SKY TG24 "IoReporter"

David Weinberger about "Opinion Radars"

I'm receiving very interesting feedbacks about my "Opinion Radars" idea from many bloggers around the world (special thanks to Gerrit Visser Smartmobs).

I have also talked with David Weinberger to have his expert feedback.
As always, he came up with excellent ideas and comments worth reading:

"I think the general idea is good and that something like it will succeed, but I think it's more likely to come from some huge player, especially google.
I'm very interested in seeing how tagging becomes a differentiated space instead of the flat space it is now.

Already people are suggesting using prefixes as de facto category tags. E.g., Global Visions, a Berkman Center project, suggests that you tag blogs that give insight into their countries with a "gv:" tag, as in "gv:ghana."
As these prefixes proliferate, we're going to have the same problem as with the DNS.

What happens when Gelber Vistavision (or some other company) starts tagging its stuff "gv:"?
So, I think it's a huge issue, and I suspect it will be addressed definitively by sites that have the clout to convince taggers to adopt their tag sets.
Alternatively, it's possible that the grassroots will adopt a general purpose tag set before sites like Google do, but if we do, I suspect we'll adopt not a single tag here and there (gv or opinionradar) but a few of them all at once, in relation to one another, e.g., "dc-author:" and "dc-language:" (I say "dc" because the Dublin Core would love for us all to adopt its categories). "

Opinion Radars: a quick and easy way to aggregate bloggers' opinions ?

How can we easily gather bloggers' opinions about specific topics?
How can someone get the blogosphere's view about "Iraq" or "Michael Jackson"?
Or at least, of those bloggers who want to clearly state their opinions on such issues?

Now there are some cool tools around (Blogpulse, Technorati, Feedster, etc.), but they are not accurate enough about any given  topic.
And even if we carefully select and verticalize the RSS feeds, we risk to have in the same RSS flow both stories about software patents and posts on "Sex Gandam" images.

Maybe a mixing of Folksonomy approach (Folksonomy is "a practice of  collaborative categorization using simple tags") and the Technorati TAG could do the trick.

Here is my idea -- for now, let's call it "Opinion Radars":

1. We could use a universal common tag associated with the blogger's statement (I propose <opinionradar>, but other suggestions are welcome).
2. To have your post listed in the Opinion Radar, just embed the universal Technorati tag <opinionradar + specific topic>. If, for example, the issue is "Iraq", add this code to your post: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/opinionradar+Iraq" rel="tag">opinionradar Iraq</a>.
3. In case of pictures about these screenshots, upload them to Flickr by tagging as <opinionradar + specific topic>.
4. Any links related to your opinion on a given topic should be collected to "opinionradar" in del.icio.us.
5. That's it!
   Now a simple search of those tags in the Technorati TAG could quickly find specific opinion of those bloggers who cared to use those tags.

Even if not bug-free, I believe this approach could be useful in creating a better distributed information.
For example a TV show like this one, SkyTG24 Pianeta Internet (but obviously all journalist and Media can benefit)  will  immediately get the blogosphere's view about a given topic, without filtering tons of  not pertinent stories.

As for Folksonomy, maybe  the major problem will be the spam abuse -- which can be  prevented by developing and adopting the right tools [*].

I'd love to hear from you about this idea -- please post any comments and suggestions in the comment area.

Marco Montemagno

[*] "The NewsMasters Toolkit" is an  excellent resource.
[**] Thanks to: Robin, who suggested "Opinion Radars" name and gave me great inputs; Bernardo, for help and ideas; Luca, Massimo and Giuseppe for their expert opinions and helpful critics.