Articles » 2008 » March 2008 » The Blogsmith
RFID blogs
By Peter Renton
Type “RFID” into Google these days and you get more than 34 million hits. A Google blog search yields over five million articles. Clearly there is a great deal of interest in this emerging technology. In my research for this column I came across just as many foreign language blogs (particularly European, such as http://weblog.innovationlab.net/ in Denmark) as I did ones written in English. In this column, though, I am focusing only on the blogs written in English.
RFIDa – RFID Technology (http://www.rfida.com)
The RFIDa blog covers all aspects of RFID technology. Its tagline is “achieve breakthrough performance through RFID and automated identification technology.” It is an interesting blog in that it is virtually anonymous. There is no obvious company backing the blog and the only contact information is the email address webmaster@rfida.com. All the posts are written by someone named Frank M., who obviously wants to remain anonymous. Having said all that, there is extensive information on this blog. The blog has been around for over four years now and there are literally thousands of posts on topics such as Wal-Mart RFID, RFID for retail, object tracking and medical RFID. I dislike the number of ads on this blog but if you can get over that, RFIDa is likely the largest collection of information on RFID anywhere online.
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The RFID Journal claims to be the “World’s RFID Authority”, and the site certainly has extensive information on many RFID topics. Their blog is authored by Mark Roberti and aims to be a gathering place for the RFID community. What I like about this blog is that it leverages one of the powerful features of blogs – feedback. Many blog posts here elicit comments from readers and a lively discussion ensues. One recent article that generated more than a dozen comments covered privacy concerns and the misleading information about RFID and privacy that gets published. This blog is updated around once a week and covers mainly topical issues that are in the news.
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ComputerWeekly.com is the web site of one of the UK’s leading IT publications. The Tune into RFID blog is one of the dozen or so blogs that make up the ComputerWeekly.com blog network. Authored by David Bicknell, this blog has been around since June 2007, with an average of two to three posts a week. What I find appealing about this blog is that it is written by a journalist and not an RFID technician, so complicated issues are explained in easy to understand terms. Like all RFID blogs, Wal-Mart is discussed at length, but being a UK blog, RFID initiatives at leading UK retailers Marks & Spencer and Tesco are also discussed. One recent post that was particularly fascinating was about the world’s largest item level RFID application by a Portuguese bookstore.
The RFID Weblog (http://www.rfid-weblog.com/)
I reviewed this blog back in my very first column here eighteen months ago, and I am mentioning it again because it is still one of the leading blogs on RFID. It is part of the Creative Weblogging network of more than 100 blogs, all with paid authors. The mission of the RFID Weblog is to “provide a balanced view of RFID technology with a focus on business uses.” Many of the blog posts are reviews of the many different uses for RFID technology such as a new RFID mouse, a device for assisting the blind, and a card that helps prevent underage smoking in Japan. Other recent interesting posts have dealt with a new environmentally friendly thin film battery for RFID and a combination active and passive RFID tag from Seiko.
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This is technically not a blog, but it is a very popular daily news source for RFID. Launched in 2004 and now with a circulation of over 13,000 readers it may well be the most read daily resource on RFID in the world. The content is aimed at top level executives whose companies are deploying RFID. Each issue “delivers breaking news and analysis pertinent to successful RFID implementations, helping readers understand global RFID developments as they happen.” Each day RFID Update brings one feature story as well as links to previous stories sorted by category. It is an advertiser supported site, but I found the ads to be less obtrusive than many blogs I review.
