Newsmashing.. aka 3rd Voice Redux
Remember 3rd Voice? That Singaporean dotcom that made headlines, and if I'm not wrong even made it into the syllabus of some law faculty?, by allowing anyone with their tool to "write on top of" any website (viewable only by fellow 3rd Voice users). Its kind of hard to fully grasp the full implications of such empowerment.. but on the "good side" it just means any web page can have "comments", rather than just forums or blogs. The concept was kind of revolutionary.. and still is.. but they're now defunct, so.
However, a week ago, kokogiak realized that recent tools are in fact sufficient to do newsmashing (coined by Paul Boutin, refers to the 3rd-voice-ish web page graffiti) again. And with the help of del.icio.us, he wrote del.icio.us linkbacks that lets you quickly browse what other people are writing about the page you're currently viewing. However, to use his app I have to open up a new browser window (tab).. and to me, that's quite a disruptive interface.
So, I'd hacked up a tiny-weeny greasemonkey script (so its for firefox/opera browser users only) that lets you view the stuff directly on-top-of the page itself.. oh well, show-don't-tell. See: flash demo
Note: To install Greasemonkey, visit its homepage, and click on the "Click Here to Install Greasemonkey" link at the centre of the page. After which, you can install my script located here: yanime.user.js.
I have comments that the clickable "c" tag isn't obvious enough, so let me address this feedback first. The aim is actually to not disturb the web browsing experience too much.. whilst providing an easy access to look at thought-links from delicious.
So, is that going to change blogging forever? I dunno, you tell me.