Pageflakes Pagecasts
This post seeks to shed some light on the topics of Pageflakes, “pagecasts”, how they’re created, potential uses, and some of the issues to bear in mind when investigating their use.
Note: The above clip best viewed full size. Click on the TV icon in the embedded player above to load the full screen view, or view the clip at Blip.TV.
Background
Pageflakes is one of a growing number of websites that enables people to establish a personalised and customised space on the web. Unlike the websites of a number of years ago, where content was static, and text and images had to be changed manually through use of coding languages, Pageflakes pages are created and maintained from the site itself and largely through drag-and-drop processes.
Importantly, the information included on Pageflakes pages is not restricted to the site, but can also include content from across the web - this includes text, images, video, RSS and even ways to interact with other applications like Gmail and Twitter. A large and growing library of “flakes” (content options) is available and can be customised to suit the user’s needs.
While a degree of set-up is required to create a page on Pageflakes, this revolves primarily around aesthetic considerations regarding page layout and colour scheme, as well as what content to include. Technical expertise is not a requirement for use. As the above video clip illustrates, in most cases customisation involves simply nominating tags/terms to narrow the search results, or adding the URL to the site or RSS feed.
Set-up
To set-up your own Pageflakes pagecast just follow these steps:
Create an Account
- Go to http://www.pageflakes.com and click on Sign-up
- Enter your details in the form
- Locate contacts if desired (optional)
- Click “Sign Up” when complete.
You are now logged in and will see a page displayed with default content. You can keep or remove as much of this as you like, as well as add additional content sources from the main menu.
Create a New Page
To create and customise a new page please do the following:
- Login to Pageflakes
- Click “Add Page” from in the row of tabs towards the top of the screen and a blank page is loaded
- Double-click the new tab to rename it
- To add new content, click the large yellow menu button in the upper right hand corner of the screen
- Click on a site or service (e.g. YouTube) to add it to the page, then click edit to customise the display options
- Click “Add RSS Feed” to include blog/wiki updates. Include the feed location where indicated
- Click “Browse All Flakes” for additional options
- To move panels around, simply click on the heading of the panel and drag into the desired position.
Publish the Page as a Pagecast
When you’re ready to share your page with others - or to make it publicly visible - please do the following:
- Login to Pageflakes
- Go to the tab/page you wish to publish
- Click the big yellow menu button to open the options
- Click “Make Pagecast” from the options in the left menu and choose an access level. The options are:
- Keep it Private - only you have access
- Share it with Friend or Group (Group Pagecast) - only nominated individuals have access
- Publish Page to the world (Public Pagecast) - everyone has access
- Select a username (this is included in the pagecast’s URL/weblink)
- Assign the page a title, include a description, and add tags/descriptors
- Click “Save” when finished and your pagecast is visible at the specified access level.
Pageflakes as a Blogging Portal
As discussed in a previous post, Pagecasts could be used to establish a portal to aggregate the updates of a wider group or community, such as a classroom blogging exercise:
“In the context of classroom blogging projects, this could easily be used as a portal whereby students and staff could browse through the recent contributions. Given the view options include the ability to restrict access to nominated individuals you could also maintain a level of privacy where only classroom participants have access, or open it up as a showcase for what your class is doing.
I’ve created an example I’ve called the “edubloggers aggregate“…which contains the feeds for 12 of the blogs I follow. Personally I find the Pageflakes format much more conducive to browsing than a blog-as-portal. In some ways it even looks like an online magazine.”
More on that post here: “Pageflakes as a Blogging Portal”
It should be noted too that use of Pageflakes in this way does not preclude the use of other RSS aggregators or Feed Readers to view the same content. RSS pushes site/blog updates to all corners of the web; they are visible anywhere and in multiple locations at the same time.
More on RSS here: “Really Simple Syndication (RSS)”
Issue to Consider: Page Load Time
The primary consideration with Pageflakes and the like (including Netvibes), is the pageload time required to render the page on screen. “Page load time” refers to the amount of time required for all content to be displayed on-screen. The more data that needs to be processed, the more time it will take to be displayed.
In the case of Pageflakes and other content aggregators like it, the underlying technologies that make the site valuable - namely the content aggregation - can also slow it down even further. Each time the page loads, Pageflakes checks for updates on every site thats included in the pagecast - this includes RSS feeds, images, YouTube, etcetera. So the more sites you reference, the longer the page will take to load.
The significance of this lay with accessibility considerations. Users with high-speed internet connections will not notice a huge delay in page load time; however users on dial-up will. Therefore it’s important to bear in mind the target audience of the pages you create. If you’re in a rural area in which dial-up is the only option, or if Internet access is not ubiquitous in your region, Pageflakes may not be for you. As nice at flashy as it is, if you can’t access the content on the site it will offer no value to the end users.
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008