September 16, 2006
Pageflakes Tabs Shareable in Groups
Pageflakes has been bubbling under on my 'post about this' radar for some time - I wanted to hold off until I'd built a pageflake or two to how off - so when they got in touch to talk about sponsorship (no can do from an academic network:-(, I bounced a couple a of questions back about how groups would be handy for sharing tabs amongst students regstered on a particular course in the hope I could get a story or two out of them;-)
I should possibly have done my homework first, of course, because it seems that Pageflakes supports group sharing:
Sharing means invitation-only. If you share a page, only the people that you invite will be able to access it. These selected people will also be able to edit the page. If you publish a page, anyone can view it but only you can make changes. ... Now, invite some people to your page. The people that you invite don't have to be Pageflakes users. They will receive an email with a link which lets them view your page. You can also invite more people later. If you change your mind, you can un-invite people or un-share/un-publish the page anytime.
(I'm guessing email is used here because: a) Pageflakes users sign on with their email address; b) if the email isn't registered on the user database by Pageflakes, they get to mail out an invite and potentially receive another subscriber.)
I ahve to admit though that now I'm a little confused. If I'm a Pageflakes user, then does the shared page appear on my desktop? I guess so. And if I'm not a Pageflakes user and I get to see the page via a link, then presumably the sharing is unauthenticated and the pages are really public, just hard to find? Or do I just get a normal sign-up page and then have to register as a new user using the email address I received the invite via, so that then when I look at my pages I also see the pages that have been shared with me? That would make sense I suppose, and keeps the shared pages private the sharing group.
For student use, it's possible that we want to guarantee privacy within a course cohort, an argument I started rehearsing in a related context some time ago in Towards a Managed Social Bookmarking Environment in Higher Education. As the current tools stand in pageflakes, bulk admin would be a chore, though possible.
Anyway - if you're interested in Pageflakes, the folks over there set up this demo Pageflakes educational tab (only works if you are logged out from Pageflakes) using flakes that are already available.
I'm not sure how you can get to share these setups (if indeed you can - a) because they are just demos and affiliate linked signup pages, and b) because the page owner needs to add your email address to the page subscriber list) but it's easy enough to create your own simply by adding flakes from the flakes directory.
When I get a chance, I will create a shareable page or two and then make them available to anyone who wants a play... Similarly, if you create a shareable pageflakes page that demos a mix of flakes relevant to education and/or library services, please let me know:-)
Posted by ajh59 at September 16, 2006 06:41 PMHi Tony,
first of all thanks for the great review. I understand that the sharing and publishing feature is not perfectly explained at the moment. The basic idea is really simple.
Sharing - you setup a page (tab at the very top). You can then decide whether to keep that page private (default setting), share it or publish it. Sharing would mean that all those that you invite (via email) will have access and can view and edit the page together with you.
Publishing - A unique link to the published page will be created. All users can then access the public page via that link, but they can't change anything (view only).
You can have as many private, shared and public pages as you want. Simply create a new tab for those use cases.
Again, thanks for the review. Keep in touch, ask questions, give suggestions - and last but not least, spread the word ;-)
Thanks
Ole Brandenburg
www.pageflakes.com