content is subordinate (and a click away). Feevy uses the post title as the organizing principle, and the author is subordinate.

Those headers still look weird to me, though. This points to a real challenge forthcoming in the design of a multivocal web: when lots of people contribute equivalent objects, like the headers in Feevy, they don't tend to make sense as a group without the right kind of consistent framing. They lack equivalency. The author / blog link in Feevy should provide that structural context, but it's a little too small to work well.

UPDATE: Feevy added a new layout option that works much better on my blog. See the new version at right, and David's comment below.

The lesson for me here is that collections of user-generated content objects require a backdrop of context, framing, and containment. The free-for-all idealist in me feels a little nervous typing those words!

There's a new information architecture on the horizon. Stay tuned.

Comments

[dmsilver]

"Now that I think about it a little more, though, I'm starting to see the presentation of the content as primary and author as secondary as an interesting shift away from viewing the blogosphere as a collection of identities and toward viewing it as a collection of voices."

exactly.

one thing - i would consider replacing the generic avatars with actual photographs of the bloggers on your feevy. the feevy blog makes an interesting point regarding increased visits to blog posts that use photos.

[Ryan]

Yeah, that's a great point David. Aside from humans being monkeys who like to look at pictures of other monkeys, the photos add a layer of humanness to the voices that reinstates the importance of the author as organizing principle.

(I've been meaning to get those pics loaded into Feevy--now I have a specific reason to do so. It's now at 325 on my priority list, up from 836. Thanks!)

[sarah]

about the post name as heading, rather than blog name: the promotion of topics, rather than blog names offers more contextual information to new visitors. that is, my scientific sampling of my mom visiting david's blog and viewing his feevy turned her on to your blog (she reads it!) and subsequently, other blogs, not because the blogger's name or the blog name are trusted sources, but because the topic piqued her curiousity. (go mom!)

[Ryan]

I love it. Hi Jini!

The whole notion of inverting the standard identity / content hierarchy is one I love more the more I think about it. I do see it as a shift of emphasis--away from who you "know" and toward the substantive conversation behind the relationship.

hi ryan.....long time no hacky sack! jini

[David de Ugarte]

Ryan, David, Sarah...

Im so happy you understand feevy as what it is -a piece of cyberactivism tryng to change the focus in blogosphere- that I dont know how to thank this discussion...

Ow yes... making graphic personalization more beautiful and accessible :-) I hope to have during this weekend some Feevy-CSS tutorials oriented towards the "liquid" skin... Anyway today we made some little changes in its default structure and I think is a little more grate now... isnt it? :-S

[David de Ugarte]

Hi Ryan!
Some news from feevy:

1. in your feevy tag change the word "liquid" by "white"... i think your feevy presentation will improve

2. Add to your feevy list
* delicious searches or your network (direct link to the fav taged)
* Flickr or Picasa users or searches (thumbnail of the last image in the RSS)

Im sure you will like it!

[Ryan]

Thanks, David. I switched to the white layout, and yes indeed it does look better. I'll try out the Flickr user feature on my personal blog--great stuff!