I first saw Technorati show up in my referers early last week, but I'm just now getting a chance to play with it. It will take me some time to tour my own cosmos!

My first question is can I get additions to my list of inbound blogs and inbound links as an RSS feed?...

Addendum: David Sifry left a comment noting that I could get a Watchlist of my inbound blogs and links for $5/year. Very cool! He's thinking about making this information available as an RSS feed for $10/year, and he wants to know if this is a good price point. I think it is, since I'd prefer this information in my aggregator since I'm already on the web at that point. I have to figure out a better way to do email (I'm currently pulling it down to a specific PC in the house) before it would be useful to me there. But let David know what you think about the pricing.

You can read more about Technorati at David's site, Sifry's Alerts. It's a very interesting project that I hope succeeds. It's aggregate resources like this that will help with conversations and social networks.

Paring It Down with RSS Distiller

"We have over 130 people (teachers and students) posting on our various pMachine weblogs, I've been struggling to find a useful way to get individual RSS feeds from my class weblogs. The one xml file our blogs spit out is daunting to filter through since it shows posts from all our sites. I tried the Radio Tools RSS Distiller Pat mentioned. I managed to create separate feeds from my project site and my class sites. I don't have to skim through a mile long list of posts." [Brooklyn BloggEd]

Most interesting! I need to find out more about this project. Be sure to visit Joe's Spanish-American War: Historical Weblog Project to see a fascinating use of blogging in a classroom environment (including extra credit and student responses via the comments).

I'm familiar with SchoolBlogs (especially their examples of Best Practices), but does anyone know if there's a write-up somewhere (online or in print) listing or summarizing these types of blogging projects in education?

Update: Will Richardson is "collecting teacher and education related examples of Weblog use," with many listed under the "Best Practices" section in the gutter on his site. An excellent resource - LOTS of good stuff there.

And as I'd hoped he would do, Pat Delaney left a comment with some pointers, particularly to Sebastian Fiedler.

I wish I had time to track this better, because I think this is a potentially valuable space for collaboration between teachers, school librarians, and public librarians.

Tomorrow's News Today! Vancouver Public Library Is The First Library In The World To Offer NewspaperDirect Service

"Vancouver Public Library is the first library in the world to offer NewspaperDirect - a unique, cutting edge product which provides same-day access to over 150 international newspapers. With the time difference between Vancouver and many of the newspapers offered, VPL will actually be able to offer tomorrow's news today.

Vancouver Public Library will be providing access to a selection of these papers at the Central Library's Newspaper & Magazines Division, and at a number of Branches. The Central Library will begin this service by offering El Pais (Spain), Korea Daily News (South Korea), the LA Times (USA), Le Monde (France), the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Philippines), the UK Times (England), and the Washington Post (USA). Patrons will be encouraged to suggest future titles in order to expand the choice of the core group of papers." [Vancouver Public Library, via Library News Daily]

Now if they could just figure out the authentication to allow their patrons to subscribe to RSS feeds for individual newspapers.

"Microsoft has come to the rescue with a series of upgrades to its MSN Autos site, which hosts one of Redmond's earliest forays into Web services. Its My Car service offers real-time traffic alerts for 65 major cities, delivered via text message to any mobile phone, pager, or PDA.

After signing up online (autos.msn.com), you punch in information about your mobile device and carrier, dictate your preferences -- what days and times you want to receive the alerts, which regions of your chosen city you'd like to monitor, and so forth -- and voila, the alerts start streaming in. What's more, My Car gives you a personalized Web page that you can visit anytime to change your alert settings, and to get information and reminders tailored to you and your car. And you pay MSN nothing for the service.

I started with My Car in October. Aside from a few glitches I've encountered (more on that later), I'm quite happy with how the site has enhanced the 10 or so hours per week I spend on the road with my three-year-old Saturn sports coupe. MSN isn't the only site offering personalized service for road warriors. Autobytel, for example, has a service called My Garage, and Yahoo! Autos also allows users to set up Web pages for their cars. But MSN's service is by far the most comprehensive and practical of the bunch.

The My Car site alone is enough to keep you and your car humming along. On top of traffic reports, it reminds you when to get your oil changed, gives you the most up-to-date Blue Book value of your car, and provides links to dozens of research tools to help you find a new one.

It also posts a real-time traffic map -- customized to your Zip Code -- that uses flashing red icons to show you where the worst tie-ups are. And here's a neat trick: One particularly cool service tells you which gas stations in your neighborhood have the lowest prices. MSN continues to add new features. Soon to come: a tool that allows users to schedule service appointments with their car dealers online.

Still, the thing that truly sets My Car apart from the competition is the Alerts feature. You can instruct the service to send you bulletins for up to five regions of your city, and specify what days and times you would like them to arrive. That ability to tailor the info is important: If your cellular carrier charges you airtime fees to receive text messages, as many do, you don't want to be paying for information about roads you never take. With My Car, you can also choose to receive news about high, medium, or low-level traffic incidents. And you can instruct the service to send the alerts to your computer by e-mail or MSN Messenger." [BusinessWeek]

A couple of tres cool items from last month's Annual Tech Buying Guide in BusinessWeek:

The Pod - "There's something about the Pod that seems to bring a smile to the face of anyone who picks it up. Could be the unique shape and 'winged' compartment design, or could be the great colors, but this bag--much like the famous car in the commercial--just looks like it's saying 'hi.'

That being said, the Pod is all business on the inside. It's got over 20 (!) smart compartments, and is ideal for your compact camera, MP3 player, or handheld computer, plus all the accessories that travel along." [$50]

Powerdesk Watch - " PowerDisk Watch utilizes the most advanced storage technology available today. A tiny USB Flash Memory Drive sits inside the watch and can support up to 256MB of disk space.

The PowerDisk Watch allows you to access and transport data securely and conveniently. A retractable, modified, USB cord is supplied with every watch and can easily be connected to any computer with a USB port. Once connected, the computer will automatically detect it as a removable drive and you can begin synchronizing data between school, work and home with ease." [$150]

You can also check out Scientific American's Gift Guide, Gizmodo's Gift Guides, and ExtremeTech's Geek Gift Guide. Or, you can just look at any page at ThinkGeek (did you know you can get Jolt Gum now?!).

Hey, have you seen the LeapFrog iQuest? Take a look at that thumbpad. It's like training wheels for PDAs and cell phones. Expect to see the thumb generation take hold in the U.S., too.

Survey: Majority of Chicagoans Own Wireless Phones

"In a recent survey conducted by Verizon Wireless, more than 60 percent of Chicagoans surveyed reported owning a wireless phone.

The dramatic growth of this industry is further demonstrated by the fact that the same survey showed 32 percent of those owning the phones said they obtained it in the last two years....

Now it is totally mainstream. What used to be a luxury item is considered mandatory by many....

According to the survey, 45.8 percent of respondents said that since purchasing a wireless phone, they make fewer long-distance calls from their home landline phones.

More than 20 percent said they made more than 75 percent of their long-distance calls using a wireless phone....

According to retailers, it is not just young people who have been wowed by the wireless revolution.

'Believe it or not, we get a significant number of people over 50 as customers,' Frachalla said. 'They're likely to be using the phones more for safety than for the text features.' " [The Star]

This sounds about right. When I do my presentations, more and more hands are going up when I ask how many people in the audience own a cell phone. Also in today's paper was mMode magazine from AT&T Wireless. They're finally figuring out how to market wireless services, at least for early adopters like me. I'm starting to get tempted.

The Winter 2002 issue of mMode shows cell phones using Yahoo! Messenger, Amazon's 1-Click shopping, weather reports, ESPN sports scores, "Office Online," a friends list that shows where your mMode friends are physically located at that exact moment ("with their permission, of course"), SEGA Soccer Slam, online photo albums for storing the pictures you'll be taking with your cell phone, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, stock quotes, and text messaging. Plus the promise of being able to play Space Invaders.

Then there's the big cover story about Elton John on your phone.

"Now, you can hear songs from the only complete, career-spanning collection of his hits, the new two-CD set Elton John: Greatest Hits 1970-2002, on your wireless phone.

Best of all, once you've listened to your favorite Elton tunes on your phone, you can order the set from Amazon.com and have it shipped anywhere in the U.S. - all with just a few clicks on the keypad of a wireless phone with mMode service."

A separate inset hypes the following:

"Now you can listen to your favorites, the latest releases and more, right on a mobile phone. You can preview new music, learn about your favorite artists, shop for CDs and more....

You're listening to your car radio when a great song comes on - but what's it called and who sings it? Now Playing by Yes makes it easy to access the current play lists of more than 1,000 popular radio stations - from Seattle to New York - and more than 100 cities in between. So you know what played when and who sang it.

It's your life. This is the soundtrack.

Whether you're looking for songs from the radio, listening to music clips, downloading ring tones, searching for artist facts or shopping for CDs, mMode gives you a whole new way to enjoy the world of music."

Of course, Yes.net is available online for anyone to use (it's actually a pretty cool service that deserves more attention). Oddly, though, there is no mention of being able to access one of the online music services via your cell phone. Is this synergistic connection not ready yet? Strange.

If I could buy a phone that worked across multiple networks (the way it often works in Europe), then I'd have my toy right now. Still, the temptation grows....