Comments on: Last thoughts on SWIFT at CiL2008

By: No, Tell Me What You Really Think. . . « The Other Librarian

No, Tell Me What You Really Think. . . « The Other Librarian — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:46:30 +0000

[...] April 13, 2008 in Trends People around town have talked about Swift, and some were invited to a feedback session on Swift. Already, comments have come out about that session, and I’m even mentioned in one of them. [...]

By: joshua m. neff

joshua m. neff — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:25:08 +0000

Well said, Jason. I respect ITI for trying something new–heck, isn’t that what we always say libraries and librarians should be doing? Taking risks? Daring to fall? Getting back up again and trying something else? But any harshness we had for SWIFT itself was, as far as I’m concerned, the ugly truth. It’s not just librarians who care about terms of service. It’s not just webby librarians who can navigate and aggregate without needing a commercial platform. Maybe there are conference-goers who want SWIFT and would use it, but I think there are more people than just those of us in the room who wouldn’t need it at all. And while I appreciate what Kathleen Gilroy’s original motivation and inspiration was…in the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the result, the product. And it’s just not something I see any use for.

By: Jill Hurst-Wahl

Jill Hurst-Wahl — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:59:17 +0000

JASON, sorry…was typing fast and saw “Ryan”. Color me very apologetic!

Yes, the URLs on the photos are perfect!

By: Crowdvine versus SWIFT

Crowdvine versus SWIFT — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:43:35 +0000

[...] Jason Griffey summed up my conclusions almost to the letter.Â See, there was this meeting with the Otter Group. I was only at the meeting with the Otter Group for twenty minutes, since I had to catch a flight, but it seemed o.k., as far as meetings go. [...]

By: Jill Hurst-Wahl

Jill Hurst-Wahl — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:39:35 +0000

Ryan, thanks for the summary. Although some of us were a bit harsh, I think we said what she/Otto Group needed to hear. We didn’t get it what made SWIFT better than what we’re doing now. And we were their test market.

The feedback continued at the reception afterwards. I was pleased to hear Dick Kaiser talk about it. They had jumped at what sounded like an idea, but the decisions sounded rushed. I think he appreciated our input and questions. In our case, we were able to think about it in a way that they could not.

BTW now I’m glad I took those photos! (I wondered if they would be useful….)

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:15:25 +0000

This tracks pretty closely with how I remember it. Thanks for writing it up.

By: Meredith

Meredith — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:24:54 +0000

I caught enough of her presentation to know that it was incredibly misguided. I’m not sure how she thought that better explaining what SWIFT was would help. I guess she really believes that SWIFT is amazing and we just don’t get it. Sigh…

I know when I created a wiki for the Buying and Selling eContent conference for Information Today last year, there was a company that wanted to display their feed of blogs about eContent (which they didn’t know how to display themselves, but that’s another story). When I found out that they were SELLING mashed up feeds like that, I was baffled, because it’s something you can accomplish with any number of free tools (RSSMixer, Feed Digest, Yahoo! Pipes, etc.). It seems like the best market for tools like that is for people who know nothing about the technologies and just want to pay for something that works. Of course, SWIFT can’t even do that because they need to market it to people who tag things who, for the most part, know how to do this stuff on their own. I find it interesting that companies like this are still managing to make money when there are so many models for doing this sort of stuff for $0. And even if the conference organizers don’t want to put it all together themselves, there are lots of people like us who would be happy to do that for them for a lot less than these companies charge.

So, techie conference organizers, look for help from within. There are lots of smart, able folks who would love to set up or build you what you want and will charge you a lot less to do it.

By: K.G. Schneider

K.G. Schneider — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:48:40 +0000

What you said.

I’ll try to swim to the surface and post a me-too that also talks about our ole pal, the tipping point.