louisgray.com

SocialToo Launches SocialSurveys for Polling Via Twitter

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:55:00 +0000

For the last few months, I've been using a service called SocialToo to transparently and automatically follow those people who choose to follow my accounts on Twitter and Identica. Rather than resort to manually deciding who to add to my list, or going to other services, such as Twitter Karma, SocialToo has been automatically synchronizing my lists. Today, the author, Jesse Stay, also a frequent contributor to this site, has rolled out a new feature aimed at making the service much more interactive and differentiated, with the launch of SocialSurveys, a viral way to quickly poll your followers on Twitter.

As with other online polling engines, creation of the survey consists of posting a question and listing potential answers. You have to list at least two choices, of course, but you can theoretically post as many options as you wish.

When the survey is completed, you can then check the box that sends the URL for the survey via Twitter, and hit submit. This sends the survey to Twitter, and automatically reduces the URL using the is.gd engine, to fit in Twitter's strict 140 character limit.

Given that SocialToo is "social" by nature, you can even sign up to follow surveys your friends have created, using RSS.

The addition of SocialSurveys is an interesting wrinkle atop what is already a fairly strong feature set for SocialToo, despite its spartan interface. You can not only autofollow the Twitter and Identica registrants, as I mentioned, but you can blacklist people from ever following you, or even automatically unfollow those who stop following you, essentially acting as your own personal Qwitter in the background. And if you want, you can even route your personal socialtoo.com domain to your Facebook profile.

How SocialSurveys Appear to Visitors

The Results of the SocialSurvey, In Bar Chart Form
SocialToo, authored by Jesse, is partly owned by Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki, upon the launch of SocialSurveys, is sponsoring the site with Alltop ads for the first few weeks.

My ID on SocialToo, as with just about all other services these days, is "louisgray", and louisgray.socialtoo.com routes to my Facebook page. To see my first SocialSurvey, on who will own Yahoo! by 2012, check out: http://socialtoo.com/survey/view/49.

Simultaneous Downtime for SmugMug and Twitter

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:30:00 +0000

There comes a time in every site's life when it'd be easier to lay down than to keep fighting the uptime fight. And tonight, for whatever reason, both SmugMug and Twitter have opted out of the process. While life continues to function, and geeks still have the option to head to Flickr, FriendFeed or Facebook (or any other social network starting with F) to get attention, two of Web 2.0's more engaging companies took a much needed rest around midnight Tuesday morning, and as downtime is a much discussed issue, it appears both sites have gone the extra mile to deliver high-quality graphics to keep us amused as they tackle database issues or anything else that might be getting in the way of their standard operation.

SmugMug Takes A Breather
That means instead of floating birdies and a failed whale, we get pictures of an ice cream cone and caterpillar from Twitter, and the SmugMug logo watering old servers in vain.

Twitter Cools Off, Whale-Free
The Twitter Status blog doesn't indicate the reason for the database efforts, though it may be related to SMS delivery problems mentioned earlier in the day. Meanwhile, SmugMug's service blog doesn't mention any reason for the unexpected downtime, but image display on FriendFeed was completely broken.

As both services use Amazon S3, this could be signs of a wider outage, but that's just speculation at this point.

Meanwhile, Google is still up.

15 Tips on Improving Search Engine Visibility

noreply@blogger.com (Mike F) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:20:00 +0000

By Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed)

I will first start by stating I am not an SEO expert.

Over the years, I have studied and tested various methods, guidelines and techniques for generating search engine traffic. Back in 1997, I took on paid clients and SEO became a full time career for a few years. AltaVista was the dominant leader in search in those days. Learning how to control and manipulate the engines to get front page search results became my main objective and an obsession. Today, things are a lot different, as there is basically one dominant leader in search, and the playing field is more level than it's ever been.

Most of these practices and techniques are still very much relevant today as they were then, so I thought I would touch upon a few of the key ones.

1) Start with your domain name.

You have heard it before a million times, register a .com domain name. The domain spelling should be as equivalent to someone typing that word in a search engine. It should be relatively short and easy to spell as well. Try to avoid hyphens and or any unnecessary or unusual character variations. Most search engines still to this day give a lot more weight to .com extensions, as opposed to other TLDs. Keeping the domain name easy to spell and avoiding hyphens is more for branding purposes, than SEO. Search visibility can still be achieved with a confusing, long character riddled domain that makes no sense at all, but will someone be able to find it, and most importantly remember it without the assistance of a search engine?

2) Establish quality inbound and outbound links.

Search engines, more specifically Google, ranks your site based on the amount of inbound links it has from other sites. Spend time and get authoritative sites linking back to you. Inbound links from these sites are worth their weight in gold. Links from an authoritative site also influence ranking. More weight is given to these inbound links because these sites are considered a trusted and or leading source as they are considered the most influential on a particular subject matter, e.g. Wikipedia.org

3) Understand PageRank.

Websites that Google believes are important and influential receive higher PageRank. A Higher PageRank can influence better search results and rankings. Authoritative sites, for example, usually have a high PageRank. PageRank is worth taking note of, but should not be your main focal point. You can check a site's PageRank by going here, or by installing the Google Toolbar.

4) Put relevant keywords on all of your Web addresses.

Make sure any content you publish on the web has the keywords of the subject or story headline formatted in the permalink/web URL. If your are writing a post, for example, about how FriendFeed was just acquired by Google, you would format the URL similar to this, http://www.yoursite.com/friendfeed/google-acquires-friendfeed.html, or http://www.yoursite.com/google-acquires-friendfeed.html. Notice the sub-directory in bold has the keyword of the story subject. Take advantage of whatever you can to give as much URL mention of the target keyword as possible.

5) Headlines and page titles should always contain the target keywords.

In combination with having the relevant keywords in your URL, the same emphasis, if not more, needs to be placed on placement of keywords in your headlines and page titles. If you do no optimization at all, at the very least always practice these three guidelines. It's also a good idea to put the relevant keywords of focus first in the headline and page title, and if possible somewhere in the start of your story content. Failure to practice these guidelines will leave your site buried pages deep in the search results, rendering it almost nonexistent, at least to the search engines.

6) Start a Blog.

Blogs are a major source and very relevant source of information for millions of people daily. Blogs are also influencing consumer's decisions to buy products. Think about the last time you searched for something on Google. There is a high probability that you found your information on, or were referred from a blog. Search engines, specifically Google love blogs for the rapid amount of fresh and timely content they produce. Setting up a blog is very easy, and if tweaked correctly can be a powerful tool for search engine traffic generation. Configure your permalink structure immediately after installing your blog. Spend five minutes tweaking the basic admin settings. I would also recommend installing and using plugins such as the "All in One SEO Pack" available for WordPress. Now you can focus on producing the quality content that will get your site linked to and noticed. Give and get as much "link love" as possible. Become an expert in your field and let your content reflect that. Use the power of RSS to convert that search engine click into a return visitor.

7) Use keywords as anchor text when linking.

Anchor text is weighted highly in search engine algorithms and subsequent search results. Anchor text gives the user and search engines descriptive information about the content of a hyperlinks destination. Use Anchor text keywords, especially as often as possible when linking to pages. Avoid using "click here" at all costs, this will do nothing to increase or improve visibility.

8) Install Web Analytics software.

Flying blind is foolish. You need to first measure, and understand your traffic patterns and behaviors before you can seek to improve it. Installing Google Analytics should be your starting point.

9) Utilize Sitemaps.

Sitemaps, are basically a list of all the pages pertaining to a particular site. This protocol allows you to notify Google about URLs on your website that are available for crawling and indexing, that may otherwise have not been discoverable by Google's normal crawling process. They also should help with getting your site crawled in a more timely fashion.

10) Use Google Webmaster Tools.

Google's Webmaster Tools, allows you to see your website the way Googlebot sees it. The tools provide data on finding out which sites link to yours, finding search queries that list your site as a result and finding which of your site's pages are indexed, and also showing you any errors Google encountered while crawling your site. Those are the core features, but there is more under the hood. The goal is to make your site as Google friendly as possible. The more data you are armed with and utilize, the better your chances are for higher visibility in search results.

11) Produce and publish quality content with some frequency.

Write quality content and publish on a regular basis. Sites that publish more frequently are seen as more reliable than sites that seldom do. This also helps for you to increase the amount of content on your site, which in turn yields more indexed pages, which then yields more visibility, increasing the quantity of search clicks to your pages.

12) Use Headline tags.

Headline tags (h1, h2, etc.) are a great place to use your targeted keywords, phrases and secondary keywords. Search engines recognize that headline tags are more important than the surrounding text, therefore they assign greater value to keywords found within them.

13) Don't forget about the other engines.

Google, the gorilla, produces the biggest quantity of search traffic for the majority, but don't forget about Yahoo & MSN. It's at least worth the effort to stay current on both of their publishing guidelines. Yahoo has a resource for web publishers, as does Microsoft to help you better optimize your pages for their engines.

14) Consistency is the name of the game.

Focus on what works and run with it. There is not one single magic bullet for achieving better search results. It's a combination of these practices and understanding what criteria the search engines look for when indexing your pages. Search is all about optimizing for the relevant keywords or phrase, master this practice and it will pay off. Don't expect results instantly. It takes time to build up your content, establish inbound links, tweak and re-tweak.

15) It gets better by using social media.

Guess what? If you are active in social media, you are probably already ahead of the game. Social networking profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all get favorably indexed, and always rank on the top of the search results. This is especially great if your goal is for personal branding. Being active and maintaining consistency, should easily allow you to own your name in Google. Social media is probably the most invaluable tool you could use for traffic generation, if executed correctly. User generated content and the applications that power them such as, blogs, wikis,video, social networking sites, bookmarking, microblogging, etc are the leading mechanisms for search engine traffic, and will only increase as time goes on.

Image courtesy of Silent under Creative Commons license.

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.

Twitterank's Leaderboard: Odd, Mysterious and Broken

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:00:00 +0000

The launch of a leaderboard for the once-feared Twitterank was inevitable. After all, in the online world, if you can measure something and give it a score, then by all means the next step is to rank people from high to low, and provide a leaderboard. It's happened with blog "influence" (Technorati). It's happened with mentions on Techmeme. It's even happened with how frequently people's items are shared on Google Reader (Feedheads, RSSmeme and ReadBurner). As ranking one's Twitter influence has been tried several times by a bunch of different sites, from Twinfluence to Twitter Grader, Twitterank was practically destined to join the crowd. On Friday, the site launched a "Top 50" list and after watching the dust settle a bit, I have to be extremely amused by the results.

Every ranking system has its flaws. And considering Twitterank's algorithm is both secret and changing, according to its author, Ryo Chijiiwa, initial hiccups are no surprise. But glancing at the top 50 tells me that Twitterank must measure influence in a very odd way, contrary to just about every other measure I've seen out there.

For example, according to Twitterank, the #1, highest scoring person in all the world is Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. (@laughingsquid) Scott's account garners a score of 237.591. His own Twitter account shows he (as of Monday after midnight) is following 1,636 people, has 19,307 followers, and has made 5,285 updates. This does not rank him among the top 50 on Twinfluence in total reach, but he does reach #20 on Twitter Grader.

In the #2 position on Twitterank is Brian Solis (@briansolis), who weighs in with a score of 235.847, and Twitter activity of 582 following, 8,033 followers and 3,524 updates. This activity garners him the #43 position on Twinfluence and #22 overall on Twitter Grader.

While Twitterater's top list does have a lot of "household names" like Dave Winer, Michael Arrington, Jeremiah Owyang and Steve Rubel, there are some big oddities, including at least one account that has never sent a message on Twitter at all.

Let's be honest, there's no way I should be this high.
For example, Loic Lemeur (not pictured, but at 226.91) actually ranks below me in the rankings, despite his following and being followed by almost five times as many people, and sending ten times the amount of updates. Meanwhile, Leo Laporte gets a 179.87 ranking, well off the top 50 list, despite having more than 60,000 followers, behind only president-elect Barack Obama and Kevin Rose of Digg (that I know of). And the ever-present Robert Scoble gets only a 188.63, also keeping him off the Top 50.

Leo Laporte, with 60,000 followers, misses the leaderboard?

And Scoble, Mr. Twitter, doesn't break 200 either?
So how does that make any sense? I was going to guess that Scott Beale ranked highly thanks to his high followers to following ratio, but Leo Laporte's ratio is an astonishing 120 to 1, so that, in theory would rank higher. And Scoble's real numbers are off the charts in almost every metric.

Another canary in the coal mine - the account of @google, which ranks #13 overall, according to Twitterank's Top 50, but has only 366 followers, isn't following anyone and has never updated their Twitter account.

So... @google, a user with no updates, has a higher Twitterank than does Scoble, who tops out at 39,000 followers, and more than 15,000 updates. Whatever you think about the content of Robert's tweets, whether they be too frequent or too off-topic, to say that an unused account is among the top in the world is as they say in the Web world... a big FAIL.

That Twitterank has an algorithm which measures something is clear as it gets some of the names you'd expect, but there are still a lot of questions around this service. Right now, it's basically a toy, and has little value.

Brand Reputation Management Is Not a Monday-Friday Gig

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:15:00 +0000

The concept of a workweek starting at 8 a.m. on Monday and concluding at 5 p.m. the following Friday is cute, but not all that realistic in most cases. Whether you're in sales or engineering, marketing or technical support, there seem to always be tasks that need your attention outside of the listed business week in the company handbook. With the rise of the Web and realtime response and discussion across social networks, managing a brand's reputation is absolutely a 24 by 7 operation. Sometimes, as a groundswell takes on your company, or your products, waiting until Monday to react is simply not an option, for the damage will already have been done.

Today's victim is the pain reliever Motrin, who posted a condescending ad that had many parents seeing red. The ad, posted on their main Web site, essentially stated that carrying one's baby in a sling or backpack would cause undue pain, requiring their product. While delivering a need and solution makes sense, they unnecessarily mocked babywearing as being in fashion, and making you appear like a real mom. The condescending ad ignored the reality of needing to go "hands-free" simply to function, fashion be darned. As a father of twins, I may not be a mom, but I often carry one of the kids around in a sling or a baby carrier, whether to do dishes, or just to type without having to go one-handed. And Motrin's ad was misguided. After my wife viewed it, she said she was surprised the ad got through a series of reviews and passed.

(See the video archived on YouTube)

While not incensed as many mothers said they were, and in a household that didn't have Motrin in the medicine cabinet anyway, we discovered the ad through the power of Twitter, which was ablaze with mommybloggers slamming the campaign. (See: #motrinmoms)

On a weekend not dominated by major news, Motrin's brand got stomped on, and waiting around until Monday to pick up the pieces would be too late. After almost a day of getting dissed, the Web site finally went down tonight, either through exceeded demand, or by way of the company's intervention.

When I talk to brand managers about social media, I recommend three clear steps:

Understand
Observe
Act

They need to understand that your brand is at the mercy of its constituents. And you need to be using monitoring tools to rapidly discover and act upon how it is being used or mentioned - no matter what day it is.

Some basics to get started:

Twitter Search - to see realtime mentions of your brand or keywords.
TweetBeep - sending alerts of keywords or your brand to e-mail.
BackType Alerts - to see whenever your brand is mentioned in comments around the Web.
Google News search - alerts to e-mail for your brand.
Google Blog search - alerts to e-mail for your brand in blogs.

These alerts will be automatically sent to you around the clock, even if the doors to your office are closed and the lights are off. Be aware of these services, monitor what is being said, and after all this, act. Don't just react, but do so thoughtfully.

And if you were curious to see just how I look wearing a baby carrier, check out the photo on FriendFeed.

See also:
Marketing Mystic: In Motrin moms debacle, the winner is Twitter
The Standard: Motrin learns there's a downside to viral advertising

Incredible Web Efforts Made to Shield Victims of Santa Clara Shooting

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 08:15:00 +0000

Note: I recognize this is an extremely sensitive issue, and one that continues to develop, so the words I use here are measured. Condolences to all affected by this horrible incident.

On Friday, as you most likely know, an employee of Santa Clara-based SiPort, who had lost his job that morning, returned to the office and took the lives of three of his former colleagues, the CEO, VP of Operations and head of human resources. In such a difficult economic climate as we are facing now, many saw the horrible incident as one emblematic of the tough times. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch called it "a Sad Day in Silicon Valley." Knowing the startup culture well, and living in Sunnyvale, neighboring Santa Clara, I've been watching the story, and was somewhat relieved to learn tonight that the alleged perpetrator had been brought into custody, having been captured in Mountain View.

The human tragedy here, when taken out of the macroeconomic view, is devastating. The three lives were not statistics or meant to be examples. These were people with families, with jobs and goals, people who were taken from the Earth way too soon, and in a horrific way.

But as information consumers, looking to learn as much as we could about this incident as news developed, to be both informed, and alert, as the suspect was not apprehended until this evening, it has been interesting to see how much effort has been taken to reduce the information available to the public in terms of learning about the company or the victims themselves. Almost immediately, on Friday night, SiPort shut down all pages of its Web site, with the exception of the main page, including hiding the management page. And today, the entire site itself is empty (unless you view the Google cache).

With today's Web world leaning toward one of transparency and posting copious amounts of information, it's no surprise that the victims of the shooting had created online profiles, including on the career-oriented site of LinkedIn. VP of Operations Brian Pugh and human resources lead Marilyn Lewis, who lost their lives Friday, had posted online resumes. (Pugh, Lewis)

The Mercury News' Early Version Cited LinkedIn as the Source
In fact, it was via LinkedIn that reporters garnered much of their data on the victims themselves. An early version of a story in the San Jose Mercury News stated, "Lewis, who lived in a San Jose, worked at NeoScale Systems before joining SiPort in November. 2006. In a LinkedIn profile, she wrote," but in a subsequent filing of the story, this piece was amended instead to say, "In an online profile, she wrote."

Subsequent Updates Did Not Mention LinkedIn
Just past Midnight on Sunday morning, LinkedIn's Web site is down, so it's not clear if the online career site has been asked to either take down or modify their profiles, but the effort by the Mercury News to remove the reference to LinkedIn in their article seems to have been done to discourage curious Web viewers from further invading the deceased's data. The way in which these victims lost their lives is well outside of the focus of Mike Fruchter's Mashable article from last month, What Happens to Our Social Profiles After We Die?, but the data we do post on the Web about our home, work and hobbies is something that cannot be hidden, or erased, even after we might be gone.

(Update: LinkedIn is back up, and both profiles still are there, without changes)

The incident is horrible, and very close to home, geographically, as well as in terms of understanding the issues of stress, strife with colleagues and the demands one's career can place on the rest of your life. I also understand the desire for families to want privacy and for news media and others to be extremely sensitive to the victims, but to pull the data, or make it more difficult to learn about the human side of this tragedy may make it more difficult to relate to, not less. It is also very interesting to see how efforts are made to pull data and have it disappear from a Web that is built to not lose it.

When Mom's Away, Dad and Twins Play

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:30:00 +0000

My wife is in the middle of crunch time to complete a massive paper for her Masters' Degree program in World History. With her facing a 30-page submission due in the middle of this upcoming week, I've been pulling extra time covering Matthew and Sarah, including virtually all of the last 30 hours or so. Not that I mind all that much, as it's afforded me the opportunity to get more pictures on the record, post some short videos to YouTube and sync up with SmugMug. And while the most ardent followers on FriendFeed (and Twitter or Facebook) have seen much of the content already, I thought I'd share some of it here as well, retaining some of the personal nature of this blog, even as we've swayed heavily toward tech, and you've seen new writers crop up.

As not everyone is as digital as we are, we've had requests from the extended family for more formal photos of the twins, so they can share them in Holiday letters and such. But when everything is digital, it's hard to explain to my grandmother just why there's no such thing as a negative any more. So... we trucked off to J.C. Penney's last Saturday and got the twins photographed in studio. As most parents will no doubt tell you, they were worst behaved when we needed them to be good, and were smiling most just five minutes after we left. In between the cries and complaints, the team managed to snag some pretty good photos. One is below, and all are uploaded to SmugMug.

Sarah and Matthew from the Recent Photo Shoot
As Matthew and Sarah get bigger, approaching five months, they have filled out quite a bit, and are no longer needing to be constantly held. This affords for more "tummy time" and they are now interacting more with one another, even if it is just a quick poke or stare.

Their growth also affords us the opportunity to try out new toys. My favorite (and theirs) is a new jumper to bounce in our doorway. Padded with blankets, due to their small size, both Matthew and Sarah have spent some good time in the jumper, bouncing to and fro, and expending energy until they tire out and beg for food.

Matthew in the Jumpy Swing
As has been true since their very birth, their growth is being chronicled and shared with you. Some might fear for safety and privacy, but we're knowing that transparency and openness is the way to go. Kay Ballard even called it "Family 2.0". All I can say is that as we got two kids at once, maybe it's fitting.

Sarah in the Jumpy Swing
To see all our baby videos, check out our YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/asypta.

Glue Tries to Become the Web's Social Network Adhesive

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:45:00 +0000

The age of the walled garden social network seems to be fading. While you still have extremely active social networks with dedicated users, the data inside the vast majority of these sites is ripe for the taking, as you can display photos, status updates, new entries and other posted items, in new locations, thanks largely to RSS. In fact, the most widely known walled garden of the day, Facebook, is slowly opening up to the standard Web, as they recently announced Google will soon index those fan pages you have signed up for. But is there room for a different type of social network, that follows you to many different sites, running as an add-on to your Web browser?

Glue, a new entry from Adaptive Blue, hopes so. Their offering, an extension to Firefox, tries to show friends' activity on a myriad of different sites, starting with entertainment items, such as books, movies, music and restaurants. As you look for something fun to do, rather than reading a review from somebody you don't know, you can see what your friends have recommended. Additionally, rather than asking you to sign in to a single location, Glue decentralizes the information, and shares it with you as you go to integrated sites, from IMDB to Amazon, Flixster and more.

Glue shows your friends comments and likes of items around the Web.
Once you have added Glue to your Firefox browser, the extension comes to life any time your Web experience crosses paths with their list of sites. When browsing a film that your friends have said they "liked" or added a comment, shown as "adding two cents", you can see that atop your browser window, running in a horizontal strip above the page's content itself.

If your contacts have previously "liked" an item or added their two cents, you can put your mouse over their avatar and see what they thought. You can also click through any single individual's profile and see all of their relevant activity. If they have rated other books, films or music, you can scroll through their marked items. Instead of needing to go to a third-party service, like Shelfari or Goodreads, Glue tries to store this data, accessible from any enabled site.

As with many other services, Glue becomes more useful once you have registered your profiles with other networks, added friends and racked up activity. You can register different services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, FriendFeed and LinkedIn, and can even use these networks to find friends who are already using Glue. Assuming you have activity on those networks, you won't have to start off lonely and without friends.

I'm not a huge Firefox fan, preferring Safari, and any time I find a new tool, I wish it had perfect compatibility, across browsers and platforms. That Glue doesn't support every browser out of the box might slow its adoption, but once it's installed, it is a very simple tool that doesn't require a lot of maintenance. If you spend a lot of time looking for new entertainment on the Web, Glue might mean you have friends coming with you to help decide, whether they know it or not.

You can "Get Glue" at www.getglue.com.

Additional coverage of Glue from around the Web:

ReadWriteWeb:
Put The Social Web In Context With Glue's New Browser Plugin
CenterNetworks:
AdaptiveBlue Launches Glue

Does Anybody Care About Non-Blog Commenting Anymore?

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:50:00 +0000

This Spring, when the tech blogosphere discovered Shyftr, a next-generation RSS reader, had launched with comments on their service, alongside full feeds, you would have thought they'd barged into bloggers' homes in the dead of night, stealing their money, their laptops and punching them around besides. Despite comments from me and others who believed this to be a natural progression of RSS readers and aggregators, their missteps landed them on virtual page one, and they haven't really escaped the many bad things thrown their way since.

But since Shyftr's unfortunate early flub, we have seen sites that are centered around other people's contents continue to grow in popularity, and in many cases, they feature conversations that are native to the service, but don't flow back to the blog. Meanwhile, some are doing more than just featuring a headline, but have excerpts that can at times display the vast majority or the entirety of a blog post. Has the Web collectively grown numb to this, and have we accepted this as "fair use"?

One tech developer wrote me yesterday, highlighting the way many posts were being displayed on the growing news discovery site, socialmedian. He wrote, "I'm sitting here finding example after example of this on Social Median? Do you think people are giving them a pass? Do people not realize that this is happening? Or do they just not care anymore?"

As socialmedian displays upwards of 1,100 characters of any given story, shorter stories could be posted in their entirety, without the original author's permission. As socialmedian now lets its users pull in content from Google Reader shared items and other sources, the author doesn't have to explicitly provide approval for their content to make it to the site. And on that site, users can engage in conversations around the content, without that data being ported back to the originating blog.

Some examples of these short stories (plus conversations) on socialmedian are here:

Original story on Twitterati: Twitter Revenue Just a Matter of Time
socialmedian story: Twitter Revenue Just a Matter of Time
Original story on GHacks.net: Is Windows 7 any different?
socialmedian story: Is Windows 7 any different?

As Shyftr operated this Spring, before having the Techmeme crowd go after them with pitchforks and torches, socialmedian unifies each article shared to the site in one thread, showing the multiple people who "clipped" it, and unifies the comments in one siloed stream.

So how is this different than the mini-scandal that erupted just over six months ago?

I've been a vocal proponent of socialmedian, and have seen the site take off over the last several months. I have also seen that the site doesn't pull in full feeds, but instead clips longer items. I can't remember the last time I published a blog post that was less than 1,100 characters after all. So I asked Jason Goldberg, socialmedian CEO, to help explain their limits and thinking. He wrote:

"While crawling the sources, we fetch short summary and full content (if exists in feed). While displaying the story on different pages of socialmedian, we first check if we have short description and show it after truncating to a certain limit. If short description is not present for the story we truncate the full content and show it. On the story page we check if we have full content for the story and display it after truncating it to 1100 chars. If we don’t have full description, we show the truncated short description."

Goldberg's response shows the team has given the issue of "fairness" a lot of thought. Unlike Fav.or.it, who believes it has every right to show full feeds and pull in comments from the original blogs, socialmedian consciously clips the data after a certain length. And outside of the story itself, depending on the page, or whether it's in an e-mail alert, these limits are even smaller, between 130 and 325 characters.

So what's fair? We've largely accepted that aggregation and bookmark sites like FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit, Hacker News and others are allowed to post URLs and headlines and allow for conversation. We have largely accepted that it is bad behavior to keep the full content of a post and integrate comments. But in between is a gray area. Can I borrow one paragraph? Two? Can I show the first few graphics you use? At what point does it move from linking and enter the land of scraping?

I would venture a bet that as the social Web continues to evolve, we have gotten more accepting of sites centered around other people's content. I believe you can't undo the move to aggregation sites, and conversations will occur where people want them to, not necessarily on your blog. I believe that sites that offer attribution and a link back to the original source are providing their own sites as a distribution and reference medium, so I don't find fault with services like socialmedian. But it's likely that others aren't realizing their content is getting in the site, and it's not getting out. So what are the standards that one should follow? And do we care anymore?

You can find me on socialmedian here: www.socialmedian.com/louisgray

Are We Really That Addicted To Social Networks?

noreply@blogger.com (Corvida) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:10:00 +0000

By Corvida Raven of SheGeeks.net (FriendFeed/Twitter)

I think we may be taking social networks a little too far or too seriously. As MySpace underwent rapid growth, we saw one cell company relentlessly market to its audience: Helio. Do you remember the Helio? They were a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that launched back in 2006. They marketed their phones to those who were serious MySpace addicts. Essentially they offered MySpace on the go, before all the mobile apps were made available to the public. Since then, there have been talks of Virgin Mobile acquiring Helio this past September, but you could esentially call Helio defunct at this point.

Today I caught wind of an announcement for a new Facebook phone. Is this where we are headed, people? Are the Facebook and Myspace apps not enough that we need entire cell phones dedicated to these social networks? Or are people just looking to get rich quickly off of the hype surrounding social networks? And it's not as if these have a record of working - remember Mobile ESPN?

These devices serve the same purpose as the Web site itself! Who in their right mind is going to spend money to access the site on the go via a completely different phone, when they can just as easily get an internet data plan added to their current cell phone to access the site or simply wait until they are near a computer. I'm beginning to wonder what mainstream is really thinking about when they see the hype that surrounds social networks. As much as I'm addicted to Twitter and FriendFeed, I would never purchase an entirely separate device just to access them. What's the point? I sense the beginning of a serious addiction problem for those that take things this far.

What do you think of technology like this? Is it a waste of money for both consumers and the company? Or will they become the next big thing in the future of tech?

Read more by Corvida Raven at SheGeeks.net.

Reno Bloggers Slam TwitterVoteReport After Limited Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Jesse Stay) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:55:00 +0000

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

On Wednesday, I received an interesting press release from Ryan Jerz and Bob Conrad, two Reno, Nevada bloggers who claim to have discovered through "independent study" that the TwitterVoteReport service, which I reported about earlier, was ineffective, inaccurate, and biased.

You can read Conrad's post here.

In the report, they reviewed reports from Nevada on election day, and studied the types of reports, the accuracy of the reports, and frequency of reports amongst individual users. According to them:

Vote reports did not follow recommended use of hashtags (hashtags are words preceded with a number sign that are searchable in Twitter)
Vote reports were potentially dominated a minority of users (one user in Nevada had 38% of the posted reports for that state)
Vote reports were subjectively approved to be publicly posted on the Vote Report site
Vote reports were subjectively "dismissed" from posting using inconsistently enforced criteria
Vote reports were duplicated
Vote reports were posted that appeared irrelevant as to intent of the Vote Report (one example from Nevada: "@DwayneH dude I love egg salad sandwiches, but liquor store is scary. downtown scarier, even. best of luck. #votereport").

While some points are valid, the entire tone of the release was very negative against TwitterVoteReport.com. The report made it sound like even though Twitter users in Nevada were so few in number compared to the rest of the nation, the entire TwitterVoteReport site and organization seemed biased, and that the entire site was a failure. It was simply too small a demographic to base such a study, so why post a release about it at all?

I did some research myself on the study, and in researching the one person they say dominated 39% of the posts the day of the report, the majority of posts by that person were simply retweeting valid responses they saw that did not include the #votereport hash tag. Contacting the organizers of TwitterVoteReport I'm told that the individual mentioned was also responsible for voter outreach on election day on Twitter for the entire USA, which would explain the flurry of posts. More than anything that user was making the cause less biased by pointing out posts that were not tagged with #twittervotereport.

Additionally, some of the very data the report cited was generated by the authors themselves. It was Ryan Jerz who sent out the tweet about egg salad, while using the #votereport hashtag, after all...

According to one of the organizers of TwitterVoteReport:

The goal was to get a report of what was going on at polling places around the country and we did that in a new and innovative way. And it was fun! This was an all volunteer project with no money or resources around so I think its fair to point out flaws but that's about it. The reason the data is transparent is so that people like you can look at it and IMPROVE upon it for future use. The goal is to show everyone what we did so that more people can work on it and improve it.

Based on my own studies of TwitterVoteReport, the project has been transparent from the start, and is a gold mine of data surrounding voter experience, registration, and issues. It has been an all volunteer project with many volunteers across the nation working to ensure the issues were heard. One developer in particular cranked out an iPhone app and got it approved and in the App Store within a matter of days. Sysadmins were volunteering overtime hours on Election day to just try and keep the site up, all on a volunteer basis.

I don't know why, but it would appear Jertz and Conrad could perhaps have some bias of their own. The release was very strange and makes me wonder about the motivations behind it, to say the least. With such a small sample of data that Nevada as a whole provided to the service, along with the entire stream of data being provided via API to any developer that wants access to it beyond what just made it to the TwitterVoteReport.com website, I think this study by Jertz and Conrad was a bit unfair. I still hold strong that TwitterVoteReport.com was a great, all volunteer project that contributed to incredible information about voter experience throughout the nation.

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

Recording: Emerging Media Event Panel

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:10:00 +0000

As mentioned previously, I had the opportunity on Tuesday morning to participate in a panel on emerging media with Chris Heuer and Tom Foremski, put on by PR Newswire in Santa Clara, conveniently between my home and work. The discussion ranged from how to approach new media targets as old media struggles, to how to leverage tags on social sites like Delicious and Flickr, and some basics on how to track client mentions and their brands on newer services, like FriendFeed. Chris helpfully recorded the conversation, and posted it to his blog on Wednesday.

I have embedded the recording here:

To instead download the 30 megabyte file in MP3 format, do so here. The conversation lasted about an hour, and you should be able to distinguish between the three voices, including mine, on the panel. If you have reaction or questions, feel free to relay them in the comments.

Twitterank Can Have My Password, No Questions Asked

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:35:00 +0000

Today Twitter was abuzz around the launch of a new site that ostensibly provides you with a numerical ranking, based on your followers, those you follow, and their collective clout. Twitterank, like Twitter Grader and others, is trying to deliver some kind of service to separate the influential from the less influential, as if we need more ways to do that. But the piece that has everyone stirring about their goals is the fact they ask for your Twitter user name and password. Today, I checked out Twitterank, just like so many others, and gained a numerical score that may have no value at all. In that process, I trusted the developer and the site with my Twitter login data, and frankly, that's of no issue to me in any way. As I said the other day, I believe people are inherently good, and if you're trying to harvest a host of passwords, Twitter wouldn't be the place to do it in secret by any means. So I have no concerns.

The whole concept of Twitterank is questionable. First, why would anybody care what their rank was? Second, what would a numerical score of 50 mean? What about 100 or 200? No idea.

Additionally, the service's default checkbox that sent the results of your Twitterank score to Twitter surprised many people, myself included. I was just checking out the service to see what the fuss was about, only to find people making comments on my Tweet, which had made its way to Facebook and FriendFeed as well. Sure enough, my Twitterank of 230.65 had been released in the wild.

So the service itself has some oddities, even if it was my fault I left the box checked. But in my opinion, that they ask for your login credentials isn't one of them. Many other third party services, from Twitter Karma to Social Too ask for your Twitter login and password. According to developers at those sites, the goal isn't to load up on user names and passwords, to start tweeting under your ID, but instead, they are forced to thanks to Twitter not having implemented OAuth. Twitter Karma writes:

"Unfortunately, until Twitter implements OAuth, applications that act on behalf of Twitter users, such as Twitter Karma, require your Twitter username and password to access your data."

But the concern around such a new service, which initially didn't have a name associated to it, had many wondering if its goals were nefarious. ZDNet called Twitter users gullible, and Mashable asked if the service was stealing your password.

The downsides of somebody hacking into my Twitter account and getting my credentials are low to begin with. In theory, if my account were compromised, they could Tweet on my behalf and make me look like a fool for some time, until I managed to get to Twitter support. In the meantime, you'd be sure to hear about it, and I assume others would be vocal in my favor. Another concern would be if you or I used the same login and password combination on other services. The perpetrator could then guess your ID on other services, or even access your financial records or anything else sensitive. But again, given the other Twitter developers' comments in regards to OAuth, I tend to believe this is something the coders are working around, and I don't think this is a mass account grab.

Late this afternoon, following the initial voiced concerns, the author rapidly put together a blog post answering some questions. See "Some follow up…" In that post, he, like Twitter Karma, points back to the microblogging service's limitations in terms of needing the user name and password combo.

"There are ways for Twitter to make that data available without requiring you to give out your password to 3rd party sites (Facebook, Yahoo! and others have such systems) but Twitter doesn’t yet offer those options to developers. As soon as Twitter adds more secure authentication mechanisms, I’ll switch to that."

As right as we are to be smart about where we put our login data, I don't think we should be so quick as to raise questions about what people's negative motives could be. For every 1 bad apple, there are easily 99 good, and the bad apples don't usually get away with nonsense for too long. As for those of you who really do want to tweet on my behalf, send me an e-mail, and just maybe I'll give you my password. Or not.

How to Discover New Content

noreply@blogger.com (Mike F) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:15:00 +0000

By Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed)

The quest for finding new content to read is neverending. Gone are the days of visiting numerous websites to get the latest news. Increased RSS adoption, both for publishers and consumers has significantly enhanced the discovery and distribution process. Content is being published faster then ever before, and we are discovering and sharing it as fast as it is published. This happens within minutes, giving "hot off the press" a whole new meaning.

As recent as 3-4 years ago, I checked no more then 5-10 websites per day for my tech related news. I relied on a portal, mainly Yahoo for headlines, local and sport news. There was so much more information accessible to me, but I had no real mechanism to harness it. I discovered new blogs back then by doing Google searches and following links from blogrolls. When I found a new blog, I would bookmark it locally in Firefox. This process, over time made my bookmarking folders a junkyard of lost links. With the exception of a few, most would never see a single mouse click ever again. While the mechanisms (RSS readers) were in place then, it was not until Google launched Google Reader in October of 2005, that I really took notice and began to understand what that funny looking orange icon I saw on every blog was about. It would change the ways we create, discover, distribute and publish media on the internet.

Today, I'm currently subscribed to 638 various social media and technology blogs. I can go through several hundred of these feeds in a matter of minutes. Reading, notating and sharing in the process seamlessly and effortlessly, thanks to RSS and Google Reader.

This post outlines some of the methods and tools I use to discover new voices.

1) Google Blog Search

This is one of the easiest ways for finding new content. Google Blog Search is great for finding the most relevant blogs on any particular subject. It updates and crawls extremely fast. Posts will show up in the search results rather quickly. You can also search and sort published blog posts by the last hour, last day, past week, past month or any date range. I use this in combination with a number of Google Alerts, that I have set up to monitor specific keywords of interest. If a blog is publicly publishing and has RSS enabled correctly, it should show up in the results.

2) Blogs/Blogrolls

Follow the links. Bloggers will almost always reference and link back to the source of their subject. Bloggers often feed off of each other. The source usually goes back to another blog or blogger which provoked or inspired the link in the first place. I discover a lot of new blogs this way. Bloggers often guest post on other blogs, these are usually voices that are in demand and are a great source for discovery. Blogrolls, besides being an overlooked sidebar widget, are actually good for discovering new blogs as well.

3) Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are great for discovery. Bookmarks are usually niche targeted/tagged and for the most part represent quality content. Sites like Delicious and Diigo are both great resources to tap into. I prefer Diigo for discovery because it offers more social aspects to it compared to Delicious.

4) Twitter

Twitter is an excellent tool for discovery. Twitter goes hand in hand with blogging. If it's on a blog, the chances are extremely high it's been broadcast on Twitter. Twitter is as real time as it gets. The first platform bloggers use almost immediately to broadcast their new content is guess where, yep Twitter. Use Twitter Search to find exactly what you are looking for. You can also narrow your results down further using search operators or advanced search. Pay attention to re-tweets as they will also point you in new directions for discovery.

5) Toluu

Toluu is in the business of discovery. Toluu, with mathematical precision matches you to new feeds and the members that shared them. Follow members with the same relevant feed interests. Toluu has numerous features such as feed suggestions and tagging that ultimately leads to the discovery of more targeted feeds. The deeper you drill down in the system, the better it gets. My favorite feature is the activity feed pictured above. I can see and get suggestions throughout the day about the new blogs that my friends are discovering and sharing.

6) Share and discover with friends through Google Reader.

Consider subscribing to your friend's Google Reader. If your friends read, share and have similar interests, there is a good chance that they are discovering obscure blogs you may or may not know about. I check my friend's Google Reader as often as I check my own for new content.

7) FriendFeed has become a reliable and necessary tool on so many levels. On FriendFeed, the most obvious way to find the content that is relative to you, is from your subscriptions. If you are looking for blogs, and or technology related content, find and subscribe to the members who are producing and sharing this material. These members often associate and follow in groups on FriendFeed. It's easy to find them. Try taking advantage of the advanced search function. This not only allows you to search your friend's content, but FriendFeeds entire user base, including rooms. FriendFeed is aggregating data from over 48 web services, so you should have a pretty high hit rate for finding whatever it is you are searching for. I will also scan the FriendFeed Google Reader shared public url for a complete random snapshot of what's being shared at any given time. Last but not least, you can join the Share your Google Reader room to find new content.

These are just a few examples of how I find new content. How do you discover new voices?

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.

It's Not About the Technology, Stupid

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:15:00 +0000

This morning, I had the opportunity to speak on a panel with the well-traveled and well-respected Chris Heuer and Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher. The three of us, speaking to a group primarily comprised of PR and Marketing professionals looking to get a grasp on new media and emerging social tools, discussed how to better track your brand online, how to interact with prospects, and how the move toward the semantic Web, including tagging and group-derived suggestions, would pose both new opportunities and challenges.

While the conversation got technical at times, I felt the places where I connected best with the audience was when I talked to them in terms of e-mail, iTunes and spoke their language in terms of understanding how they had to answer to multiple clients, who each wanted to broadest visibility, in a time when media outlets are disappearing.

A few hours later, this afternoon, I was back on the phone talking social media to a group of PR people looking to, again, figure out just what the heck Twitter and FriendFeed are and why they would have any value to their own outreach campaigns. And I could tell, based on their responses, that to take on these new tools sounded daunting.

Frankly, we, as consumers and developers, for the most part, are not doing a very good job of explaining these tools and making them simple enough to comprehend to the average layperson, let alone adopt. In describing these services, we need to do a lot less about talking about 140 character limits, feeds and aggregation, and instead talk more about connections, sharing and community.

What we need to do is help translate these honestly geeky tools into something that makes sense to the mainstream. Instead of talking about how many people you're following, APIs and how you use TweetDeck to follow specific terms in Twitter, start by explaining that the service is essentially text messaging that gets recorded and can be sent to many people at once. As for FriendFeed, I always explain it by breaking up the service into its two pieces. The Feed captures all your activity online. The Friend lets you see what your friends are doing, find new ones and interact with each other's content. Don't talk about 40+ supported services and how you can redirect to Twitter or Facebook. Start with the basics.

At Blog World Expo this September, Chris Brogan famously teased Jesse Stay with a comment I posted to Twitter:

"Look, tech dork, software doesn't solve problems, humans solve problems."

But the mistake is an easy one, especially for people who don't have a background in PR, communications or marketing, because the technology itself can seem so exciting, and to be honest, it can at times be fun to sound more knowledgeable and "elite" above those who don't have the same understanding.

At times, I find myself clenching my teeth and wincing when I hear an engineer or elite technologist try to explain how something works. What users don't want to hear is the process of how things work, but instead what the results are, and how they can benefit. So let's be real clear - these new tools, no matter how many lines of code you have developed, have in most cases been made to offer a solution, so make the story about the user, not about you.

Help use their language and their own frames of reference to make the services less intimidating and overwhelming. Don't throw them into the deep end without a life jacket, but walk them down the steps holding their hand until they get used to the water.

Is Social Media Keeping You Out Of Touch With Reality?

noreply@blogger.com (Corvida) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:30:00 +0000

By Corvida Raven of SheGeeks.net (FriendFeed/Twitter)

For me, social media is one of the greatest things to hit the web since RSS. I love using tools and services like Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Brightkite, Toluu, Disqus, Tweetburner, ReadBurner, RSSMeme, and tons more. The vast amount of connections I've been able to make since March would not have taken place had these social media tools and services never existed. They've made connecting with others across the globe so easy and simple. They've also landed me numerous jobs and job offers. However, when I decided to use social media to get off the computer and out of my house I began to wonder if social media was keeping me out of touch with reality.

For one, because of LinkedIn, I've yet to update my resume. Honestly, my resume is months behind my LinkedIn profile at this point and I dread updating it. I dread it because it's so much easier and much more flexible to update my LinkedIn profile. Resumes have too many rules and restrictions. I find it hard to show my personality in my resume. This is quite the opposite for me when using LinkedIn.

However, I began to realize that if LinkedIn disappeared off the face of the web, I'd have to do some serious thinking about how I would update my resume now. Also, I love the recommendations feature of LinkedIn and I've accumulated numerous recommendations. Unfortunately, I can't drag these over to my resume. Who's really going to read them in the corporate world? When I set back and thought about all of this, I felt so out of touch with reality. If there ever came a day where I needed to get a job offline, I'd probably be devasted because all of the work that I've put into my accomplishments are available online and I have no desire to pull them offline. "Real people" would think I've lost my mind.

Secondly, I'm beginning to become irritated with my offline friends that have no clue about the tools that I use. They come to me with questions and problems and I can't help but wonder what the heck do they do online? How could you not know about the vast array of tools available that can help you accomplish just about any task. This irritations progresses everytime I log into my online class. Unfortunately, the school has no type of social media offerings that I know could make things a lot easier for me. Give me a calendar or an RSS feed! Send me a tweet or something. We use forums for our group projects and I feel like they're out of touch with "my world" and I'm some type of alien. Meebo chat anyone?

Unfortunately it gets worse, but I won't elaborate on how. Instead, I'd like to ask you what are some ways that you feel social media is keeping you out of touch with reality? What are you doing to bridge the gap? Tell your story in the comments section or on FriendFeed!

Read more by Corvida Raven at SheGeeks.net.

BackType Adds Digg, Reddit In Path To Comments Nirvana

louisgray@gmail.com (louisgray) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:30:00 +0000

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with Christopher Golda and Michael Montano, founders of BackType, and talked with them about the growth of the site, and their continued efforts to become the blogosphere's number one repository for comments, tracking, search and alerts. Among the first steps they promised, and have already delivered, was the option to add comments you make on social services Digg and Reddit to your profile page. Along with the site's recent integration with FriendFeed, BackType has risen in visibility and functionality, even as few are using the site to its fullest potential.

As Golda and Montano explained over lunch Thursday, the site was originally started to track comments activity by friends they followed from around the Web. With so many different commenting systems out there, from WordPress to TypePad, Disqus and more, no one service provided a full history of individuals' activity, and they saw an opportunity to create a product that was built around comments and the people who make them, rather than individual blogs and their readers.

As BackType has gained awareness, the founders have so far been surprised by the high number of people using the site for social media marketing - tracking keywords for their company and the competition, but it's become a natural evolution of a service that can gauge a company and its products' visibility across the Web. Extending the services that BackType tracks, like Digg and Reddit, makes the product's database more robust and diverse.

Additionally, the rapid integration of BackType to FriendFeed has helped raise the product's visibility, they said. Now, assuming the blog you comment on is being tracked, any comments you make on the Web, assigned to your e-mail address and name, can be pulled into your FriendFeed stream, like Disqus and IntenseDebate have been doing for some time. (You can see my BackType stream in FriendFeed here)

Interestingly, at least for now, the BackType integration into FriendFeed does not track comments from Disqus or IntenseDebate. Golda and Montano offered FriendFeed a "Disqus and IntenseDebate free" version of the feed, as to not avoid overlap from those who had already turned on those services, but FriendFeed took that as the standard, meaning users who want all comments still need to integrate both services. (For example, my Disqus feed is also live.) This might change later, but FriendFeed would need to make the update, and their "to do" list is no doubt long.

As BackType's database has grown, so too has its functionality for companies looking to track their keywords across the Web. I've even set up an RSS feed from BackType for the company where I work, so if we are mentioned in a comment somewhere, our PR firm will see it and have the opportunity to respond or evaluate quickly. You can set your own alerts by e-mail on the BackType.com site or use their Trends site to see the velocity of updates. (Examples: Google, Seesmic, and Obama.)

Smart marketers and public relations people are already searching news, blogs, and Twitter to monitor their brand. To track the brand across comments throughout the Web using BackType is just as important. While you can still follow people and discover what they're saying at the blogs they frequent, and discover new sites, I think BackType will become a more integral part of people's social media monitoring than anyone ever expected. Adding Digg and Reddit, while small additions, just makes their sphere of tracking even more thorough.

In case you want to see what I'm saying on BackType, follow me here: http://www.backtype.com/louisgray.

30 Different Uses for RSS

noreply@blogger.com (Mike F) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:45:00 +0000

By Mike Fruchter of MichaelFruchter.com (Twitter/FriendFeed)

I'm making an effort to become less reliant on visiting websites for the data I need. Spending a majority of my time in Google Reader, I decided RSS could help me accomplish this task. I no longer have to visit Yahoo to read my horoscopes or sports scores. I now track my Ebay auctions from Google Reader. These are some of the ways I started to recently use and rediscover RSS.

This post touches on 30 different ways RSS can be used.

1) Tabbloid is a "hatchling" project that comes to us from Hewlett-Packard. It's a very simple and useful utility that turns your RSS feeds into a personal magazine via PDF format. You can generate your PDF files on the website, or have them emailed to you.

2) Track deals for hotel and airline fares at Expedia,Travelocity,Orbitz and Kayak.

3) iTunes music store RSS generator allows you to set up notifications based on your genre for new releases, top songs, top albums, featured albums and exclusives.

4) Track your favorite sports team news and game scores at Yahoo Sports. Basketball | Baseball | NFL | Hockey

5) Simpletracking.com lets you view the latest tracking information from all the major US shipping carriers. No need to go directly to the carrier's website anymore. Get notified when your package tracking information has changed directly from your feed reader.

6) Create customized news feeds and track specific keywords. You can get a feed for any search you do on Google News. First do any search on Google News, then simply use the Atom or RSS link on the left-hand side of your search results page to generate the feed. Here is what my FriendFeed Google news feed looks like.

7) Track your favorite online comics strips. Tapestry Comics maintains an RSS directory of comic strip feeds. Dilbert, xkcd and several hundred more feeds can be found here.

8) Create customized Ebay auction search feeds. Keep track of Ebay auctions with ease.

9) Set up custom feeds for job searches using the Indeed job search engine. As with Google News, the process is the same. RSS job feeds are automatically generated on the search results pages.

10) Get real time reports about current traffic incidents in your area. Traffic.com delivers RSS feeds of traffic information for most major U.S. cities.

11) Be notified of severe weather warnings and advisories for the United States, issued by the National Weather Service.

12) Get notified of the latest movie and dvd releases courtesy of Movies.com.

13) Get notified of current airport delay courtesy of Flightstats.com.

14) Listen to the President of the United States radio addresses.

15) Get the latest NASA news articles and press releases.

16) Read your Daily Horoscopes.

17) Send RSS feeds to Twitter using TwitterFeed.TwitterFeed is a simple utility that will check an RSS feed for updates and send them to Twitter accordingly.

18) Get notified of RSS feed updates via SMS messages sent to your phone.

19) Convert RSS feeds to audio recordings. You can also subscribe to them as podcasts via iTunes, and download your recordings as an mp3 file.

20) View the latest public pictures being uploaded to Flickr. You can also generate custom RSS feeds based on a multitude of parameters detailed here.

21) Generate custom Picasa RSS feeds for your family pictures. You can also generate feeds from public pictures. All search result pages will generate an RSS feed for that keyword. Here is one I set up for "Dogs."

22) View the real time public Twitter time line. You can also get your Twitter account time line by going to your Twitter profile page. Scroll to the bottom right of your profile page and you will see an RSS link located there.

23) Keep track of your recently played Last.fm tracks. Replace mfruchter with your Last.fm user name. ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/mfruchter/recenttracks.rss

24) Keep track of what you and your friends are bookmarking. If you wanted to find out what Louis Gray has bookmarked recently, you could go to his FriendFeed or Delicious url. Better yet you could check your Google Reader. To find yours or a specific Delicious user's RSS feed, simply goto their Delicious profile page and scroll to the bottom right of the page where you will see an RSS icon. You can also generate custom RSS for specific keywords/tags. All tag search result pages will have a corresponding RSS feed option. Here is one I set up to track of all recent public bookmarks tagged "twitter."

25) Watch the most viewed YouTube videos of the day. You can also customize this to your liking based on this criteria.

26) Keep track of new products on Amazon.com. Never miss when new items become available. You can generate an RSS feed for just about any product category Amazon has to offer.

27) Try an RSS feed matching service to find new feeds based on your interests. One that comes to mind is Toluu. Toluu allows you to upload your existing OPML file to their service, they in-turn will match you to new feeds and members who share similar preferences in feeds.

28) View all of your publicly shared RSS items on one web page. This is a great built in feature of Google Reader. Any item you star or share is automatically saved on a public html page that Google generates for you. Here is what my shared page looks like. To see the public page containing your shared items, click the "Shared items" link in your Google Reader. You'll see a list of everything you've chosen to share, along with a link to the page where they are displayed.

29) Use Google Reader as a new tool for microblogging. With the ability to “share” or “share with note" option in Google Reader, you can leave comments and invite conversation on posts you publicly share. Aggregate Google Shared items into a site like FriendFriend, so others can voice their thoughts as well.

30) Get the best of FriendFeed without ever going to the actual site. FriendFeed generates RSS feeds for almost every user function of the site. You can view your mainfeed as well as your, comments and like feeds in Google Reader. Have you created any topical lists? You can get RSS feeds for your lists too. I have found this function particularly useful as I can now track my "social media whales" list in RSS. Often I spend more time in Google Reader then I do on FriendFeed. RSS gives me a backup and safety net, so nothing goes under the radar.

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.