Content Filters Proving Evasive for RSS, Social Media Sites

Whether it be RSS feeds, social networks, or one of the many social media aggregation sites, it's no surprise that even your closest peers are sharing data they care about that you just don't. But so far, despite many users calling for content-based filters, solutions to block keywords or topics are missing from the vast majority of information spigots. In fact, I can't think of a single one I use that's gotten the formula right.

Not to overly repeat myself, but one of the major hopes I had for Google Reader last year was that they would add what I called "Negative Keywords", which would let me block specific posts from people I had subscribed to, be they off-topic posts on politics, family and sports, arrays of links from del.icio.us, or their latest cause du jour.

As the 2008 election season is heating up, it's no surprise that even the most geeky of tech news sources are starting to give some coverage to Obama vs. Clinton or Obama vs. McCain, and it will only increase over time. If I so chose, why couldn't I ask Twitter or Google Reader or FriendFeed to preemptively hide updates that included keywords like "Clinton", "Obama" or "McCain"? Today, I can't do that in any of those services, so far as I know.

Taking things further, I've also at times been tantalized by the idea of a "nuclear option" for the Web, where if I so chose, I could eradicate the mentioning of a keyword of any kind from all activity.

On Wednesday, Robert Scoble said “I wish when you blocked someone on Twitter they disappeared from Google Talk too.” Makes sense. But what if you had a button that not only blocked the person, but also, any mention of the person, from all social media services, by using their own name as the negative keyword? What if they were even automatically filtered out of Google searches, blocked just like profanity and pornography are from decency filters?

Google Reader hasn't yet debuted negative keywords. So Mahalo fans still get updates on Jason Calacanis' bulldogs and "fatblogging" and followers of this blog will still get summaries of Oakland A's games I attend. While I can always unsubscribe from somebody, there's got to be a safer middle ground in the social media and RSS space that lets me get the content I'm looking for, and not the content I'm not. Do you know of a service that's got negative keywords nailed?

Think Apple Would Dare To Take On the Movie Theaters?

With the addition of movie rentals on iTunes, Apple has given my wife and me a new entertainment outlet, letting us essentially have video on demand from a wide library, for only 3 or 5 dollars, at any time we wish. Just recently, Apple made more headlines by signing a pact where new DVD releases would simultaneously debut on iTunes. But this still doesn't solve the issue that iTunes doesn't have new releases that are currently playing in the box office, and I think Apple should be strongly considering working with the movie studios to deliver movie rentals of films currently in the theater, at a premium price, if they aren't already.

While new movies and blockbusters hit the theaters each weekend, it's been a long time since we made the effort of going to the theater, paying $11 and up per ticket, stomaching high prices for food and drink, and even then not having first dibs on seating, lacking the ability to pause or rewind the film (like on TiVo or Apple TV), and being forced to sit through an incredible amount of previews and pre-feature ads.

Our living room TV and laptop are the new theater.

But this still means we're missing out on the experience of seeing a new movie in its opening weekend, and being part of the conversation with others who have caught up on the latest Hollywood mega hit. By the time these one-time hits have reached iTunes, and therefore, the Apple TV, months have likely passed by, and often, the interest I once had in seeing the film has passed, leaving me more likely to do something else.

The movie theater industry has already lost me as a customer, for the most part. But they can get some of my revenue back if they strike a deal with Apple, and make new releases available on iTunes the day they debut in the theater.

I propose the following pricing for a 24-hour new movie rental:

• $9.99 for viewing in the first two weeks.
• $7.99 for viewing in weeks three through six.
• $5.99 for viewing in weeks six through twelve.
• Standard iTunes pricing for all weeks afterward.

There's no question that getting this deal completed won't be easy. Theater owners would be rightly concerned as to losing customers and entertainment moguls aren't known for being flexible. Movie studios might even be concerned you'll rent from iTunes, and show a new feature on your huge flat-screen TV to a busload of your friends. And maybe you would. But if we see Apple's work so far, both with music, and later TV shows and now, feature-length films, it only makes sense that this day will soon come. As a consumer, I can't wait, and I hope I don't have to wait too long. My credit card is ready, and until these new releases show up on iTunes, I can find better things to spend my money on.

Previous Discussion:

March 22, 2007:
The Apple TV Debate Is Upside Down
April 11, 2007:
How Apple Could Crush Netflix Now
September 15, 2007:
Adding Movie Rentals to iTunes Would Save the Apple TV
October 29, 2007:
Eight Reasons the Apple TV is Failing, and How It Can be Saved

The Social Media Feature War is the Wrong War

I've seen a lot of social media tools and aggregators. A good number of them are designed very well, and could be great tools, provided a swarm of early adopters, and then later, late adopters, showed up. Some of them trumpet just how many different services are supported, and use that as a rallying cry for why one site should be ditched for another. But it's the wrong approach. For while they may have been working on making fancier widgets and supporting yet another niche service, others have been building a foundation for community, making them the clear winners.

Examples of this are everywhere, but the most blatant examples that come to my mind are those of Twitter and FriendFeed. I could also make examples for LinkedIn and Facebook, but that's another post at another time.

Twitter has been roundly scorned for its occasional inaccessibility, costing users about 1 percent downtime over the last four months, according to Pingdom. While serviceable alternatives exist, in Pownce and Jaiku, for starters, those who have invested time in building up their Twitter community, including followers, those they follow, and an archive of "tweets" aren't going to leave, even if Jaiku and Pownce deliver 100% uptime, and manage to add features that Twitter simply doesn't match. Twitter has become more than a microblogging mechanism, but a serious community.

This was very clearly illustrated by Michael Arrington's piece on TechCrunch: "Twitter May Not Have To Care About Uptime Any Longer" last month, when he said, "after a three day weekend outage I realized that in the last two months a subtle shift occured: I now need Twitter more than Twitter needs me."

The same could be said for the lifestreaming and aggregation space.

On the Elite Tech News podcast this last week, the conversation turned to FriendFeed, and whether or not it had a GUI that would be welcomed by non early adopters. After suggesting Kevin Fox had big plans to upgrade the service, I also said it would take a lot more than a shiny new interface on another aggregator to get me to move. And it would take a lot more than bells and whistles, because in the last seven months of FriendFeed being in service, the site has developed many different sub-communities which make engaging and participating both fun and informative.

In order for me to leave FriendFeed for another service, be it Profilactic, SocialThing, Iminta or Plaxo, it would take the entire community shifting at once.

But that doesn't stop some social media sites from arguing it's all about the features. Take a blog post from Profilactic that compares its service with that of FriendFeed. The author writes, "FriendFeed supports 28 social sites. Profilactic supports 155. Not much else to say there."

And while time has passed, and both services have added more supported external sites, the author's summary, reading, "Profilactic supports 127 more sites than FriendFeed. We allow you to filter out your friends' feeds that you don't want to see. We give you features that FriendFeed doesn't offer like Clippings. And we allow you to take it all with you with badges," just doesn't give enough of a compelling argument, especially when it pertains to communities.

The gap between FriendFeed and Twitter and other sites who haven't yet gotten off the ground is going to make it incredibly difficult for alternatives to make headway, even if they do end up having more features, a prettier UI, or greater uptime. This is in part why I first highlighted the many tech bloggers flocking to FriendFeed, and why FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit has on separate occasions said, “Great products are more than just a pile of features” and that “FriendFeed has personal communities”. FriendFeed gets that the site isn't about a pile of features, but it's about the users. Once a community is built, they will rally around a service, and become extremely loyal, even if another option is shinier or louder.

I Am a Google Reader Shared Links Ninja

On March 3rd of 2007, I made a list of 10 suggestions to the Google Reader team on how they could make the world's most popular feed reader even better. The tenth option was a simple one, which I titled as "Customization Everywhere", where I said "there's zero options to customize a shared link blog." As of today, only 14 months later, we now have the first user customizable options to make the shared items page a little more fancy. And today, I can profess myself a ninja.

Alongside the so far much-criticized announcement that you can append notes to Google Reader shared items, you can also choose from four artistic styles on the shared items page, including the Default, as boring as it sounds, Ice Cream, Sea, and ... Ninjas.

Seeing how episode 7 of the Elite Tech News podcast was titled "Explanatory Ninjas", it makes sense that at least for today, I would use the theme of "Ninja".

(See my Ninja-Themed Shared Items Blog)

By selecting Ninja, all that's really added is a cute banner at the top of my shared items page, showing four ninjas and their various weapons. It's not necessarily a status symbol, showing my link sharing prowess or skills with the black arts. The theme is cute, but of course, non-functional. I still can't change the color of the background, or the fonts, or go "all MySpace" with the page, so I guess that's good. But it's a start.

Of note: I was lucky enough to meet and talk with Chris Wetherell of the Google Reader team last Thursday for lunch. We didn't talk about this feature, but I remain very positive on the direction and focus the Google Reader team has going forward. It's a small team, but very dedicated.

Shyftr Adds OPML Support To Intriguing RSS Feed Reader

With RSS becoming ubiquitous now, it is not uncommon for Web power users to have hundreds or even thousands of individual RSS feed subcriptions, covering anything from sports to technology, news and blogs of friends and family. But adding these feeds one by one to a new feed reader is simply out of the question. It takes too long. That's why the majority of RSS feed readers, both online and off, have moved to support OPML, enabling the portability of both your feeds and your folders.

Today, Shyftr, an online feed reader that lets you share comments within the Shyftr community and learn what are the most popular feeds and items, added this crucial capability, making them a stronger competitor to other market leaders, such as Google Reader, BlogLines and NewsGator. (See the official post: OPML Support Is Here!)

Shyftr first caught my attention earlier this year, when I highlighted their integrated comments system and blog rankings. (See: Shyftr Offers Social RSS Reading, Including Comments, Rankings) But at the time, I had no choice but to highlight their lack of OPML, a real sticking point for me. Later in March, Shyftr added pocket blogs, much like Google Reader's shared links blog.

You might also remember that last month, the Shyftr team was engaged in some controversy over their practice of displaying full feed items and comments away from the original blog, a position from which they later relented, following criticism. While I didn't have any issues at all with what they were doing, others did, and Shyftr was smart to quickly adjust.


Like with other RSS feed readers, adding OPML to Shyftr is very simple. Just export your OPML from your existing reader, and from your Shyftr Profile, click the "+" button under Feeds to add new items. Once you upload your OPML file, Shyftr will then keep you updated as to its progress, first by laying out the specified folder hierarchy, and second, showing how many feeds have been imported.


For somebody like me, this process can take several minutes. It's not the fastest OPML import I've ever seen, but it definitely works. Just make sure you don't close the browser window while it's operating.


What I liked best about Shyftr's implementation is that the system automatically recognized if I had already manually entered a feed. If I had, it would correctly move that feed, which was duplicated, into the folder specified by my OPML file. I was at first worried I would have to manually move each duplicated feed, but it took care of the hard work for me. (That also explains why in the above graphic, the total number of feeds imported is less than the number processed)

With the addition of OPML, Shyftr has many of the major checkboxes for next generation RSS feed readers nailed. They have online feed reading. They have user profiles. They have comments. They have popularity rankings. They have a personalized link blog. Just about the only thing that Google Reader and others have that they don't yet is keyboard navigation through feeds. If they can manage to get that nailed, Shyftr could be even more compelling than it already is today. It has been fun to watch the team go from pet project to serious RSS feed reader alternative in the space of a few months, and I expect that adding OPML is just the beginning.