Five Blogs Under the Radar: June 2009 Edition

Sixteenth Edition Of a Monthly Series

Even as many people are debating the importance of blogging, the number of active bloggers is still growing. And even if we have grown comfortable with the number of people we are reading, there are voices we are no doubt missing. Each month, I try to find five new ones that you may not have heard, who are working hard in obscurity. Most are interested in a lot of the same things I am - including technology, information gathering, gadgetry and social networking,

To get on this list, bloggers need to post regularly, cover something resembling technology, and have less than 1,000 subscribers or so. We are more than happy to take nominations as well, either here, by e-mail, FriendFeed or Twitter.

The June 2009 blogs are:

1) Jungle G by Jorge Escobar (jungleg.com)

Focus: Social networks, Influence, Technology
Three Recent Posts:

• Social Media is a Personal Support System
• The Importance of a Blogger’s Voice
• Facebook’s (And Other Social Platform’s) Preferential Treatment Should Not Be Ignored

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Spatially Relevant by Jon Gatrell (spatiallyrelevant.org)

Focus: Product development, Social media
Three Recent Posts:

• I’ll trade you 3 lifestreams for 1 blog
• Really? Kinda has a social media revival feel to it
• Roadmapping: Implementing Strategy

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Sticky Figure by Steve Woodruff (brandimpact.wordpress.com)

Focus: Social Networking, iPhone, Marketing
Three Recent Posts:

• Good-bye, Social Media – Hello, Networked Communications
• Why I Won’t Stop Blogging
  
• Why it’s Stupid to Ignore Social Networks

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) OwenGreaves.com (owengreaves.net)

Focus: High Tech, Business, Social Media
Three Recent Posts:

• I.T. Decisions – Who Makes Them In Your Organization?
• Your Break Even Point
• Your Passion Is In Front Of You – You’re Just Not Paying Attention

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Twittercism (twittercism.com)

Focus: Twitter, Microblogging
Three Recent Posts:

• Six Ways Twitter’s Direct Message System Could Be Radically Improved
• A Block On Twitter Isn’t A Block At All
• Three Ways Twitter Could (And Should) Improve The Suggested User List

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for next month's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Five Blogs Under the Radar: May 2009 Edition

Fifteenth Edition Of a Monthly Series

One of the more fun things I get to do on this blog is highlight other voices from around the world who crave tech or have insight into the Web we're all weaving. I recognize others made sure to give me airtime on their own sites, and the right thing to do is to return the favor. For the last year-plus, we have hand-selected five new blogs for you to review and, hopefully, subscribe. By following these new voices, you can get additional viewpoints outside the common echo chamber. And who knows, maybe some of these people will eventually become household names?

To get on this list, bloggers need to post regularly, cover something resembling technology, and have less than 1,000 subscribers or so. We are more than happy to take nominations as well, either here, by e-mail, FriendFeed or Twitter.

The May 2009 blogs are:

1) Almighty Link (almightylink.ksablan.com)

Focus: Social networks, hyperlinking, media, search
Three Recent Posts:

• Topsy finds Twitter users who share links related to your beat
• When a quake shakes a Sunday night newsroom
• Your content is social, even if you aren’t

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Advocate's Studio (advocatesstudio.wordpress.com)

Focus: Legal, Blogging, Technology
Three Recent Posts:

• Honor Among Bloggers
• Find a Search Engine to Match Your Visual Learning Style
• Focus on Outcome, Not Income

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Blind Five Year Old (blindfiveyearold.com)

Focus: Google, RSS, Technology
Three Recent Posts:

• Google Synonyms
• How To Deal With Email Mistakes
• Five Reasons Why Paid Search Is Down

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) Techgeist (techgeist.net)

Focus: Google, Web Browsers, Search
Three Recent Posts:

• Friendfeed Has Spoiled Me - I Demand Real Time Now
• Something Has To Give
• Chrome On Linux - Displays Google.com, Does Little Else

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Deliberate Ambiguity (deliberateambiguity.typepad.com)

Focus: Search, Microsoft, Technology
Three Recent Posts:

• Bing: An Insider's Perspective
• Wolfram Alpha: A Marketer's 2 Cents
• How *not* to rate a search engine

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

It's amazing how more than a year after starting this process, I am still impressed by the high quality writing by some of these lesser-known blogs. Some of those highlighted this month are among the best I've seen in a long time. Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for next month's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

It's Not Too Late to Spring Into Reading 5 New Blogs

Fourteenth Edition Of a Monthly Series

The new tradition to our monthly highlighting of five less visible blogs appears to be delivering it at the very end of the month, rather than the beginning. Just because it's posted at the end of April doesn't make these selections any less relevant or important than any other month. This is a feature I look forward to every month, and it's always fun to make the selections.

If you are new to louisgray.com, we have been trying to extend the blogging ecosystem, finding what Tac Anderson calls "the good long tail blogs". We know many of you get tired of the the echochamber, so we are more than happy to bring you some new voices. To get on this list, bloggers need to post regularly, cover something resembling technology, and have less than 1,000 subscribers or so.

With that intro, here are this month's selections...

1) The AppsLab (theappslab.com)

Focus: Oracle, Web 2.0, Technology
Three Recent Posts:

• In Defense of Anonymous Commenting?
• Musings on Relationship Symmetry in the Enterprise
• When Are You Most Productive?

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Rick Klau's weblog (tins.rklau.com)

Focus: Blogger, Google, Twitter
Three Recent Posts:

• The Stand, Playing Out on Twitter
• Eight Lessons Learned as a Brand on Twitter
• Music Rights Are Killing Good TV Shows

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) The Programmer's Paradox (theprogrammersparadox.blogspot.com)

Focus: Software, Development
Three Recent Posts:

• The End of Coding as We Know It
• My PC Crashed Again
• About, Next and Garbage

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) New Comm Biz (newcombizz.com)

Focus: Technology, Blogging, Social Networking
Three Recent Posts:

• Where Are All the Good Long Tail Blogs?
• Do Social Media Professionals Work Harder Than Their Peers?
• The Only Thing You Should Be Doing

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Guruvan (guruvan.gurus.net)

Focus: Social Networking, Marketing
Three Recent Posts:

• The Mine Is Caving In On Twitter's Gold
• Sphere of Influence Or Marketing Pool? How Do you use your Social Networks?
• FriendFeed vs. Twitter OR Remember the Tortoise and the Hare?

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for next month's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

February's Five Voices Spreading Thought Diversity

Part Twelve In a Monthly Series

The "five new blogs to watch" series, a monthly recurring feature here on louisgray.com, has now wrapped around a full year. Starting off in March of 2008, the February 2009 list marks the 12th consecutive month we have found five blogs that, in my opinion, have a lower profile than they should, and are ones you just might find interesting.

In the last year, including today's list, we have displayed sixty different voices who are bringing their interests, news and opinion into the world of blogs in their own way, but haven't yet cracked the upper echelon of visibility. It has been fun to uncover new names every 30 days, and now that we're one year through it, we'll review and see how the feature evolves. Looking forward also to your feedback to see if this is something you would like to continue.

Each of the bloggers highlighted over this time period has been added to my Google Reader list, via Toluu, and has, to date, been consistently informative, interesting or entertaining. Prior months' entries can be found for March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December and January.

This month's entries...

1) Sociosophy (www.sociosophy.com)

Focus: Blogging, Social Media Tools, Applications
Three Recent Posts:

• thisMoment - Beta Invites
• Trigga.me
• Chris Brogan - Blogger Week

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Damon Cortesi's Blog (www.dcortesi.com)

Focus: Coding, Security, Twitter
Three Recent Posts:

• The *Real* Top 20 Twitter Applications
• Attitude
• All ur Twitpics, in one line.

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Justin R. Levy (www.justinrlevy.com)

Focus: Public Relations, Marketing, Events
Three Recent Posts:

• Linking PR and Journalists Together via Twitter
• Are You Developing Raving Fans
• Are You Focused

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) Dawn's Plan (dawnsplan.wordpress.com)

Focus: Internet Culture, Social Networking, Capitalism
Three Recent Posts:

• Friend Limit Frustration Exposes Tech World’s Weakness in Social Science
• Take this Ad and Shove it. Then Turn Advertising Distribution over to the Members
• What FREE gets you

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Elias Bizannes (www.liako.biz)

Focus: Data Portability, Internet
Three Recent Posts:

• Social melebrities and the externality of arrogance
• Semanticising Twitter for a revenue model
• The change brought by the Internet is a correction

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for next month's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Five Blogs to Start Off Your 2009 Feed Reading

Part Eleven In a Monthly Series

Even if you are an avid news watcher, social media addict or feed reader, your library can seem repetitive, and you can get into a rut or cliquey. I do it. We all do it. But over the last year, I've tried to keep my eyes open to new voices who have hit the blogging scene, captured my attention, or simply don't have the readership I think they should. This month is no different. And in case you think I don't stand by my picks, it's worth noting that every single author on louisgray.com was previously highlighted in this series, so when I find someone I like, I stick with it. If this is your first time running into our "Five New Blogs" series, please do check out any from the prior year.

Each of the bloggers highlighted over this time period has been added to my Google Reader list, via Toluu, and has, to date, been consistently informative, interesting or entertaining. Prior months' entries can be found for March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.

This month's entries...

1) Chris Charabaruk (www.coldacid.net)

Focus: Windows, Drupal, Social Media
Three Recent Posts:

• Twitter's slow suicide — will an API cap strangle the service?
• Oh no! Affiliate links!
• The real-time age is heralded in.

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Know the Network (www.knowthenetwork.com)

Focus: Technology, Internet, Google
Three Recent Posts:

• Is there room for innovation in Email?
• Most Underhyped Apps of 2008!
• Vista Performance Tweaks

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Andy Brudtkuhl (www.getanewbrowser.com)

Focus: Gadgets, Technology, Business, Media
Three Recent Posts:

• 11 Twitter Analytics Features I Want
• Why Your Business Needs Amazon S3
• Diigo Groups is Future of Social Bookmarking

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) 140Char (www.140char.com)

Focus: Microblogging, Twitter, Seesmic, Yammer
Three Recent Posts:

• The one essential suggestion for effective Twitter beginners and gaining followers
• A solution to the loss of trust in Twitter apps?
• Looking at linking and short urls on Twitter

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Eric Friedman (www.marketing.fm)

Focus: Google, Web services
Three Recent Posts:

• Prioritizing and Organizing Feeds in Google Reader
• Thinking about web services
• Brands talking to each other on Twitter

RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for next month's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

RSS Overload: Don't Complain, Do Something About It

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

There seems to be a trend lately of posts regarding RSS overload. A lot of people are complaining about being overwhelmed with their Google Reader, and some are even advising for you to stop using your RSS reader altogether. I say, hogwash. Do something about it and take back your Google Reader. Now is the time to reclaim it.

Some suggest to use Twitter and FriendFeed as the alternative. If your scope is limited to one or two particular subject matters, this may be fine. You can easily follow the relevant news sources by following them on Twitter and FriendFeed. The imaginary friend feature on FriendFeed was basically intended for this purpose.

The beauty of the imaginary friend feature is that you do not have to follow that person on FriendFeed. Chances are that person might not even be on FriendFeed, instead all you need is the blog's RSS feed and your set. You could follow that particular news maker/blog on Twitter, but you would be sorting through an already noisy feed of updates from the rest of the people you are following. Yes you could always set up a second Twitter account for just that reason, or you could directly go to that person's Twitter feed for the latest updates. That to me seems like too much work though, and is unnecessary.

Google Reader, for me, is the most effective power tool in my social media arsenal. Why? Simply because I don't have to visit hundreds of websites per day to get the information I seek. It's a competitive advantage when it is used right. Less time spent on numerous websites equals higher productivity. It enables me to work smarter not harder. I consume information at an increasingly high rate, maybe higher than some other people. To get the most of your Google Reader, it requires periodic maintenance. Just as your car requires an oil change every 3,000-5,000 miles, Google Reader is no different. That's the discovery aspect of it. Do I need to even go into the distribution aspect of it, sharing? Perhaps that's a topic for another post.

There is no need to feel overwhelmed by the unread count:

This is just an application. Why are we letting it get the best of us? We feel overwhelmed with the amount of bills we need to pay every month, or the amount of emails we may need to reply to in a timely manner. These things are overwhelming at times. An application that was built to discover and distribute information is a blessing, not our enemy. We see the unread count of 1,000+ items, and automatically anxiety kicks in. We feel like it's game over, we lost, and there is no turning back. The feed reader has won. Without going deep into the human psyche, there is a solution. The solution is called "hide unread counts", a feature that was recently integrated into the recent Google Reader overhaul.

Garbage in equals garbage out:

I'm subscribed to about 800 feeds in Google Reader. Without RSS, I would have never known the existence of these sites, or much less have the time to visit these sites on a daily basis. RSS has enabled me to broaden my horizons like no application has ever done before. Knowledge is power, RSS makes me smarter every single day. Do I really need to be subscribed to all of these feeds, of course not. Initially I would subscribe to every blog I visited that gave me some sort of value. I could easily trim my subscriptions down to 200-300 feeds and get the same value out of my Google Reader. A lot of these feeds are content clones, they simply regurgitate the same breaking news as the next site. At most I need a handful of these sites, primarily 2-3 is enough. I don't mind seeing another site's angle on the same story, and often they will contain more info that was missed or left out from the first site which is breaking the news. It's never a bad idea to get different perspectives on a story.

This is why I have begun to start going through my feeds and deleting the ones who are strictly content clones.

I'm an avid reader of both ReadWriteWeb and Mashable, but for the most part they are both content clones. I check RWW first, as it's a higher caliber of quality and writing, and, sure enough, the same regurgitated content appears on Mashable, and 50 other sites. I have since unsubscribed from Mashable and the other 50 content clones. Nothing personal, it just does not give me any value anymore. Remove the clutter from your Google Reader, there is no reason why you should not. I mention it's good to get different perspectives on a news item. It's often the lesser-known blogs who will give this to me, not the 100 pound gorillas who are competing for pageviews just to get a story published every five minutes. I want quality content, not headlines and 200-300 words of text that equates to a press release with some type of spin put on it.

Productive reading means organization:

Google Reader also allows you to set up folders. Take advantage of this. Create folders and set up a tiering system. Dumping all of your feeds into Google Reader without the use of folders, makes it clutter central. Set up folders for must reads, or folders based on topical interest. You could create a folder system for "daily”, “important”, and “other”. Only you know what will work and what will not work for you. This makes consuming RSS a breeze, and probably will give you a better Google Reader experience as well. If you must keep the clutter, put it into a folder, so that it is out of sight until you are ready for it.

Use what the power readers use, keyboard shortcuts:

This feature is a plus for productivity, especially for those of you with larger amounts of feed subscriptions. Save precious time by quickly exploring your reading list without moving your hand back and forth between your keyboard and mouse. The full list of Google Reader keyboard shortcuts is located here.

Keep a backup OPML file:

I use a site called Toluu just for this purpose. Toluu is a powerful feed discovery service, but it's also good tool for storing rss feeds. I keep my must read feeds only stored at Toluu. When I come across a feed that I must subscribe to, I input it into Toluu first, second comes Google Reader.

When all else fails, reclaim your Google Reader and start from scratch.

In order to do this, you need to have an OPML copy of your RSS feeds. If you already have a Toluu account you are ahead of the game. If not, sign up for their service and start inputting your must read feeds only. Remember to leave the garbage out, there is no need to start from scratch with the same garbage that overwhelmed your Google Reader in the first place. When you have your OPML file, head over to Google Reader and delete everything, so that you have a blank slate. Now you can import your OPML file into Google Reader, and presto you have just reclaimed your Google Reader. From this point on make sure you are using folders, tagging when necessary and most importantly cautious about what you add to Google Reader. Ask yourself is this feed really worth subscribing to, if so, add it to Toluu first, then into the appropriate folder in your Google Reader. Keeping a pristine and productive Google Reader is not easy, even a power Google Reader like myself needs to do a complete cleansing from time to time. I get to this point every 5-6 months or so. Since I have been using folders and organizing my Google Reader, I probably wont need to cleanse it as often, once a year should be suffice. It's all relevant to the amount of information you consume and digest. I tend to be on the excessive side.

If anyone would like an invite to try Toluu, please leave a note in the comments along with your email address, either Louis or myself would be glad to send you an invite.

Read more by Mike Fruchter at MichaelFruchter.com.

10 Ways to Maximize Your Google Reader Link Blog

I've been sharing articles I've read in Google Reader for the better part of two years. I don't know exactly when I started, but I'm fairly sure I'm nowhere near finished. And while I admittedly started sharing to a link blog without having a clear goal in mind, I'm finding that this massive shared items repository is becoming an incredibly versatile information hub that benefits me, the authors of articles I've shared, and the consumers, be they friends in Google Reader, or in many other locations.

I believe that while Google Reader has grown in visibility, arguably becoming the most popular RSS reader on the Web, the utility of shared link blogs is less known. Here are ten ways you can maximize your Google Reader link blog - most of which I'm doing, and probably didn't anticipate when I first started sharing items into the ether.

1. Act as a trusted information filter.

Regardless of how fast a reader you are, there is no possible way you can read every single news source and blog on the Web. Neither can anybody you know. And regardless of how closely your feed match percentage is on Toluu, there are feeds you read that your friends don't. By sharing the best items of what you read every day from Google Reader, you are hand-selecting the best of the Web and "endorsing" those items to your link blog subscribers.

Do so with some regularity, and you might be surprised as to how people come to rely on your manual intervention and news discovery. I first became cognizant of this in February when "SeekGround" reported "I discovered that I had shared more of louisgray's shared items than anyone else's in the last 30 days". In May, Duff's Device similarly wrote: "I saw another article that I received from Louis Gray'sGoogle Reader Shared Items again. Thanks for keeping on top of the world for me Louis. :-)"

As of tonight, ReadBurner reports I have nearly 8,500 articles shared on my Google Reader link blog. While there are others who have shared more total items, I know that I have shared those items I believe are most interesting to me, and others I believe are following along.

2. Share your items with Google Friends.

Though Google hasn't nailed the "what is a friend" issue, you can add friends through GMail and Google Talk. If they are also Google Reader users, and share items, you can opt in to seeing their Google Reader shares, and they can see yours. If they subscribe to your shared items, your shares are mixed in with all the other feeds on their list. Of course, if you don't want to see their lists, click "Hide" next to their name, or "Show" to bring them back.



3. Embed your Google Reader link blog to your own blog or Web site.

When I first started sharing to my link blog, I had this odd feeling I was sharing posts and nobody knew about it. After all, the link blog URL isn't the most intuitive on the planet. But you can embed a widget on your blog to display a subset of your recently shared items, and visitors to your blog can click out to items you've shared.

4. Add your Google Reader link blog to your Google profile

Your Google profile is a fairly blank slate, for you to add or delete as you please. While it's very common for people to add links to their Twitter page, their blog or their LinkedIn profile, I'd suggest it's just as important to add your link blog to the page. Mine is here.

5. Share items to Facebook, FriendFeed or Socialmedian.

2008 was the year of personal news aggregators, which took updates on your services from around the Web and put them all in one place. While this trends was best exemplified by FriendFeed, Facebook also offers the option to feature your Google Reader shared items, and Socialmedian will pull them in as news, going so far as to check the shares by topic to place them in the right categories.

You can see my Google Reader shares on FriendFeed here. And to avoid duplication of items, if I share items from louisgray.com, I manually delete them from FriendFeed. Takes seconds, and reduces the noise. (My Socialmedian page is here...)

6. Add your share count to ReadBurner, RSSmeme or Feedheads.

Feedheads, the pioneer in tabulating popular Google Reader share counts, was joined by ReadBurner and later RSSmeme, in early 2008. As some people are turning to ReadBurner and RSSmeme as a democratically sorted Digg or Techmeme, sharing items you like will add your vote to the list.

Be sure to add your feed to ReadBurner here.

7. Replace your bookmarks with Google Reader shared items.

At the end of the year, I said that RSS Has Practically Eliminated My Need for Browser Bookmarks. As I thought about it more, it's my Google Reader Link blog that is essentially my rolling bookmark list, highlighting those items which are the best, and which I will want to return to. While Delicious is also a good Web-based bookmarking system, the link blog is a good way to find recent items of interest.

8. Expand the visibility of lesser-known sources.

Sometimes, I get in a routine of reading my RSS feeds and then sharing, without thinking about how the shares are effecting the downstream author. But I've gotten e-mails saying the shares have generated attention beyond what I expected. Last month, one blogger wrote, "When you pop an article on (the linkblog), I'll get 60-70 hits and get pumped to the first page, that is pretty averge for the support you give me." Earlier this week I got a similar e-mail from a second author, who wrote an e-mail titled "Thanks yet again", adding "Your Google Reader share really lit up that discussion."

In a tech blogging world where there are so many different sources of news, and so many people writing about the exact same thing, you can make a difference by choosing lesser-known sources of news, and highlighting the best content, not just the loudest. I've tried to share items from those who have done original reporting or are thinking differently than the echo chamber, and it in turn can deliver greater visibility.

9. Use your linkblog as your "to comment" list.

As part of my online new year's resolution, I said I would be making more time to comment on other blogs through the year. But as you know, my full-time job doesn't work all too well with browsing the Web and making comments throughout the day. Instead, I've found I'll go back to my own Google Reader linkblog, and open the items in a new tab, and go through to add comments one by one, left to right, so I've given the authors feedback and participated.

10. Create your own leaderboard of news sources.

Google Reader tracks statistics on what your most-shared news sources are over the last 30 days, which can report on who you've found most interesting in the last month. Given each person's individual tastes, the results can be very different than more public leaderboards which tend to feature those who are most popular and have a deeper subscription base. While my own link blog does tend to feature popular sites like TechCrunch, Scobleizer and ReadWriteWeb, I can see that I've also shared a high number from lesser-known sites, including TechWag, Regular Geek, The Future Buzz, Andy DeSoto and Chuqui 3.0. And if you're stat-oriented like I am, you can check in and see how this changes over time. (See my blog leaderboard from last July)

So... are you sharing your Google Reader items? I am. You can find mine here. For the betterment of the community, it'd be great to see your shared item links in the comments.

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DISCLOSURE: I am an advisor to ReadBurner.

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10 Top New Web Services of 2008 and Their 2009 Forecast

2008 has been both an exciting year and a very trying year for the world of Web innovation.

When the year kicked off, we were still in the middle of Web 2.0 fever. We were just two months removed from Microsoft having invested $240 million in Facebook at a stratospheric $15 billion. In the first week of January, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang made his first appearance at CES and promised the company was "ready and excited". By mid-month, Pownce launched to the public to offer an alternative to Twitter. And by the end of January, Twitter crashed hard - for the first time.

It turns out that Twitter's crash might have been the canary in the coal mine. Even looking at January 2008, and considering what has happened to Facebook's valuation, Jerry Yang's reign as CEO of Yahoo!, and the eventual extinguishing of Pownce in the ensuing months and it almost seems unbelievable. Of course, as you know, Twitter crashed again and again throughout the year, and in parallel, so did the fortunes of many Web companies, from the smallest startup looking to raise funds, to the monoliths, including Google and Yahoo!, who have had to rapidly make changes as the economy changes under their feet. Meanwhile, as business conditions deteriorated, the public markets were closed and valuations were decimated.

But before the doom and gloom hit, a good number of Web services pushed and shoved their way out the door in the first half of the year, and look to be here for at least the near term. Even as the second half of the year saw a drying up in new services and very little innovation, as we start to look toward 2009, there are new brands that many of us know were but a glimpse in an engineer's eye when 2007 finished and 2008 took over. And while no list is complete, here are some of the best that can claim 2008 as their birth date. I expect this will miss quite a few, so please make sure to nominate your favorites and tell me why I'm wrong!

1) Summize (Twitter Search)

Search is still king, and real-time search is having a huge impact on the way people find news, share ideas, and see trends. Summize built its business around being a search engine for Twitter, and soon became more stable, and theoretically, more useful, than Twitter itself. The Twitter team, in desperate need for more engineering help, acquired the company and absorbed into the microblogging service.

Expected Exit: Acquired - Already Complete

Twitter's acquisition of Summize was a smart move, considering how real-time search is becoming critical in times of breaking news. Many, including myself, are turning to Twitter search instead of Google, Yahoo! and the traditional news wires to hear reports from people on the ground, unfiltered.

2) Socialmedian

While many different sites have conquered the online activities aggregation space, Socialmedian went about the process in a different way than all the others, letting people not only follow friends and pipe in their shared content from a wide variety of 3rd party sites, but organized it in terms of categories. The category feature was so successful, CEO Jason Goldberg has been able to showcase specific events, including the 2008 election, and the financial crisis, and make Socialmedian a go to site to interact with "newsmakers". The site, starting from scratch in the Spring, has risen up to challenge FriendFeed, Digg and other sites for social news - and continues to grow at a rapid clip.

Expected Exit: Acquisition by First Quarter of 2009

With Goldberg and team having raised so little capital to get the product off the ground, and having kept costs very low, with the development team in India, the bootstrapped Socialmedian looks to be a ripe target for an acquisition, in my opinion. Without strong revenues and the public markets the way they are, Socialmedian would be smart to find a strong content or media partner, to join forces and enable the service to continue its growth.

3) BackType

Technorati and Google Blog Search, as well as many other directories and search engines have typically focused on the blog as the central nervous system for their offering. But as many would agree, it is the comments and conversation, no matter where they are, that have real meaning to blog authors and participants. While everyone was busy trying to see who could land on the Techmeme leaderboard or break new ceilings in Technorati Authority, BackType debuted a site that tracks comments by individual, lets you follow individual commenters across a wide variety of sites, be alerted when comments with keywords take place, and see charts that display keywords' momentum.

Expected Exit: Acquisition in Second Half of 2009

The BackType founders are working together on their second startup, having abandoned the first when it didn't gain traction. While BackType doesn't yet have an amazing market presence, they have forged a unique foothold that so far looks unchallenged. With any luck, I would expect the BackType team to deliver more enterprise-capable brand and identity management tools that would enable the service to gain revenue and exposure, letting the service to remain independent through the majority of 2009 before finding a place within WordPress, Six Apart, Google or Twitter.

4) TweetDeck

TweetDeck isn't a Web service, but this Adobe AIR application introduced new functions to Twitter usage that changed the game in terms of how people use the service. By introducing a multi-columned app that features groups, integrated search, direct messaging, and replies functionality, many are swearing by TweetDeck, and it looks like it may soon overtake Twhirl as the most popular Twitter application. Busy Twitter addicts including Guy Kawasaki swear by it.

Expected Exit: Remaining Independent through end of 2009

Iain Dodsworth is continuing to upgrade the product, and it's widely rumored he may soon integrate multi-account support, as well as integration with additional services, outside of Twitter. If he can get enough people to donate or pay for the application, there's no question he could make a full-time living from the resulting revenue. The question is, will people who expect a free service to have 100% uptime spring for the app that gets them there?

5) Strands

While FriendFeed, Profilactic and others were first out the gate in 2007 with their lifestreaming and social activity aggregation tools, Strands has worked on their own social news and lifestreaming site, in beta, since mid year. Focusing on delivering a clean interface for their Web, mobile and iPhone application versions, and keeping a strong emphasis on tracking musical preferences, Strands has developed a loyal following who find the site less noisy than some services and cleaner than others. Strands, instead of marketing to early adopters, like me, has given a great deal of focus to converting the more mainstream user, and acting as an evangelist for other third party applications, ranging from Pandora to Twitter.

Expected Exit: Remaining Independent through end of 2009.

Strands' history both bodes well and plays against them. Their VC funds offer them a strong balance sheet, but may also force the company's investors to seek a return that would be unavailable, given current market conditions. The company will need to find a better way to differentiate against FriendFeed and others, and hope that appealing to mainstream America works.

6) ReadBurner

A service that would tabulate the most frequently shared items from Google Reader was high on my list of sought-after sites in 2007. The catch is that I always thought Google would do it themselves. When ReadBurner debuted in January, it was a delight, and the simplicity of the service bred many clones, including RSSmeme. Later in 2008, its older cousin, Feedheads, broke out of the Facebook garden and entered the general Web. ReadBurner, and others like it, serve as having the potential to unseat less-democratic popular news hierarchies, such as Digg, assuming they execute well. As an advisor to the service, I'd like to say they are on the right track, or rate the service higher on this list, but development has been slow of late, and needs to get going again.

* Not Listing an Expected Exit Due to Assumed Bias *

7) Feedly

Like many other smaller services this year, especially those around the Google Reader and Twitter ecosystems, Feedly takes an existing popular product and makes it better - giving a news magazine feel to what previously had been a standard RSS reader. Feedly launched as a Firefox plugin in the middle of the year, highlighting recommended articles from friends, popular feeds, and integrating with Google Reader, so when you made changes to your Feedly, those changes tracked back to Reader.

Expected Exit: None

Feedly's founder recently noted his excitement over earning the service's first dollar, after a user Tweeted that she'd gotten distracted by an ad within Feedly and clicked through. Given most other RSS based apps haven't found any revenue yet, a single dollar is a lot more than zero, but Feedly doesn't look like it has any kind of mass that would push it to the mainstream, let alone turning into a viable business. For now, it's just an interesting twist on data consumption. The site will only go away if its developers get bored of it.

8) Gnip

With sites like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious and others getting pounded all day by third party services tapping into their API and sucking down their users' updates, Gnip recognized these external sites might soon see backlash from the data sources, as too much of their own infrastructure was being used to power other programs. In light of Twitter's up and down summer, Gnip debuted to act as the middleman, essentially making data portability easier, reducing one-offs between services.

Expected Exit: Acquisiton by end of 2009

It's hard in life to be the middleman, trying to play equal with every service. Should Gnip really start to become the Akamai of data portability, it's likely that one of the biggest data producers would want to snap up the service for themselves, and either limit competitors' access to it, or start charging fees. In a world when VC money is hard to come by, Gnip would be smart to take the offer.

9) Toluu

You'll note two major themes regarding hot services in 2008: RSS and friends. Finding out what your friends were reading and sharing were key facets of most of the new products that gained my attention this year. Toluu, developed by Caleb Elston, offers a site where you can upload the OPML file of feeds you read, mark your favorites, and see how compatible you are with other users of the site, helping find new feeds, and new people. Over time, the service enabled me to see new blogs my friends were subscribing to, and you could even notify Twitter if you had added a new blog to your reading list.

Expected Exit: None

Toluu is a geeky hobby for Caleb. He's recently also gotten behind Kallow.com, a gift recommendation service. Toluu hasn't been monetized in any way, and is unlikely to develop into an acquisition target, unless another service wants to use his recommendation engine.

10) SocialToo

Twitter and Facebook have become such a part of the blogging ecosystem, that new services have sprung up to make it more useful and intuitive. Among them is fellow louisgray.com author Jesse Stay's SocialToo. The service looks to act as a bridge between multiple social networks, including Twitter, Identica and Facebook, letting you automatically follow those users who follow you, offering a black list of people you never want to follow you, setting up an automatic message to those who choose to follow your account, and recently, the addition of surveys that can be distributed by Twitter and tabulated on the site, much like SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy.

Expected Exit: Remaining Independent through end of 2009.

SocialToo contains some advertising, and if I were to guess, it may offer premium features, as the survey functionality could be improved a great deal, possibly even going head to head with sites like SurveyMonkey. While Jesse is unlikely to get rich off SocialToo, it's smart in that it's not tied just to one service (Twitter), but has the flexibility to add on new networks as they rise in prominence.

Also on the list but outside of the Top 10:
12seconds.tv, BlogRize, Identica, LinkRiver, OneSpot, PeopleBrowsr, Plurk, Rejaw, RSSmeme, Shyftr, Yokway

Five New Blogs to Round Out the Year's Finds

Part Ten In a Monthly Series

We may be heading into the holidays, and soon will come the end of 2008, with an eye toward 2009, and all the change that comes with it. But before the year is up, I thought it made sense to highlight five blogs that I've recently discovered that you may not know. On louisgray.com, it's not all about me. It's about finding new services, new ways to share information, new authors, and new opinions. That's why you're seeing some outstanding posts from our new writers, and why each month, I highlight five new blogs that are not in the A-List, and very likely haven't yet crossed your radar.

Each of the bloggers highlighted over this time period has been added to my Google Reader list, via Toluu, and has, to date, been consistently informative, interesting or entertaining. Prior months' entries can be found for March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November.

This month's entries...

1) GrowMap.com (www.growmap.com)

Focus: Social Networking, Twitter, E-Commerce, Blogging
Recent Highlight:
Where Or Where Is What Your Visitors Seek? The Importance Of Site Search
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) GeekLad (www.geeklad.com)

Focus: Google, SEO, Social Media
Recent Highlight: Chris Brogan’s Advice to Me
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) The Future Buzz (www.thefuturebuzz.com)

Focus: Web, Media, Blogging
Recent Highlight:
FriendFeed And Twitter Have *Not* Killed Blogging
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) TechPulse360 (www.techpulse360.com)

Focus: Technology, Silicon Valley, Business, Innovation
Recent Highlight:
Cisco Will Do A One Time Massive Layoff If Downturn Persists
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Above and Beyond KM (aboveandbeyondkm.blogspot.com)

Focus: Knowledge Management, Business, Metrics
Recent Highlight:
Being a Cost Center in Difficult Economic Times
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

Want to be on this list? You can catch my eye by posting great information in the field of technology, social media, blogging and the Web. I'll be more likely to highlight you if you blog almost every day, and bring new stories to the table that don't repeat discussions launched elsewhere. And if you have more than 1,000 subscribers, you're probably too big for this.

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for November's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Kallow: Literally, A Gift Recommendation No-Brainer

By Phil Glockner of Scribkin (FriendFeed/Twitter)

Have you ever visited a shopping web site, picked a type of product and then been completely lost? It's easy to do. Just go to Amazon and search for "digital camera" or "flat screen TV." What you will get in return is a list of hundreds of items.

Sure, they are ranked by user review, and that's a great starting point. But how far can you trust these faceless reviewers' opinions? How long has the product with the most stars been on the market? How do the specs differ from other similar products?

It was these questions that prompted to internet entrepreneurs, Caleb Elston (who you know from Toluu) and Jordan, to build a new site called Kallow. Its aim is simple: Take all the guess-work, all the stat-comparing, all the researching out of buying a number of electronic devices (for now) and return you with a single recommendation.

A single recommendation? That's correct. Only. One. Result.

When I first visited the site, I was pretty taken aback, let me tell you. I am used to being awash in choices. Different brands, different shapes, sizes, prices. For years, I have been so immersed in the ocean of consumer choice that stepping out on the pristine shores of no choice left me sort of startled and confused.

Then I thought about the goal of the site.. the site isn't for me. It is me! It is the me that recommends products to my mom, my sister, my uncle. These folks probably don't know much about what makes one digital camera better than another, and don't care. They just want to take pictures of their family and the Grand Canyon.

With my eyes opened to this new reality, I started investigating the recommendations. On their explanation page, they say, "We do the research, we compare each model, we balance performance, ease of use and price for you."

So I researched their research. Take, for example, their recommendation of a thumb drive. Mysteriously, they recommend a generic brand of 4GB drive called a "DataTraveler." Why this one? It turns out, it's fast. It's cheap. It's gotten good reliability reviews. And, it comes in 'frustration-free packaging,' which means you won't cut your hand on the box when you open it.

You know what, just knowing that last item is enough for me. A whole lot of 4GB flash drives are in the 15 to 20 dollar price range, but who knows which ones come in boxes instead of heat-sealed consumer-proof plastic? I'm not willing to find out, in any case. I'm getting this one.

Jordan and Caleb do this for each of the 21 (at time of writing) products listed. They consider everything, from ship charges, to user reviews, to brand name, to price. When they say they've done the work, they've done the work.

At least, that is what they are building at Kallow. It's not a shopping site.. it's a reputation site. It's a "trust us, if you are looking for a (insert computer or electronics item here), you will be satisfiedif you get this one" site.

An interesting and bold concept, in this age of consumer choice. Perhaps too much choice.

Read more by Phil Glockner at Scribkin.com.

Five Blogs To Be Checking Out This November

Part Nine In a Monthly Series

November brings a bit of coolness in the air as the summer heat becomes a memory and most of us in the Northern Hemisphere turn to Winter. But while it might be getting colder outside, there's still a lot of hot writing going on, both from sites you have heard of and many you likely haven't. For the last nine months, I've highlighted five blogs each month that I think warrant your checking out.

Each of the bloggers highlighted over this time period has been added to my Google Reader list, via Toluu, and has, to date, been consistently informative, interesting or entertaining. Prior months' entries can be found for March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October.

This month's entries...

1) Rob Jensen / Microblink (www.microblink.com)

Focus: Microblogging, Twitter, Pownce, Plurk
Recent Highlight: Where to Find Election Coverage
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Cass / Media Geek Girl (mediageekery.blogspot.com)

Focus: Movies, Media and Life (from Singapore)
Recent Highlight: IM Just Got Interesting
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Thought Clusters (www.thoughtclusters.com)

Focus: Technology, Software
Recent Highlight:
Hindsight Experts
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) Jason K / TekPopuli (www.tekpopuli.com)

Focus: Technology, Apple, Google, Microsoft
Recent Highlight:
Voter Suppression 2.0 — GOP Turning to Robo-Tweets
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Editechial (www.editechial.com)

Focus: Blogging, Funding, Media
Recent Highlight:
Hype Happens
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for November's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Combine Friends and Google Reader for Best News Filtering

By Chris Miller of TheSocialNetworker (Twitter/FriendFeed)

For those of you that truly digest RSS, it has become more than a super-sized meal. You are gorging yourself to keep up. Each day you find yourself discovering new feeds through links and sites like Toluu. I slowly dug through hundreds of feeds a day, mastering the Google Reader keyboard shortcuts as I utilized it more. I found myself making folders, sorting feeds, importing more OPML and watching the unread count grow larger every morning. And you could forget about trying to catch up after a long weekend!

So this is where I began to change my mindset and workflow. I surrounded myself with trusted friends that have the same indulgences and interests as myself. I began building a wide array of people and started adding them to my Google chat client so they would also show in my reader. I then sat back and watched as the shared links came in. Not too surprisingly, many of the exact articles I found interesting, they did also. That is why they are my friends in the first place. As the shared items grew, my need to visit my own folders lessened.

Let me explain more in detail. I had about 14 folders for sorting purposes and a general bucket. The general bucket got looked in on at an ever increasing gap in time. I found myself scanning the first few then marking all read. This means those feeds could possibly be removed, but it was nt like I was wasting space or anything, so of course they stay. I would find a good story here and there, but the most part I had added them for one good story and found nothing else really came out. The effort to weed through is now larger than the effort to ignore them.

The remainder of the folders were sorted by my own mental process and it works great. Each folder gets attention at least twice weekly, some daily. When I am working on a project or article, well maybe more than once a day. What happens to the rest? They either sit a few days until I change back to that folder or I mark them as read and declare feed bankruptcy on a semi regular basis.

Here comes the change. Once I started noticing that my freinds were sharing the same feeds I found interesting, I took a chance and started working from those folders more often. I grew my friend base and even solicited more of my Twitter followers and other networks to link up. My library grew as well as my enormous filter.

I have basically outsourced my feed reading. I rely on a large amount (always taking more) of workers, that I hire for free, to sort through my news, announcements, stories and excellent blog postings. They then provide filtering and share to me what should be focused on immediately. I choose to look at the others when I have a moment. Like sitting in the car waiting on yet another child to finish yet another activity. Bless the Google Reader for Blackberry.

I then, in return, become a worker for my friends by sharing an filtering feeds to a finer granularity that many of them use as a feed. Mainly the staff that works for me. They have now gotten a cleansed feed that has been through many filters and then the final siphon. All built around being a friend, sharing with a click and then doing the same in return. I thank all my filters and would like to expand my empire. So add me as a friend and lets get to filtering. idonotes@gmail.com for google chat (not e-mail, Twitter me otherwise).

---

Chris Miller, for starters, is the author of TheSocialNetworker and the podcast TheSocialGeeks. He is an avid social media consumer, tester and early adopter, which leads to his apparent enthusiasm to write and podcast site reviews. He even sneaks in his own opinions. You can find Chris on all the social networks (yes, really almost every one of them) as IdoNotes, including Twitter.

---

Treat or Treat: Five Obscure Blogs for October 2008

Part Eight In a Monthly Series

Just because there is a slowdown in the economy, and quite possibly, a slowdown in innovation in some arenas doesn't mean there is a slowdown in new, interesting bloggers who write good quality pieces that make you think. With this month's installment, forty separate blogs will have been highlighted as having a high content to subscriber ratio. A good number of those people have catapulted to new jobs and gained visibility. Others, have fallen away. How will this month's fare?

Each of the bloggers highlighted in the last eight months has been added to my Google Reader list, via Toluu, and has, to date, been consistently informative, interesting or entertaining. Prior months' entries can be found for March, April, May, June, July, August and September.

1) Bwana McCall / Bwana.org (www.bwana.org)

Focus: Podcasting, Gaming, Social Media
Recent Highlight: Twitter 2008: Get Used To It (Goodbye IM/Track)
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Ken Stewart / ChangeForge (www.changeforge.com)

Focus: Technology, Business
Recent Highlight: The Heart Of A Technologist.
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Kipp Bodnar/ Digital Capitalism (www.digitalcapitalism.com)

Focus: Marketing, Internet, Social Media
Recent Highlight:
How to Be Successful in Social Media: Take Action and Hustle
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) Daniel Pritchett / Sharing At Work (www.sharingatwork.com)

Focus: Business, Technology, Human Factors
Recent Highlight: Getting Better All The Time
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) 14 sandwiches (www.14sandwiches.com)

Focus: Technology, Video, Media
Recent Highlight:
From Homing Pigeons to Micro-Blogging: Regional Media Strides Forward
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for November's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Toluu Takes On Tagging to Further Feed Finding

Toluu, the popular feed discovery engine and OPML sharing site, is making steps toward enhancing categorization and feed discovery with an update this morning, adding tags to feeds, and helping users find similar feeds by learning what other feeds carry the same tags, or seeing what tags other users' feeds share most frequently.

I spoke with Toluu developer Caleb Elston yesterday evening, and he told me "tagging has been the most requested feature" since Toluu launched back in March. By adding tagging to the vast majority of feeds, and letting users add new tags to feeds, he hopes this will improve users' ability to discover new content. So far, he told me, more than 35,000 tags have been added, even before it's reached the hands of the service's user base.


Beginning today, every feed in Toluu will feature a "tag tab", which will show existing tags for that feed, or let users add new ones. Smartly, the service remembers tags you have made in the past, and those will auto-populate, much like the behavior on Del.icio.us.


Also starting today, you can view any other Toluu user's list of tags most frequently subscribed to, in addition to their entire feed list, with a feature called "Profile Top Tags". Now, I can see if you commonly read up on Apple and Google, like startups or social media, and can traverse your tag cloud to see which feeds match those tags.


As the tagging engine hasn't hit the public market, it's clear there is more work to be done. Toluu leverages the categorization users place feeds in during OPML import, and while Caleb said Toluu scrubs for odd tags, I've seen a number of feeds with tags that look like they are the result of a single individual.

So far, Toluu hasn't made too many efforts to become a destination site. Instead, it's a utility that helps you find better RSS feeds, and learn what your friends are reading. But with the addition of tags, users may just be sticking around a little bit longer to fill out their RSS subscription to do list. If you still don't have a Toluu invite, which is nuts, you just need to ask me for one by leaving your e-mail address in the comments, or sending me a note to louisgray@mac.com. You can find my account here: http://www.toluu.com/louisgray/

There is No Social Media Overload

Every day, there are more and more great services to investigate in the world of social media. Each one breaks new ground in terms of features, focus or user interface. There are many different sites that target general social networking, some are for business, some are for dating, some are for microblogging, and others for service aggregation. And there will be many more. While some are calling for a pause in the innovation, somewhat fatigued by the implied redundancy or overwhelmed by chasing down comments and conversations in new places, it's worth noting there's time in the day to manage a good number of sites, and not all the winners have yet been crowned.

To have a full deck of social media tools, you essentially need the following:

• 1 or more blogs that you manage.
• 1 or more accounts on an RSS feed reader.
• 1 or more microblogging identities.
• 1 or more accounts on a business networking tool.
• 1 or more accounts on a social network.
• 1 or more accounts on a service aggregator or lifestream.
  

(Also helpful: A social bookmarking site, online photo site, music recommendation service, etc.)

For me, this means I blog here, use Google Reader, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and FriendFeed as my core applications for each category. But below these headliners are others.

For RSS, I also use Shyftr and liked AssetBar before it went away. I've tried Bloglines, FeedEachOther and NewsGator as well. There are also tools that interact with RSS, like Toluu, which helps you find feeds your friends like and integrates with Google Reader, and the sites dedicated to finding the most shared items in Google Reader, like ReadBurner, RSSMeme and Feedheads. (Disclosure: I am an advisor to ReadBurner)

For microblogging, beyond Twitter, you have Identi.ca, Plurk, and now, Rejaw. I'm signed up at each, but use Twitter primarily, copying posts to Identi.ca, via Posty. I need to check out Rejaw more, but am no expert.

For business networking, there's also Plaxo, which has morphed into a lifestreaming application.

For social networking, many still use MySpace, or Friendster, but Facebook has the momentum and the development on its side. Orkut never got the traction expected.

As for lifestreaming and aggregation, I am absolutely overweighted here, and I enjoy it. Justin Korn referred to it as "Super Kickass Social Network Following Power", but if you're interested, it's fairly easy to be engaged on sites like FriendFeed, Social Median and Strands all at once, like I'm trying to do.

I like FriendFeed because it easily pulls in my activity from around the Web and has a sharp community with good conversations and hiding. I like Social Median because it lets me just see news and posts on topics I pick or from people I follow. I like Strands because it has similar elements to FriendFeed, but more filtering and some good potential. I also know it can continue to improve because it’s early. Just in the last 36 hours, I've gone from being a nothing on Strands to having more than 100 people whom I can interact with.

Below this crust of leaders, you also have smaller sites like Yokway and LetsProve, where I'm registered, but haven't done much of late. FriendBinder doesn't seem to have taken off either, and BlogRize, though interesting, got quiet fast, and seems to have gone away, as did Mergelab. The truth is that we don't know which sites are going to win, and it makes sense to be registered everywhere and active on those places where you find the best community and the best content.

Of course, just because I sign up for something, or find something, doesn't mean that you're obligated to try it out. Not all sites are for everyone. But I'm far from being overloaded with Social Media. You just have to find balance, time, and keep remembering there is no quota and you don't have to read everything. Contrary to some belief, I'm not constantly on each site. I just read quickly, decide quickly and respond quickly. None of these sites is a real big time sink, unless you force yourself to read everything. It's easier to let your friends decide the best pieces, and for you to rely on search tools to get the rest, whether it be through Twitter Search, or pre-determined Google blog searches.

The only way you get social media overload is if you don't manage it well, just like you can get RSS overload or e-mail overload, or so I've heard. Even as there are more services to engage with, the number of hours you have to work with them is still the same. So do check out as many as you think have potential, and stick with the ones that offer you the community you're looking for, the engagement you need, and the best feature set. You'll find your niche.

See Also:

• Relax, Bloggers: Nobody Is Keeping Score, and There's No Quota.
• My Social Media Consumption Workflow
• Continuous Parallel Attention: My New Reality

Five Cool Bloggers for The Hot Month of August

August marks the sixth month where I've tried to highlight five lesser-known bloggers who are quietly toiling in relative obscurity. Each of the bloggers highlighted each month has been added to my Google Reader list, via Toluu, and has, to date, been consistently informative, interesting or entertaining. Most are focused on Web applications and social media.

There's no simple rule for determining obscurity, aside from the fact their content consistently outproduces the number of comments they receive, or likely, traffic. They don't rank highly on common measures, such as Technorati, and have, to date, avoided controversy. As this is the sixth month producing this list, don't forget to check out the archives and find 25 other sites who have been featured. Prior editions can also be found for March, April, May, June and July.

1) Chris Baskind / ChrisBaskind.com (www.chrisbaskind.com)

Focus: Environment, Technology, Social Networking
Recent Highlight: Dear Twitter: It’s Over. And It’s for The Best
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

2) Mona N / Pixel Bits (pixelbits.wordpress.com)

Focus: Wikipedia, Social Networking, Humor
Recent Highlight: Screw Facebook, I’m Learning How to Unclog Toilets from Knol (Google’s “Wikipedia”)
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

3) Kyle Lacy / KyleLacy.com (www.kylelacy.com)

Focus: Social Media, Web Applications, Marketing
Recent Highlight: How to be Productive with Social Media!
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

4) David Griner / The Social Path (www. thesocialpath.com)

Focus: Social Media, Marketing
Recent Highlight: In a Free Online World, What Are You Willing to Pay For?
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

5) Justin Korn / Justin Korn’s Blog (blog.justinkorn.com)

Focus: Photography, Social Networking, Technology
Recent Highlight: The Online Participation Factor
RSS Feed: Subscribe Now

To see even more new blogs I'm adding to my reader, or get a sneak peek for September's highlighted blogs, follow my activity on Toluu. If you don't have a login to Toluu, send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com and I'll get that set up right away.

Giving a Service Wings By Pushing Them from the Nest

For those of us blogging who like to break the news by announcing new services, and using our site as their platform to debut, it can be tempting to pull an "old world" journalism mentality and claim that topic as "our turf", resenting anybody else who tries to step in and steal the thunder by posting the news first, or even feeling betrayed if the entrepreneur takes the news somewhere else. But I've seen that after what I consider an incubation period, the fastest-growing services do best when I can step back and let them take their first steps away from the nest, as they engage with other bloggers, gaining them a new audience and greater exposure.

In this analogy, it can be nerve-wracking to see the little ones as they leave the nest. I worry the new caregivers might not see them in the same way I do. The new influencer might be cruel or may not recognize their talents. But to try and protect them by keeping them in the nest could stunt their growth.

As mentioned in yesterday's popular post, the first stage of being an early adopter can at times be indistinguishable from the service's PR or Marketing firm, as you try to make a product you like extremely visible. You've no doubt seen me do this, as I'll not just help by introducing a product, but keeping you posted on its updates, from Assetbar to ReadBurner, FriendFeedMachine, RSSmeme and Toluu.

But there comes a time when the right thing to do is let go, when the service has gained such momentum that I instead suggest the developer reach out to other sites to get a broader perspective and more exposure, so that their service is less tied in with me, and seen, instead as more of the broader landscape.

Don't get me wrong. I love exclusives, and part of my journalism background makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I know that someone who might be considered competition is writing about the same topic at the same time with the same deadline. But lately, for services that have gotten some traction, I've opted out of story opportunities and encouraged the developer to get some new voices talking instead.

A prime example of this was with Toluu yesterday. On Wednesday, Caleb Elston reached out to me with some great new service updates, including details on subscriptions within Toluu by feed, and story popularity, in part helped by AideRSS. I told Caleb that instead of waiting for me, to take his outreach to the next level, and it worked, without question. Yesterday ended up being a record-setting day for Toluu, after what Hutch Carpenter called a great example of social media marketing, by participating and reaching out to bloggers and following Toluu references on both FriendFeed and Twitter.

Similarly, RSSmeme announced options to find similar sharers of data to you, and integrated widgets on each page that show top tags and sharers for that blog or topic. See: Using RSSmeme To Find Similar Sharers: Louis Gray’s Example. Having just given RSSmeme a ton of credit last Saturday on being the authority on Google Reader sharing notes, I again waved the white flag, and told Benjamin to spread the word. He did, leveraging a custom room on FriendFeed for RSSmeme, to update followers, also adding RSSmeme as a user of the service, and today, leveraging the FriendFeed API to speed up the site.

You can see how other services have taken steps to leave the nest, as other sites, often much bigger than mine, take up the rallying cry:

ReadBurner:
The Inquisitr: ReadBurner Gets Digg Like Features

Shyftr:
Mashable: Shyftr Beats Google Reader with OPML Imports

LinkRiver:
SheGeeks: LinkRiver is My Personal Techmeme

Part of being a good partner to new services is knowing when to let go, and to see if the service has wings. A few weeks ago, I wrote to one pair of entrepreneurs, "Let me know if there's anything else I can do, but I do believe it's going to come down to you guys being more visible." With everything else that's going on, I can't possibly do it all myself. That's why, even though it can be bittersweet on occasion, the right thing to do is let them take a risk and let go. It gives others, like Corvida, the opportunity to do a social media roundup on service updates, and it's best for the community at large.

Developers Are People Too, Don't Forget

Sometimes, in the race to declare one service better than another, to be among the first to say one product won't scale, or that one product will be killed or eclipsed by another, the rush of feeling declarative overlooks the fact that underneath every single one of these services we interact with each day lies people. In almost every case, especially when it comes to the nascent Web 2.0 market, the services are understaffed or sole-sourced by well-meaning developers with little more than hope, an idea, and reams of code.

One thing I have tried to do when writing about the many services I've grown to like or otherwise launch here is to mention the names behind the services. I will let you know that it's been Benjamin Golub behind FFToGo, Tweet2Tweet and RSSMeme. It was Alexander Marktl with ReadBurner, Caleb Elston with Toluu, Mario Romero with Feedheads, Yuvi Panda with TheStatBot and Dave Stanley and Matt Shaulis teaming up on Shyftr.

I say these names not because they'll eclipse their "brands", but because in almost all cases, I've forged a relationship with these entrepreneurs, even if it's just been e-mail, phone calls, late-night Google Chats, or Facebook messages. And while it's easy to crow that Twitter's down (again) or say one service is going the way of the dodo, you can be sure that the best, most aware, entrepreneurs are watching what you say. They've got their Google Searches, Technorati queries and Summize feeds set to alert them when their companies are mentioned, and the last thing they want to see is you getting a rush from being the first to say "Deadpool", a term popularized by tech blog giant TechCrunch, who has made something of a side business declaring startups dust.

On Tuesday, in a FriendFeed comment thread, I was reminded of this by a somewhat snarky note by Robert Seidman, who in response to an amusing piece that highlighted both me and Robert Scoble as finding new services in our own way, said a few sites I've covered here might as well close up shop now.

"The sad thing is, other than FriendFeed almost ALL of the services Louis touts will 'sleep with the fishes'. You could call deadpool on stuff like Social Median and Toluu right now. Functionality will be absorbed into other Google products."
-- Robert Seidman (Link)

This bothered me, not because he was suggesting I have a tendency to pick losers, but instead, because the eagerness to call "deadpool" didn't take into account the people behind the service, nor their goals. Not every Web service is expected to grow into a real company, and be sold off or enter the public markets through IPO. Many of these are hobbies. Others should be seen with the same light as shareware, in that most content is for free, and if they make a few bucks, that's just fine. Sometimes, a Web service will launch and help a developer pad the resume, or use it as a springboard to the next job. And whether it's one person behind a product or a hundred, there's no value in prematurely suggesting they wave the white flag.

Beyond this issue, I was also surprised to see the occasional visitor to my blog from searches done on Techmeme for its creator, Gabe Rivera. (See the search results) After a few of these searches had hit my referral log, I thought I'd check what was going on. Interestingly, despite the fact Techmeme is spoken of constantly, and the site comes up often in blogging circles, the last three stories to reach Techmeme that mentioned Gabe Rivera were mine, including a piece from each month in March, April and May. This tells me that people, when writing about Techmeme, don't mention Gabe, and have divorced the service from the individual.

As I wrote in April, when I asked "Does Negativity Deliver Credibility? If So, That's Nuts.", I have a tendency to shun negativity and be excited about new services. In parallel, I am supporting the developers who are taking a risk by shipping. I am supporting the people behind the services who are looking to help us consume more information, helping us build new social networks, or improve our communications. When I write about a service, I'll continue to do what I can to remember the developers and hopefully, let you get a glimpse into their world as well.

Toluu Expands Activity Threads, Rolls Out New RSS Options

Not eager to sit still, Toluu developer Caleb Elston is rolling out yet new features, just a week after making headlines with Twitter integration. This week, after seeing a great deal of usage of the newly redesigned activity page, Elston is expanding options to see new activity, now splicing the stream to show feed changes, contact updates, and favorites.

The increasingly popular OPML sharing and RSS feed matching site is still invite only (and I have many if you are interested), but in the two months since its debut, Toluu has become a flexible gateway to add new feeds, discover new content from friends, and find new peers.


Toluu's new Activity stream, showing changes to Feeds.
Also new today, Toluu is dramatically expanding the number of RSS feeds available on the site. It's not just a one-way street for RSS for Toluu. Now, each filtering view (feeds, contacts and favorites) can generate a feed, just for you, for all your friends, or for the daring, for all Toluu users worldwide. Filling out that simple 3 by 3 grid means you have 9 new RSS options in aggregate.


Toluu's new Activity stream, showing contact changes.
As Caleb wrote in an e-mail yesterday, the growing user base of Toluu means that if you're not constantly watching the site's activity stream, you could miss something. Hence, the need for splicing the feed.

"We wanted to make it easier to see a particular kind of activity," he wrote. "It is super interesting being able to see what feeds Toluu users have recently marked as favorites or see who your contacts are adding to their list of contacts."

Caleb has also made himself very much available to feedback from site users. There's even a new FriendFeed room for Toluu, where he has been quite active, taking comments and requests, as well as passing out the much-desired invites: http://friendfeed.com/rooms/toluu.

And don't expect Toluu development to slow any time soon, as Caleb's got even more plans in the works, especially when it comes to better honing in on the date you need quickly.

"Filtering, either explicit or implicit, will continue to gain importance as we live with more data than can be consumed comfortably," he said. "This is just one step towards helping Toluu users get more from their activity stream."

Still don't have access to Toluu? Leave me a note in the comments and I'll send you one via e-mail. You can find me on Toluu at http://www.toluu.com/louisgray.

Toluu Embraces Twitter With New Integration Option

Since its debut almost two months ago, Caleb Elston's Toluu has become the go-to site for seeing what RSS feeds your friends are subscribed to, and finding new sources. In the ensuing 50 days, Toluu has embraced activity feeds, letting people announce what new sites they'd discovered, and as of this morning, these announcements can extend to everybody's favorite microblogging tool, Twitter.

Also debuting today: The addition of a new feed called "Everyone", showing all activity on the Toluu service, and an enhanced "Activity" feed with greater clarity and larger user avatars, to show recent activity from you and your friends.


Toluu's Brand-New Everyone Feed In Action
The addition of Twitter notifications offers Toluu users yet another way to share activity with friends, which in turn, offers another route for greater awareness of Toluu, already growing quite well so far on its own. By enabling Twitter integration, you can ask Toluu to send a note if you add a new feed by way of the site, through the bookmark (which I use heavily) or through the import page, which accepts OPML of all flavors.

Despite still being in the stage of invite-only beta, Caleb reports the site has gained thousands of users, and Toluu is now tracking more than 100,000 individual feeds.

With this wealth of data, he's even considering showing the most popular subscribed feeds, or most favorited, should it add value. As he wrote me in an GMail Chat session yesterday, "I need to make sure there is a great deal of value to showing a leaderboard. Right now, Toluu is very tech focused, so it is more interesting than Technorati's Top 100 for tech users."

But that, of course, is for another day.

Toluu's Twitter integration is customizable, and absolutely an option for Toluu users, not being enabled by default. If you're looking to get your hands on Toluu, leave me a note in the comments with your e-mail address, and I'll get you one pronto.

See also:

CenterNetworks: Toluu Helps You Like What Your Friends Like
ReadWriteWeb: 10 Reasons Why You're Going to Love Toluu
louisgray.com: Toluu Looking Like a Real Winner
SheGeeks: Toluu Activities Includes Twitter Integration
Jeff Is a Geek: Toluu Adds Twitter And Strengthens Its Streams

Shyftr Gets More Social, Showing Who Reads Feeds You Do

One of my positions I've long held from my RSS bully pulpit is that rather than viewing feeds alone, and sharing to a mystery audience, I'd like to know if my friends are subscribed to the same feeds I am, if they've read articles before I have, and if they liked them. This wisdom of crowds theory helps me discover not only new sources for news, but also new peers I may not have known I had.

Yesterday, Shyftr, a next-generation social RSS reader, took another important step toward fulfilling this vision, following in the footsteps of fellow innovators Toluu and Assetbar.

Now, while you read your feeds in Shyftr, a rectangular box at the top right of the feed shows up to twenty avatars of fellow users who also read the feed. If the feed is not popular, all avatars will be shown, while if the feed has more than twenty followers, a random sample will be selected.

Clicking on any of the avatars leads to the user's profile.

Shyftr's Matt Shaulis asked on Twitter yesterday, "Ever wonder who else was reading the same feeds as you?"

Now I know. In fact, as a gradual student of these avatars I've seen used everywhere from MyBlogLog to BlogCatalog, Twitter, FriendFeed and elsewhere, I'm eerily able to recognize avatars, even of people I've never met. Just this morning, after looking at the avatars in Shyftr, I learned that Chris Miller of IdoNotes reads ReadWriteWeb, as does LiveCrunch.

Additional good news for Shyftr comes from the aforementioned Toluu today. Caleb Elston helpfully added Shyftr as a feed reader option in the open OPML sharing and matching site, letting users of both services add feeds to Shyftr with one click through his custom bookmarklet. (See: Shyftr: Our latest feed reader option)


Toluu has integrated Shyftr as a feed reader option
There is definitely a market for social RSS feed readers that let users find what other peers are reading, sharing and commenting on. Shyftr is methodically hitting all the key points one by one, rather than overwhelming users with feature overkill. I know I'll be clicking through these new avatars to see if there are even more peers whom I should know.

Where Are They Now? A Look at A Dozen Services That Debuted Here

Near the end of 2007, I first came across a service I had hoped would one day challenge Google Reader for the throne of coolest RSS feed reader, Assetbar. With social aspects including shared statistics and comments, it had the potential to become the future of where RSS feed readers were going. While that hasn't yet come to pass, it did mark the first time a service debuted on LouisGray.com.

In the ensuing 9 months or so, I've been lucky enough to either stumble upon, or get engaged with entrepreneurs early enough in the process, such that this site was where they first got started. Some of them have gone on to incredible visibility and success. One has already closed shop. Another looks dormant, and others, somewhere in between. I'll hold off on giving a rating, or "stars" assigned to their success, but believe me, it's tempting.

---

Assetbar
Debut: September 17, 2007
Post: Assetbar Set to Launch With Google Reader Inspiration

The Goal: To deliver a next-generation RSS feed reader with integrated commenting, shared link lists, and the ability to see if friends had seen or liked an article.

Status: After gaining the attention of ReadWriteWeb and Mashable, as well as a few follow-up stories here, Assetbar gained several hundred users, but rather than rocketing upward in popularity, issues with the confusing user interface, and prioritizing features over speed had even early adopters not sticking around. The site's gone into something of hibernation and maintenance mode, while the developers consider where to take their participatory social media platform next.

---

BlogRize
Debut: April 7, 2008
Post: BlogRize Builds A Community Around Your Blog and its Readers

The Goal: Build a community around a blog, and find new interesting items.

Status: Recently profiled by ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez, who is everywhere, BlogRize has hundreds of users joining communities like ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch and LouisGray.com to see what others like them are sharing and commenting on. Updates so far have been somewhat quiet, thanks to developer Jesse Spaulding's recent move to Seattle.

---

LinkRiver
Debut: February 13, 2008
Post: LinkRiver Enters Life Streaming Fray, Focused on Link Blogs

The Goal: To let friends follow shared items activity from multiple people in one place.

Status: LinkRiver has a big fan in Corvida of SheGeeks (LinkRiver Is My Personal Techmeme), and with interesting wrinkles including Attention data, which tracks what you share most often, and the ability to tag items for later viewing, developer Adam Stiles has created a lightweight (in a good way), informative site to find the most popular items of the day, or to see what friends are sharing, without the noise of some other social aggregators.

---

MergeLab
Debut: March 4, 2008
Post: Mergelab Emerges to Streamline Friends' Web Updates

The Goal: To follow friends' activity on the Web in a single location.

Status: Mergelab announced last Friday that the site would close down by the end of June. Without revenue, and with competition, the decision was made to exit the game early.

---

Rating Burner
Debut: January 30, 2008
Post: Rating Burner Debuts With RSS Feed Ranking, Growth Stats

The Goal: To show the most popular FeedBurner feeds, and daily changes.

Status: While not widely known, Rating Burner is quietly doing its job, adding more and more feeds to its library. The developer even added the option to display a Rating Burner badge on your blog so you can show your own ranking from the site.

---

ReadBurner
Debut: January 7, 2008
Post: ReadBurner, In Stealth Mode, Looking to Sort Shared Feed Items

The Goal: Find the most common shared items in Google Reader.

Status: ReadBurner took off like a phoenix, but after gaining rave reviews from across the Web, the site's lead developer shut down the site, only to see a trio of entrepreneurs, including Mashable's Adam Ostrow, buy its technology and get it up and running again. ReadBurner 2.0 debuted on April 15th and has continued to innovate, issuing an iPhone version of the site, and today, adding support for shared items from NetVibes.

---

RSSmeme
Debut: February 6, 2008
Post: RSSmeme Debuts as ReadBurner Clone

The Goal: Find the most common shared items in Google Reader

Status: RSSmeme took advantage of ReadBurner's downtime, and has more shared link blogs in play than anybody else on the Web. RSSmeme also debuted helpful integration for bloggers who want to show how often their items have been shared, and recently integrated notes from Google Reader.

---

Shyftr
Debut: March 4, 2008
Post: Shyftr Offers Social RSS Reading, Including Comments, Rankings

The Goal: Develop a RSS Feed Reader for friends to share favorite items and make comments.

Status: Shyftr recently added OPML importing, on the back of debuting shared link blogs, making it even more competitive with Google Reader, as Mark Hopkins of Mashable and the Download Squad noted. The service still has a way to go to get in the mainstream, and it will take some time for them to escape the dubious honor of getting Bitchmemed last month, but they continue to work hard.

---

SocialMedian
Debut: April 8, 2008
Post: Former Jobster CEO's Social|Median Incubating in Alpha

The Goal: A social news service, personalized based on your favorite topics.

Status: As mentioned Tuesday, SocialMedian is seeing strong growth, even in their alpha stage, growing to 2,599 alpha users, as of this post. The growth in the user base has resulted in a higher amount of interesting news, more clipped items, and the GUI has gotten much stronger in the last month.

---

TheStatBot
Debut: May 1, 2008
Post: The StatBot Launches to Analyze Blog and Web Trends, Statistics

The Goal: To analyze blog trends and statistics with insightful commentary.

Status: Yuvi Panda is now posting 2 to 3 new articles a week, starting with Scoble's Twitter feed, and now, dissecting Digg and the Techmeme Leaderboard. His latest post, from Tuesday, highlights those sites most likely to be in the "Discussion" section of TechMeme, not a featured item.

---

Toluu
Debut: March 24, 2008
Post: Toluu Offers Gateway to Friends' RSS Feeds, Recommends New Ones

The Goal: Share your OPML with friends and find new feeds.

Status: Growing like a weed, Caleb Elston's pet project has ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez enamored and just yesterday, Elston announced he continues to upgrade the site, deleting more than 60,000 duplicate feeds, the kind of attention to important detail that has people coming back again and again.

---

Yokway
Debut: March 2, 2008
Post: YokWay! Weeks Away from Launching "Digg for Friends"-like Service

The Goal: Share items, videos, and pictures with friends and have conversations.

Status: According to Yokway insiders, traffic to the site is catching up to FriendFeed and beating out SocialMedian, but aside from my coverage, and that from the Last Podcast, they haven't had nearly the exposure of FriendFeed, so that would be a surprise to me. The site has a few hundred visitors, from what I can tell, most activity is still from a select few dozen. Over the last 24 hours, there were 25 items shared for discussion. While the user interface is interesting, as is the application, it hasn't yet gained a lot of public awareness.

---

While this list is long, it's certainly a speck compared to that which blog powers like TechCrunch could debut. I've been lucky to play the role of early adopter, and there are a few more items out there cooking which should show up soon. But on the whole, I'm pretty pleased with the efforts made by just about every single one of the players above. ReadBurner and Toluu for starters, changed the game. Others are must-visit sites for me. But in this fast-moving industry, if you're not fast-moving, you might as well quit. I'm looking forward to keeping this going.

Meeting Virtual Friends In Real Life at Web 2.0 Expo

This week is one of the few opportunities where my work life and my blog life are intersecting. I have the chance to participate at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, and while the show exhibition doesn't start in earnest until tomorrow, I've already had the opportunity to make face to face connections with people who I respect, but until today, had only met online, through Twitter, through blogs, e-mail or FriendFeed. And I continue to be amazed how easy it is to meet somebody for the first time, and feel like we're close friends, solely due to our online connections.

One highlight of the day was meeting Caleb Elston, the creator of Toluu. Caleb, based in Miami, Florida, is far from home, but was nice enough to step out of a session he was attending so we could catch up. In the thirty minutes or so that we talked, he expressed excitement over how rapidly Web users have taken to his RSS feed matching and recommendation service, saying thousands had signed up, with the only limitation being how many beta invites he has offered.

In fact, the early buzz over Toluu, both here and elsewhere, led to some curiosity from colleagues at his day job, where he said he was getting more and better PR than his company. Some friends at the office even thought he might jump ship, to focus solely on Toluu. Yet, he reassured me, that wasn't in the plans. For him, developing and enhancing Toluu is done when he otherwise would be less productive, watching TV or movies, and has helped to keep him sharp and focused.

Eager to keep the Toluu buzz going, I even lobbed a call to Robert Scoble, hoping I could connect the two, but his dance card is full. He said he'd love to meet up, but it's no surprise he has interviews lined up every hour on the hour throughout the show from entrepreneurs trying to gain his attention. I don't exactly envy his schedule.

Wandering up to the press room, as my exhibitor pass wouldn't let me crash any of the sessions, I found Marshall Kirkpatrick and Josh Catone of ReadWriteWeb, as well as Brian Solis of Bub.blicio.us and PR 2.0. As Marshall has been one of my more vocal advocates since the turn of the calendar year, and as I respect RWW's efforts, it seemed natural to pull alongside and start trading stories. We talked about what was making news today at the show (not too much), and looked at the latest FriendFeed apps, MySocial 24x7 and FriendFeedMachine, which I covered yesterday. Marshall really likes MySocial 24x7 a lot, and showed me how he had it sitting in his FireFox browser sidebar, but I haven't yet installed it. That led to him teasing me about getting to a FriendFeed app before I did, which I can live with. In turn, I gave him grief for Sarah Perez' continued success at RWW, which I suggested was putting a little more pressure on him to produce. We both agreed she was doing a great job, but I don't know that she's at the show. I certainly didn't see her today.

Richard MacManus joined us at the table just as I had to leave, but I was able to introduce myself and shake hands.

On tap for tomorrow? The exhibition gets started. So, after putting in labor today, we'll be looking forward to meeting more people, both in my virtual address book, and my real world directory. We'll be at booth #115 all day, and can be reached by the contact information on the right hand side of the blog. I'm already looking forward to meeting Susan Mernit, hope to track down the Mashable team, and maybe you too! Send me a note, or drop by booth #115, and we can get connected.

Fav.or.it Beta Effort is Not My Favorite. Not Even Close.

Sometimes the concept behind a new service ends up being much better than the actual experience. And try as I might to find out what it is I'm missing about a "good on paper" product, it occasionally happens that holes in the product, a confusing user interface, or a smattering of bugs can get in the way of recognizing its true potential. Unfortunately, so far my experience with Fav.or.it, a new next generation RSS feed reader, has been one disappointment after another, taking what should be an evolutionary step in the way we share data and interoperate with feeds and instead, throwing roadblocks and confusing processes that will surely thwart the site's ability to attract significant users.

I first became excited about Fav.or.it's potential to compete with Google Reader after seeing Robert Scoble's initial gushing back in December. The concept behind Fav.or.it sounds wonderful - offering a fully-developed RSS feed reader with a river of news interface, integrated commenting which feeds back to the originating blog, and a detailed directory of blogs, from technology to news and even sports.

When Fav.or.it opened its public beta in late February, I was excited to see that blogs with Disqus could integrate comments. Also promising attention data and a full API, it seemed the service would be well on its way to being a serious challenger.

But from day one, I've had issues getting Fav.or.it to even function at a basic level. I'm no stranger to beta products with raw edges or underbaked features, but trying to figure out Fav.or.it, or get the service to even find my RSS subscriptions has been one headache after another - one major reason I'd held off discussing Fav.or.it until now, hoping I was just missing something.

In March, I traded e-mails with Fav.or.it founder Nick Halstead, saying it didn't seem "100% transparent to me", and he mentioned having "teething problems" common to any new site, so again, I figured the site would eventually come around. But it hasn't yet been the case.


Fav.or.it choked on my Google Reader OPML every time.
The very first step to creating a service that can compete with Google Reader is enabling simple OPML import to get the feeds I read today into another system. Fav.or.it makes me think it would be easy, but every time I would upload my Google Reader subscription list, I was told the data was in the wrong format - nothing more. Just a failure. There was also the option to add URLs one by one, so I tried that, adding a handful of my favorite sites. Only then did I see a warning that Fav.or.it was only allowing upwards of 25 feeds to be added, less than 5 percent of what Google Reader is handling today for me.


Everywhere I turned, more limits and warnings...
Even nuttier, I was met with warnings when I imported my sites, being told every feed I added would be available to the community at large, not just to me. Further, I was told I couldn't upload feed mashups, Non-English feeds, Spam, Shopping or Porn. While I hadn't planned to do so, the feeling within Fav.or.it was extremely hostile, without the feelings of security you get in Google Reader or other feed readers.

Fav.or.it also wasn't very bright as to handling the few sites I did put in by hand. I had provided upwards of a dozen unique feed URLs, of which half were from FeedBurner. Fav.or.it tried to resolve the feeds, and lumped all those that started with "http://feeds.feedburner.com/" as one single feed. Obviously, that didn't work, so I saw the dozen I tried to put in quickly whittled down to about five. And in contrast to the near-instant adding of feeds to Google Reader, Toluu, Shyftr or AssetBar, Fav.or.it showed a lengthy progress bar, testing my patience.

Slowly, but surely, Fav.or.it managed to import one feed...

But, eventually they did import, and I could add these new feeds to what Fav.or.it calls a "slice". I can view the RSS feeds, in river view, and even see integrated comments for those who use Disqus. One of the major selling points of Fav.or.it has been the ability to defragment the conversation and bring comments back to the original blog.


Fav.or.it in action, showing comments in line...

But while that's nice, and noble, it certainly couldn't overcome the interface oddities I seemingly encountered at every turn. My slice "Tech Blogs" was marked with a number of 1110, with no seeming rhyme or reason, and clicking the 1110 showed Twitter, del.icio.us or send to a friend, without any indication of what clicking those items would do. Clicking the first two items gave me a checkmark, but no action.

What fav.or.it does bring to the table is a detailed blog directory, organized by humans, into categories, much like Jason Calacanis' Mahalo. But for me, I'm not all that interested in finding new sites for Drink, Spirituality, Government and Weather, among the options shown. For an RSS feeder really to blow me away, I need to be able to read my feeds, and take action. On Google Reader, that action is sharing or e-mailing. On AssetBar, that action is sharing, talking with others or rating an item. On FriendFeed and Yokway, it's commenting and liking or giving stars. But while fav.or.it does enable comments back to the blog, unlike the other services, who delivered on their core mission, they never gave me what I really wanted in the first place, a solid feed reader that could handle more than 25 feeds.


Help! Wait... there is no help.
And if that wasn't bad enough, when I finally gave up and went looking for help, giving in to the possibility I'm such a tech dummy that I was missing the obvious, I clicked through to the Frequently Asked Questions area (FAQ). Sure enough, it was blank.

So I guess nobody has any questions. But I sure do - how can you take a service with such good design, slap on so many features that sound compelling, and then reverse optimize it so I'm completely incapable of using it? I'm typically fairly forgiving for well-intended entrepreneurs that are working hard on what could be excellent products, but things have to change dramatically for me to give fav.or.it another run. I need to get all my Google Reader feeds into the system. And the system needs to be ready for people to use it, not for people to be stuck due to its many limitations.

Toluu Looking Like a Real Winner

Being part of an entrepreneur's launch of a new service is exciting. If I get early access to a product, and think it has real potential, it can be as if in some small way, I'm part of the site's launch team, and every little element of success they recognize makes me feel like I chose well. Sometimes, I really do worry that I'm wearing my early adopter hat so tight that it could be cutting off oxygen to my brain. But with the launch of Toluu ten days behind us, I can easily report the initial response has been more than I could have anticipated for the upstart Caleb Elston and his socially-oriented OPML sharing site.

After my initial coverage of the site last Monday, Caleb's site was almost immediately overwhelmed by eager testers who wanted their hands on the new offering. In the last ten days, Toluu's servers were upgraded, not just once, but twice, as the site saw hundreds of new users pour in, each adding anywhere from a handful to hundreds of their own RSS feeds, forcing Toluu to pull down thousands upon thousands of new items, and using its matching algorithm to crunch the data and help users find new friends and feeds.

(See: Toluu Blog: Toluu gets new server infrastructure)

The growth wasn't all due to my comments, of course. Despite what some say, I'm still very small compared with more brand name sites. The Toluu buzz turned into a roar last week following positive reviews from Allen Stern at Center Networks (Toluu Helps You Like What Your Friends Like) and Sarah Perez at Read Write Web (10 Reasons Why You're Going to Love Toluu). Toluu even gained a position in TechCrunch's CrunchBase company listings. (CrunchBase: Toluu)

Like most new entrants to the market, Toluu has some rough edges. But, like the best innovators, the service responds to user feedback extremely quick. On Tuesday, Caleb introduced two new features he says were the most popular requested features: First, generating an RSS feed or your activity on the site and secondly, delivering an RSS feed for the activity of both you and your friends. As he commented in a blog post, "Now your Toluu activity; the feeds you add, the feeds you favorite, the people you connect with, is now completely portable."

Caleb even chose to highlight the import and activity process using a screenshot which added louisgray.com to his feed lists as the example - no doubt in an attempt to get me to write about it (which apparently worked). Of note, the CrunchBase screenshot has a little louisgray.com touch to it as well (See here).

Sometimes, a site's potential for success is apparent immediately, and sometimes it takes a little more time. Toluu looks like a hit that's spreading virally as bloggers sign in, find new friends and keep talking it up. If he's not careful, Caleb could find himself preparing for yet another server upgrade in the near term.

If you haven't yet jumped on the Toluu bandwagon, there's still time, and I have plenty of highly sought-after invites, so post a comment and get one, or send me an e-mail.

Toluu Offers Gateway to Friends' RSS Feeds, Recommends New Ones

While Google Reader, Shyftr, AssetBar and others have developed strong options for online RSS feed reading, it's still not easy to learn what feeds your friends read, and what feeds you're missing, which could be of interest to you. Now, a new entrant into the market, Toluu, aims to fit this niche, giving you a new resource to match your RSS OPML exploits against those of your contacts, or even find new people who share the same interests, or new feeds.

The concept behind Toluu is fairly simple. First, login. Second, upload an OPML file you've exported from your current feed reader. Third, mark which of your feeds are your favorites. Then, by clicking "matches", you can learn which other Toluu users share your interests, indicated by a %. You can browse those individuals' feeds, see which you are most likely to appreciate, those feeds you both share, and which you aren't viewing.


Toluu says Caleb and I are 79% compatible...
While you can choose to browse feeds in Toluu, it's not aiming to fully replace your feed reader of choice just yet. Its beginnings arose not with the intent of becoming a world power, but instead, to enable you and your friends to share and discover new feeds.


The Toluu feed reader in action on How to Split an Atom
"Toluu got started one day at work when some friends at the office sent me some posts from blogs I had never heard of before. It seemed remarkable that I read over 150 feeds in Google Reader and yet my friends had found blogs that I really enjoyed, but had never read before," lead developer Caleb Elston wrote in an e-mail. "I set out to create a site that was focused on sharing the feeds you read with friends and discovering new interesting feeds. I did not want to create another feed reader, there are many fantastic feed readers out there and new ones being launched and updated everyday."


My Toluu Profile, with Favorites...
Toluu is a lightweight utility that sits between the original source of the information, and your primary feed reader. Toluu even offers a simple solution enabling users to add a feed to both Toluu and their feed reader of choice, by adding a bookmarklet, which first adds the feed to Toluu, and then continues to your preferred solution. In the weeks I've been trying Toluu out, it's been remarkably easy to add feeds to both Toluu and Google Reader, rather than worrying my various OPML files were all getting out of sync.

Toluu also gets smarter as activity increases, thanks to collaborative filtering. Based on your reading habits, and those of your friends, individual feeds can be tagged as "favorites" or "fantastic", rising throughout the user community, also letting you find new recommended feeds you might not have known ever existed. And over time, Toluu is designed, not to find the blogs that are one-hit wonders, with the occasional interesting story, but instead, to find those you'll be returning to time and again - this time, with a little help from your friends.

Learn more about Toluu on the Toluu Blog, see my profile at http://www.toluu.com/louisgray, or request a beta invite. Of course, you can always leave a note in the comments with your e-mail, and we'll be sure to get you in the door. After all, for social services like Toluu, the more friends we have actively participating, the better the service will get.