Feedheads Breaks Out of Facebook to Compete In Shared Items Arena

Before ReadBurner, LinkRiver and RSSmeme arrived, there was only one game in town when it came to calculating the most popular shared items in Google Reader, and it was Feedheads. Feedheads, the popular Facebook application created by Mario Romero, harnessed the power of Google Reader to show the total number of shares each item had, displays which of your friends shared the item, and even what items were popular in a network (like "Silicon Valley", for instance).


But while ReadBurner and RSSmeme were gaining traction outside the walled garden of Facebook, and gathering a good deal of visibility from bloggers who liked their democratized view of finding "hot" stories, Feedheads remained less visible, available only on Facebook. That all changed tonight, as Romero has brought Feedheads to Feedheads.org, featuring the same functionality, but now available on the Internet at large.

As with ReadBurner and RSSmeme, the top shared sources include popular sites like comics from XKCD, Lifehacker, TechCrunch and Gizmodo.

The new Feedheads.org is spartan in terms of its look and feel, but you can view the top shared items over the last 7 days, the last 24 hours, see newly shared items, popular tags, and feeds.

Feedheads also does more than just count the feeds. It can also show who shared the item, by clicking on the number of shares, and it shows shared Google notes, something RSSmeme has held to itself thus far.

You can even log in with your Facebook credentials and see your own sharing history, at http://www.feedheads.org/me, which effectively automatically gives you your own "leaderboard" of shared items, much like I rolled out late last month, only instead of the last 30 days, it shows your cumulative history from the first time you installed Feedheads.

I've often written about the interesting space of tabulating shared items in Google Reader, and the intrigue of Feedheads, having read about it on other blogs, was a big reason I eventually joined Facebook in the first place. After starting out by showing itself in Facebook as simply "Google Reader", the service rebranded as Feedheads in October, and rapidly grew to a user base of more than 10,000 by December of last year. Unfortunately, more recent statistics are unavailable, but breaking out of Facebook is a big step in the right direction for Mario.

The success of both ReadBurner and RSSmeme has shown there's room enough for more than one player in this space, especially as each site has differentiated itself through a series of innovations. Feedheads.org was the original player in this space, and Mario led the way in trying to make order where there was none before. Now, out of the walled garden, it should be interesting to see what innovations he has planned next.

ReadBurner Fired Back Up With Revamped GUI, Reader Integration

ReadBurner is back... with a serious makeover
The short history of ReadBurner, Alexander Marktl's pet project aimed at finding the most shared items on Google Reader has already been one of many twists and turns. First, it was discovered before planned launch, forcing Marktl into a wild one day scramble. The site rapidly gained followers, and competition, aiming to seize onto the shared links tabulating trend. But suddenly, Marktl went silent and on March 5th, said he was to shut the site down for good, or so we thought, only to see it resurrected less than ten days later, following the site's acquisition.

Now, under new ownership, ReadBurner is back with a bang, offering a dramatically improved UI, and a wealth of new features highlighting popular items and sources, as well as the most innovative new wrinkle, full integration of Google Reader within the site, making it more sticky as a destination site than ever, and keeping it one step ahead of Benjamin Golub's RSSMeme, who in ReadBurner's absence, aggregated more shared links feeds than anybody outside the walled garden of Facebook, where Mario Romero's Feedheads app reigns supreme.

The first thing you'll notice with the new and improved ReadBurner is its shiny Web 2.0 look, courtesy of PixelTalent. The new site embraces bright neon orange and blue, making it tempting to wear shades simply to browse the site. Maybe that's the idea, as ReadBurner tries to take what's honestly a very geeky application, on the fringe of blog reading and recommending, and make it seem "cool". Let's be honest though, talking up ReadBurner at most parties outside of Silicon Valley won't get you too many dates.

There are three major ways to filter the news, from the Popular (most shared in the last 48 hours), Upcoming (most shared in the last 24 hours) and Most Recent (a fire hose of shared items in near real-time). This is not new. But what is new is the way ReadBurner has now developed Categories (including an Apple category), Sub-Categories and in a TechMeme-like shift, "Related Items". Now, stories in the system are viewed based on their content, and they can be grouped together in story listings and individual item pages.

For example, Steven Hodson's WinExtra post (ReadBurner link) features similar stories from Mashable and SheGeeks. The other stories may not actually link to Steven in the way TechMeme's grouped stories tend to, but they are on the same wavelength.


ReadBurner shows related items.
Also new for ReadBurner is the ability for a blog owner to track their own site and how often items are shared. RSSMeme has long had this feature, (see: RSSMeme/louisgray.com) and now ReadBurner is doing the same (see: ReadBurner/louisgray.com). I've found this approach to be a good measure, beyond page views, as to which stories are best reaching my audience.


An item from louisgray.com on ReadBurner.
But while this seems intriguing on its own, the new ReadBurner team isn't done. From day one in version 2.0, they've added comments capability with Disqus integration (yes on the headlines and excerpt only, not the full story), as well as detailed statistics showing the top sources, as measured by total shares per story published (Example: 50 shares divided by 8 stories would have a score of 6.25). Unsurprisingly, like with TechMeme and RSSMeme, the household names are dominating this list, from TechCrunch to ReadWriteWeb, Lifehacker, Boing Boing and Gizmodo leading the way.

And integrating Google Reader is a great touch. Why go just to the Google Reader site if I can be one click away from ReadBurner? In combination, the pair offer a compelling destination for RSS goodness. I'd considered suggesting to the FriendFeed team that they should go the same way, but ReadBurner looks to have beaten them to the punch.


ReadBurner and Google Reader as one.
Outside of Feedheads, ReadBurner kicked off this rush to shared link aggregation, and with the help of a few friends, it should be back and on course. Be sure to watch the site closely as they continue to add users, tweak the algorithm and find new ways for distributors to leverage their data. We will be. Check them out at www.readburner.com.

Alpha Twitter Ranks Most Popular Shared Links from Twitter

Much like ReadBurner, Feedheads and RSSMeme have set about tabulating the most popular shared items in Google Reader, and letting users know who shared what, a new service called Alpha Twitter is aiming to offer the same service to Twitter users, showing what the most popular "Tweeted" items are today, yesterday, this week, or even all time.

The developer, Luis Figueiredo, (LouMcAfee on Twitter), inspired by a number of other social link sharing services to gain the Web by storm this year, is aiming to fill a hole, helping us gain insight into the thoughts of Twitter Nation.


Today's top shared links on Twitter (Alpha Twitter)
As he wrote me in an e-mail today:

"Services like FriendFeed are indeed very useful and i've always would like to see a service that would display the popular links that are being shared by Twitter users. Such a service didn't exist and there was nothing like it out there, so I've decided to create my own."

The service, Alpha Twitter, is drop-dead simple to use, and to view. But what it lacks in style, it makes up for in simplicity. As with ReadBurner and other sites, it simply adds up how often URLs are shared, and aggregates the data over a 24-hour period. Those with the most shares go to the top. You can even click through the number of shares and see just who "tweeted" the item, and when they did it, which gives you an idea who has the fastest thumbs out there. And just a few days in, the service has already indexed more than a quarter-million Twitter links. It even got a quick mention from Michael Arrington on TechCrunch in a story about TwitLinks.

Figueiredo said Alpha Twitter simply parses all Twitter messages in the public time line, so pages are updated in real-time. The engine parses all Twitter messages in the timeline, searching for the string of "http://" and qualifying messages as containing links. And the service is even smart enough to decipher URL shortening services, including TinyURL. All the URLs and user names of who shared the links are then stored in a database.

The service, which is extremely new, is in the late alpha stage now, and is entering beta this week, Figueiredo says. But it already works now. And we can avoid any concerns about yet another service trying to make money off your content. Luis isn't in it for a buck, but instead says he is providing the site as a service to the community. You can check it out at www.alphatwitter.com or check out his blog at alphatwitter.com/blog.

Did ReadBurner Acquisition Cause Conflict of Interest for Mashable?

On Friday, I was excited to announce that Alexander Marktl's excellent shared links aggregator and ranking site, ReadBurner, had been resurrected, following its acquisition by Adam Ostrow of Mashable, Drew Olanoff, and Eric Kerr. But given the social link aggregation space is a growing one with multiple entrants, including RSSMeme, Feedheads, LinkRiver, Shared Reader and others, some were concerned that Mashable's involvement in the deal would spell bias in their coverage, essentially compromising their editorial independence.

So rather than guess at what might happen going forward, I asked Mashable myself, sending an e-mail to Adam Ostrow, reporter Mark Hopkins, and Pete Cashmore. I specifically asked: "How do you think readers or competitors to ReadBurner could be assured that there's no funny stuff?" and "Is Adam now off the case for link aggregators?"

Unsurprisingly, the Mashable team had considered the potential for assumed bias prior to announcing the acquisition, and Ostrow said he was specifically hesitant to post the news on Mashable, "given how much I despise the conflicts of interest that some others engage in," he said. Ostrow also said that he was in fact going to remove himself from commenting on direct competitors, like RSSMeme and LinkRiver, and doesn't expect to be blogging on Mashable about ReadBurner much in the future.

In the event that there is announcement-worthy news on ReadBurner, Ostrow anticipates passing the news to Hopkins (or another Mashable reporter) and letting them determine its impact.

He adds, "As someone that sorts through hundreds of BS press releases on a daily basis, I think I'll have a pretty good idea of what's newsworthy and what's not, and limit myself to announcing stuff only when we have something cool to show off."

Hopkins also mentioned that with the ReadBurner acquisition, the Mashable team is especially sensitive to not overhype the announcement, and also to extend coverage to others in the space. A good example of this was Friday's story on RSSMeme's new widget, which Mark said was posted partly "to show we weren't going to play unfairly." He adds, "There is usually a ceiling to how high a certain niche can grow, but ReadBurner and RSSMeme both are nowhere near that ceiling in terms of users or traffic. These types of stories of this class of startup always generate a lot of interest and traffic for us, and if it builds interest in the genre, that's also good business for Adam."

Despite the fact it might be good business for Ostrow and his new ReadBurner team, Mashable, on its face, looks to be doing the right thing in addressing potential claims of bias. They anticipate some activities need to be "slightly adjusted to avoid an appearance of impopriety," Hopkins said.

The involvement of a blogger/journalist like Ostrow in a business transaction like the ReadBurner acquisition is unusual, but one I believe was born out of belief in a new technology trend, and love of ReadBurner specifically, one I wish I personally could have taken on, to be honest, if only I had the budget, and the technical know-how. While others in this space may potentially question Mashable's bias here, I'm not all that concerned, and we will have to watch and see their future coverage to see if they display transparency and objectivity.

Of course... I'm always willing to break stories here if folks are worried... What do you think? Was a line crossed, and have Mashable's comments assured you that everything will be on the up and up?

ReadBurner to Return With New Ownership

Alexander Marktl's debut of ReadBurner in January had rapidly propelled him and his service to a short-list of new Web tech All-Stars. In days, the Google Reader shared items tracker rocketed to popularity, gaining praise from all corners of the Web, many of whom, including me, had long begged for a universal directory of shared links and most popular items - seeing the ranking of such shared items as a democratized, transparent, version of TechMeme.

But, like fellow All-Stars Barry Sanders and Michael Jordan in their respective sports, Alexander prematurely retired, and left us wanting more - in this case, saying real life had gotten in the way. But as with Jordan, this early retirement has not been the true end - setting the stage for a dramatic re-entrance, this time, with a little help from some powerful friends, including Adam Ostrow of Mashable, Drew Olanoff, and Eric Kerr. (See: I’ve Acquired ReadBurner: Attention Data is the Future of Social News

As of this morning, ReadBurner is no longer a gaping hole in the Web 2.0 sphere, but has returned with a splash page promising big things. The plan is to relaunch the site in a couple weeks with a more scalable back-end, improved design, and even more features requested by ReadBurner's demanding fan base - myself included.

And this development is tremendous. Many ReadBurner fans were up in arms over seeing one of the best sites to debut in 2008 get shuttered. Steven Hodson of WinExtra wrote, "ReadBurner - Please reconsider", and ReadWriteWeb simply lamented, "ReadBurner is Gone". The loss of ReadBurner left us with RSSMeme, a strong alternative on the Web, and Feedheads, ReadBurner's Facebook counterpart, and the original innovator in this space.

ReadBurner hasn't just found new friends. In fact, the site's found a new owner. Adam Ostrow isn't just bringing the site back. He bought it, for an undisclosed sum, from Alexander, in partnership with Drew and Eric. Now, the threesome, with Alexander acting as an advisor, will move forward and help ReadBurner achieve the amazing potential it always promised.

The excitement I had when I first uncovered ReadBurner and exposed the fledgeling site to the world is back.

When I found ReadBurner, after midnight on January 7th, I knew this little site had the power to change how we share and discover new sites and gauge momentum. In days it had its share of copycat sites (including RSSMeme on February 6th), and had gained media buzz from Mashable, LifeHacker, WebWare, the Download Squad and many others. It was fun to see Alexander's project grow to a full-fledged service, one too big and too successful to be held down by my little blog. Now, I feel like I've seen the baby grow up... and it's ready to set out on its own.

Welcome back, ReadBurner.

How I Found or Started Using A Dozen Web Services

I was talking with a friend the other day about one of the Web services I use on a daily basis. When they asked about how I first learned of the site, I couldn't really remember. Did I get invited? Did I just log in? Did a friend tell me about it? No idea.

So, I thought I'd take a look backward and share how I found out about some things, or what the driving reason was to join others... and maybe you can tell me any interesting stories you have along the same lines.

(Presented in no particular order...)

1) MySpace (www.myspace.com)

I don't use MySpace, per se. I certainly don't have a MySpace page. But in 2005, when I was hosting the Oakland A's themed ANtics here (instead of on PhotoBucket), I saw a lot of traffic from random MySpace pages. Enough folks thought highly enough of the comics to post them in comments or their profile, so I got a dummy login and can now click through to see what people are saying about them. And this... I promise you... is the only way I ever use MySpace.

2) Facebook (www.facebook.com)

Like with MySpace, I avoided Facebook as long as I could. The social network seemed more appropriate for my younger sister, a college student, than it did for me. When Facebook opened up, I still resisted, but I couldn't help being lured in by all the talk of Mario Romero's Feedheads application, which tagged the most popular shared items in Google Reader. I got a Facebook account almost solely to use his application, and then ended up sticking around. I still don't consider myself a major Facebook user, but have gained a good number of "friends" on the site, and play Scrabulous with the family.

3) Feedheads (facebook.com/feedheads)

See #2, basically. Robert Scoble lusted after Mario Romero's excellent application, and his reviews were so glowing that I was willing to join a social network just to get it. The fact that this functionality hasn't yet been written into Google Reader directly still baffles me.

4) Twitter (www.twitter.com)

I first publicly swore I would never use Twitter, and then later, after asking the community's opinion, reversed my stance and joined the service. The honest #1 reason I joined? Because I felt in the wake of my highly visible argument with Mashable, that just maybe the entire event could have been minimized with a few well-placed "tweets" to Mark Hopkins. While we had tagged each other on e-mail, the responsiveness just wasn't as fast as it could have been with Twitter, and that helped me jump the shark, to avoid a recurrence, although admittedly the argument eventually made me a lot more friendly with Mark and the Mashable team than ever would have otherwise.

5) FriendFeed (www.friendfeed.com)

It's funny, I can't tell you if I was ever invited to FriendFeed by anyone in particular during their closed beta period. But in a discussion on Robert Scoble's site about Feedheads being his favorite Facebook application, one commenter asked, "What do you think of Friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com), and their Facebook app ?", saying it did even more than Feedheads could. I went back to Facebook and saw the FriendFeed application did exactly as advertised. (Oddly, my Apple Mail tells me I got in on October 17th, the same day I first announced Feedheads getting its new name, while the comment's time stamp is October 18th.)

6) Spokeo (www.spokeo.com)

I had never heard of Spokeo until I met with their VP of Marketing at a Plug and Play tech conference last fall. The demo was enticing enough for me to sign up. (See my initial coverage here) The site's still interesting, and it's been fun to watch their development, but given the lack of interactivity, I've defaulted to FriendFeed for sure.

7) Reddit (www.reddit.com)

A few years ago, I was asked to be emcee for a local talent show. While there was no way I would have even thought of attending, let alone participating, the option to be in control was too much to pass up. I think the same thing happened with Reddit. I'd largely ignored the service, in favor of Digg, but when Reddit allowed for custom Reddits to be built, and MG Siegler of ParisLemon came calling with the idea for an elite Reddit, I jumped on board.

8) ReadBurner (www.readburner.com)

It's almost not fair to post this one, now that Alexander Marktl has taken it down, but I saw some oddities in my referral logs, coming from a server hosted on the Amazon Web service. I clicked through and it was amazing to find this incredible service without a domain name or any Google traction. (See the first story from January 7th here) For two months, ReadBurner shined like the Phoenix, but came crashing down to ash after the developer let real life get in the way.

9) LinkRiver (www.linkriver.com)

Another referral logs hero.

Adam Stiles had been using LinkRiver on his own site for some time, and I had largely ignored it, thinking it was one user's pet project. When overnight, it went from adamstiles.com to linkriver.com, I realized it was ready to hit the big time. A few e-mails later, and I was in touch with Adam to find the real story.

10) RSSMeme (www.rssmeme.com)

After ReadBurner debuted, other services came in the site's wake. None was more excitable than Benjamin Golub, who seemingly overnight crafted a link blog aggregation clone. Not hours after the site had debuted was Golub tweeting about it on Twitter and sending me Direct Message after Direct Message. Eventually, I said "enough" and checked it out. Despite initial rough edges, he's developed the site and grown its link blog base to the point that it is the unquestioned leader here.

11) Yokway! (www.yokway.com)

This was a fun one. Yokway! still isn't out, and won't be for a week or two. But I found a reference to the near-term appearance of Yokway! on one of the tech blogs I read. After I searched Google, and found the site was closed, I did another search on Google's Blog Search, finding one mention of Yokway!, in French, from February 1st. The author helpfully gave a backdoor access port, and a few clicks later I was in and checking out the service, which will be very cool when it debuts for real.

12) Athletics Nation (www.athleticsnation.com)

I include AN here as it's become a major part of my Web experience every spring and summer. I was visiting the Daily Kos Web site one day in early 2005 when Markos Moulitsas casually mentioned Sports Blogs Nation, and the Athletics Nation Web site. I clicked through and was dumbfounded... it was as if a light had been turned on and I openly asked where the site had been all my life. A single site... dedicated to A's baseball, full of knowledgeable fans. It was amazing. I've been an A's fan for 20 years now, and an AN fan for 3. Soon thereafter I became part of the site's editorial team and have contributed stories or comics since mid-2005.

There's no possible way I can dig deep into my e-mail or blog history and find everything. I do know that beyond these dozen services, I joined LinkedIn way back in 2003, on a colleague's recommendation. I was buying computers off eBay back in 1999, and was using PayPal back in 2000 to buy game tickets. Amazon shows me I ordered a set of books in 1999 using the same ID I have now, though I can see e-mails to my mother about the service dating back to 1997. There's also no perfect way to find out when I started using Google Reader or TechMeme, or the first time I ever started reading TechCrunch and Scoble... but sometimes it's worth looking backwards a bit to remember just how we started using these things, even if it now seems like we always have been.

What If You Only Subscribed to Shared Item Feeds?

Last night, we discussed the importance of a well-kept shared link blog in Google Reader. Humans can still play an important role in filtering out the best of feeds from the rest, as smart folks can trump even the best written code in terms of determining humor, originality and insight.

The ease of creating and subscribing to link blogs in Google Reader has led to some actively searching out these link blogs, and instead of subscribing feed by feed, instead preferring to rely on the selections of others.

One blogger, with the nickname of "SeekGround", says he has subscribed to more than 300 individual shared item feeds, which he displays on his blog - an amazing number. I have to assume there are a number of commonly-subscribed feeds that would result in duplication, but SeekGround says he goes through them, primarily on his mobile phone, and shares those items he finds most useful.

Shockingly, despite having more than 300 individual feeds, it looks like his interests most overlap with me, of all people. In an insightful post, "Google Reader, Shared Items and Mobility", the blogger reveals that over the last 30 days, he's also shared 35 items from me, 19 from Frederic Lardinois of the Last Podcast, and 17 from Mike Reynolds, taking first, second and third, respectively.

Kindly, he writes, "I think that Louis Gray is making waves in the community lately and he may soon find himself considered part of the A-List rather than his self-stated position as a B-Lister."

I don't know about that... but it's fun to see SeekGround taking a new approach to consuming feeds, and finding so many shared items in common. While his blog is a relative unknown, with a Technorati Authority of "Zero", before tonight, I have to expect that would change. While some entrepreneurs are setting new bars in content creation, others are changing the world of content consumption.

Maybe, over time, there will be a big shift from those who are the content creators and filters, and those who are the consumers and readers. With Feedheads, Shared Reader, ReadBurner and RSSMeme out there now, Link Blogs are becoming a very big deal.

Also see:
Last Podcast: Shared Feeds, RSSmeme and Ecosystems
louisgray.com: How Soon Until People Demand Link Blog Portability?
louisgray.com: What I'm Reading and Sharing on Google Reader

My shared items link blog is here: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/05763917848110205585

First Round of Fifty AssetBar Invites Gone

Surprisingly, I managed to pass along all fifty of my first-day invites to AssetBar today, through this morning's blog post, and follow-up e-mails I had promised to those who contacted me in the last six weeks, looking to gain access to the new service. Amazingly, I even got a number of e-mails from close friends who tried to get in this evening, but were too late. So if you're still awaiting an invite, I won't forget you. Just send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com, and I'll reach out your way should I get more.

While the first few dozen folks find their way through the new service, and uncover a number of kinks, we did see some ineresting reactions in the blog about AssetBar's early debut:

CBS 5.com: Come On Now Social

"When Google Reader made "shared" feed selections truly shared items, people wigged. But a new RSS feed reader is out for public consumption, and the whole idea behind it is about showing off your stuff..."

Unique Frequency: Alerts On Readburner, Social Alternative To Google Reader

"Basically while you can share feeds in Google Reader, you don’t know what someone else might be thinking about it, other than the person liked it enough to share it. AssetBar changes that by allowing users to rate articles and comment on them as well."

I promise to post some more updates around AssetBar in the coming days and weeks. After all, this site is becoming well known as a go-to destination for information on next generation RSS feed readers, covering not just Google Reader, but FeedHeads, ReadBurner, Spokeo, Shared Reader and AssetBar. More to come.

Shared Reader Latest to Take on Google Reader Shared Item Rankings

Just ten days after we saw the debut of ReadBurner, a site which tabulates the most popular shared feed items from Google Reader and displays who is sharing them, we see yet another entrant into this space, as yet untapped by Google, in "Shared Reader".

The site's slogan? "What shared mosts in Google Reader makes sense".

The site debuted today. See: "SharedReader *beta Launched", where the author, Dennes B. Abing, writes, "SharedReader just burst out of nowhere." He also announced the launch by Twitter at 6 a.m. Pacific this morning, but with no followers so far, it's a wonder if anyone was listening.

While ReadBurner is now in "Public Alpha", Shared Reader says its in beta. While that typically means the development is further along in the process, Shared Reader, so far, looks to be trailing ReadBurner in total overall features. Over the last week, Alexander Marktl has separated feed items by language (English, Persian and Asian for now), has posted RSS feeds for popular items in each category (today, this week and all time), and has continued to hone the interface. Meanwhile, Shared Reader simply shows both "Recent" and "Popular" items, with the correct sharer, along with an entry form to add your shared items feed.

Despite the two sites' differing approaches and appearances, the early returns are similar. Shared Reader currently shows a post by Mihai Parparita on the Official Google Reader Blog, "There's a feed for that?!" as the most popular shared item, with 11 shares. ReadBurner shows the same item as most popular, with 16 shares. The second item is also the same between both sites, by Boing Boing, titled, "Ford: Car owners are pirates if they distribute pictures of their own cars".

Both sites also share some overlapping shared items feeds, contributing to the parallels, while it looks like ReadBurner's headstart has the site out in the lead in terms of total shares and feeds.

While ReadBurner and Shared Reader are working to give us the long-awaited answer to a single site that shows most shared items from Google Reader, acting in effect as a substitute for TechMeme or Digg, I wouldn't anticipate that others are standing still. Mario Romero, creator of the wildly popular FeedHeads application on Facebook, recently wrote me to say. "I've also been working on some new stuff...", which we're looking forward to. And I still expect Google Reader to finally come out of their shell and become the authority on this soon.

10 Predictions for 2008 In the World of Tech

1) Google Will Trump Both TechMeme and FeedHeads

Amid the discussion of Google's sneaking in a social network, little has been said about Google Reader potentially tabulating and reporting the most commonly-shared items and most popular feeds. I believe that in 2008, Google Reader will start reporting the most popular feeds, clicked items and shared items. By the end of 2008, it will become equally important for bloggers, if not more so, to be atop this list, instead of on TechMeme. Google will also integrate this information for both Facebook and iPhone, competing head to head with Mario Romero's excellent Feedheads application.

2) Facebook Will Buy Digg in an All-Stock Transaction

With the company being valued at $15 billion, Facebook can offer around 5 percent of the company to Kevin Rose and team at Digg and net them pre-IPO shares of what's sure to be a white-hot 2009 offering. The all-stock transaction would value Digg above $500 million, the highest possible exit for the company. Public companies, including Microsoft, will counter with $300 million of real money and be rebuffed.

3) eBay Will Sell StumbleUpon to Yahoo! or News Corporation

eBay has done absolutely nothing with StumbleUpon since the service's $75 million acquisition. Unlike PayPal, which was a natural fit, StumbleUpon has no fit within the ecosystem of eBay. A more acquisition-savvy businesses, like Yahoo! or News Corp, will end up with the property by the end of the year. Expect this to accelerate alongside management changes at eBay and continued fallout after the Skype disaster. What it will do is pocket eBay some serious cash. This time, StumbleUpon goes for north of $200M.

4) Twitter Will Add Video, Photography Support

Moving outside of its 140-character niche, Twitter will enable bored microbloggers to show exactly what they are doing with still photos and 15 second video clips. Despite the novelty wearing off, many will continue to do so, gaining us precious photos of the window over their computer desk, overexposed facial closeups and pictures of their breakfast. The service will be integrated with Picasa, Flickr and Photobucket.

5) Apple Boot Camp Will Morph to Be Like Parallels, VMWare Fusion

Some time in 2008, Apple's Boot Camp application will no longer require a restart to run Windows applications. Users will be able to natively run Microsoft Outlook, Project, Access and all other Windows-only applications alongside their Mac OS X applications on any new Mac. While developers may decry the competition to Parallels and VMWare Fusion, Apple will remain quiet, and slowly take over the market.

6) At Least One Major Browser Will Embed Ad-Blocking

By the end of 2008, either Firefox, Safari or Opera will natively ship with the ability to block all ad banners and Google AdSense. Publishers and bloggers will make a lot of noise about it, while secretly avoiding ads themselves. A significant percentage of early adopters will change browsers solely for this feature.

7) Assetbar and FriendFeed Will Gain Early Adopter Audiences

Early adopters always looking for an edge will move away from Bloglines and Google Reader in search for something more cutting-edge. Many will turn to FriendFeed and Assetbar, following the latter's launch, to find a rich feed reader with social networking features. However, neither service will enjoy a significant market share prior to the end of 2008, and neither will be acquired by the end of 2008.

8) Video Blogging Will Remain Unpopular, Unprofitable

Despite advances in video capture and broadband speeds, Web users will not gravitate toward long-form video blogs, choosing instead to stick with text and photography. Only the rare extreme niche businesses will find any success with utilizing video for blogging.

9) iTunes Video Rentals Will Decimate Netflix, Blockbuster, Hurt Box Office

The introduction of video rentals on iTunes will not only force a dramatic subscriber exit for Netflix and reduced rentals at Blockbuster, but will also further slow attendance at movie theaters nationwide, as consumers find the service good enough, and much less inexpensive than a night out.

10) Fast Company Will be a Fast Stay for Robert Scoble

After joining FastCompany in early 2008, Robert Scoble will be at first jubilant, have initial success, and then plateau. While he will remain tremendously popular, there will already be discussions by the end of 2008 as to where he will end up in 2009, giving ValleyWag and Uncov, among others, plenty to gossip about.

Other 2008 predictions:
Jeremy Toeman: Technology Predictions for 2008
Paris Lemon: The Year Ahead 2008: 17 Predictions
The Economist: Technology in 2008
Mahalo: 2008 Technology Predictions
Center Networks: 2008 Predictions from CenterNetworks

Sunday Spikes Belie Day of "Rest"

Over the last 30 days, my three most highly-trafficked days on the blog are Sundays. Although typically, one can expect lower numbers of visitors on the weekend, with Saturday trailing Sunday, it's been this traditional "day of rest" that's gained the most activity over the last three weeks.

As you can see in the above graph, it seems my Saturday activity has often led to Sunday traffic, first with commenting on Feedheads' growth to 10,000 users two weeks ago, to the AssetBar preview last week. And for some reason, that story has resurged today, with StumbleUpon visitors once again giving it a whirl.

While I'm still no A-lister or record breaker, I love finding stories in the statistics, and SiteMeter is showing us an interesting one here. How are your Sundays shaping up? Is this an aberration, or a trend?

Feedheads Approaching 10,000 Active Facebook Users

Feedheads, the Facebook application that adds Google Reader shared items to your profile, and displays the most shared items and feeds in a way Google still hasn't figured out how to duplicate, is growing rapidly. At its current pace, the application should reach an installed base of 10,000 by end of day Sunday, or early Monday.

As of 10 p.m. PST on Saturday, the total number of subscribers sat at 9,991. (See Mario Romero's stats)


The Graph as of Saturday Night Showing 10,000 Imminent
While Facebook's come under significant fire for its controversial Beacon program, and the vast majority of applications still seem trivial and childish at best, some developers, including Mario, are finding success by leveraging the social network's platform to deliver tools that big companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are not.

Feedheads seamlessly ties in my Web activity with my Facebook profile, breaking through its walled garden. In fact, it not only tracks the feeds I share most frequently, but also has created a tag cloud of those topics I share.


You can see my profile here:
http://apps.facebook.com/feedheads/sharer.php?fbID=589638695

Congratulations to Mario on building a successful application that's gaining real traction and real benefits for users. I'm happy to include myself among the 10,000.

Previous Coverage:
LouisGray.com: Facebook Google Reader App Rebrands As Feedheads
Scobleizer: Feedheads: my Favorite Facebook application

UPDATE: Feedheads, thanks to a boost from this story, and Scoble, reached 10,019 Total Users as of 7:30 a.m. Sunday. Also you can Digg this story to push that number higher!