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FriendFeed Consolidates Social Media Activities
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Written By Miguel Cancino | October 2, 2007 | Share This
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The New York Times reported the beta launch yesterday of FriendFeed, a new social site that consolidates your friends’ activities on the Web into a single ‘Feed’. Says founder Bret Taylor,
“[FriendFeed] gives you a snapshot of what people you know think is interesting. It’s kind of a blog that writes itself.”
FriendFeed currently supports 23 social web services, including Digg, Flickr, YouTube, and Last.fm. Users create their own network of friends whose activity updates can be tracked in a continuous stream of notifications. The streaming content can be embedded within user’s Facebook pages or their personal web page or blog.
FriendFeed is not the first social media site to allow users to distribute their internet-activity with friends. Similar services like Kaboodle (shopping) and Google’s Shared Stuff have already carved a niche in this voyeuristic market. FriendFeed is hoping that their simple and effortless sharing process (users don’t have to do anything to share updates) will lead to the site’s success. Writes the New York Times,
“The creators of FriendFeed say their system is intended to be as simple as possible. ‘I like this because it doesn’t require me to do anything new,’ Mr. Taylor said.”
Though a compelling concept, FriendFeed’s automatic updates could provoke privacy concerns among wary users. Unless FriendFeed implements comprehensive privacy settings for their site announcements, I doubt many Feeders will be eager to ‘automatically’ broadcast their personal information.
Finally: Google Reader Adds Search Box
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | September 6, 2007 | Share This
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Along with a few other improvements, Google Reader has added a search box to its interface. Considering that the service is more than a year old and Google is the world’s biggest search engine, the question remains: What took them so long?! In the battle for feed-reader world domination - which earlier this week, Read/Write Web noted is being won by Bloglines at the moment - a search box may have been something for Google Reader to add sooner. Like, maybe even when Google Reader launched. TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley notes:
Google Readers biggest competitor Bloglines recently released a completely new version that has been getting positive coverage; adding search to Google Reader (a feature Bloglines has had since May 2006) shines the spotlight back in Google’s direction.
Better late than never, though, and the blog Google System has some good suggestions for improvement.
AOL Releases myAOL In Beta
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Written By Emily Koh | July 11, 2007 | Share This
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Yesterday AOL launched into beta its personalization suite myAOL, made up of three services that allows users to customize and organize their online content, reports TechCrunch.
Frank Gruber, Product Manager of myAOL, gives a detailed rundown of myAOL’s new features: (more…)
Google Releases Feedburner Premium Services For Free
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Written By Mohammad Usman | July 3, 2007 | Share This
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Google’s recent acquisition of FeedBurner has stirred up a lot of press for the search giant. FeedBurner is a news feed management provider, which offers custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers. Prior to the acquisition, Feedburner custumers had to pay for premiem reporting services; now, Google has made Feedburner’s MyBrand and Stats PRO free of charge.
FeedBurner Stats PRO is an enhanced reporting option that gives users a more detailed look at subscriber numbers, item click-through tracking, CTR optimization, uncommon uses, podcast downloads, feed reach, aggregate item uses, on-site statistics, and more. MyBrand, on the other hand, allows users to create branded URLs for their feeds. Together, they create a comprehensive RSS management and tracking system for professional bloggers.
(more…)
Dark Day for Internet Radio
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | April 17, 2007 | Share This
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The Copyright Royalty Board has denied all motions to reconsider a ruling that forces Internet radio stations to pay royalties for songs heard per user. Under such an absurd calculation of royalties, webcasters will be expected to pay upwards of millions of dollars to operate. The new fees will go into effect May 15th - though NPR and other small action groups have appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From Ars Technica,
” The ruling is a huge blow to online broadcasters, and the new royalty structure could knock a large number of them off the ‘Net entirely. Under the previous setup, radio stations would have to pay an annual fee plus 12 percent of their profits to the music industry’s royalty collection organization, SoundExchange. It was a good setup for the webcasters, most of whom are either nonprofits or very small organizations…
SoundExchange is jubilant over the ruling. Executive Director John Simson called the CRB’s ruling a victory for performing artists and record labels. “Our artists and labels look forward to working with the Internet radio industry—large and small, commercial and noncommercial—so that together we can ensure it succeeds as a place where great music is available to music lovers of all genres,” said Simson in a statement.
Noble words, but after today’s ruling…there probably won’t be much of an Internet radio industry left for SoundExchange to work with.”
Go to SaveNetRadio.org to sign an online petition and email your thoughts to congress.
Further Reading:
- RIAA Pushes Through Internet Radio Royalty Rates Designed to Kill Webcasts (Techdirt)
- No, Mr. Web Radio. I Expect You to DIE! (Copyfight)
- Dear Record Companies, You Are Complete Morons (LikeItMatters)
Feedburner Gives Insight into RSS Industry
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | February 23, 2007 | Share This
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Following Google’s decision to start reporting RSS subscribers, Feedburner has posted an overview of the industry.
“While it’s always encouraging to see feed subscription numbers go up, these subscription numbers in a vacuum only tell part of the story. Equally important is the extent to which people are reading feeds and interacting with them. In today’s […]
Following Google’s decision to start reporting RSS subscribers, Feedburner has posted an overview of the industry.
“While it’s always encouraging to see feed subscription numbers go up, these subscription numbers in a vacuum only tell part of the story. Equally important is the extent to which people are reading feeds and interacting with them. In today’s post we’ll take a look at one aspect of the feed aggregator market - the web-based aggregators - and draw some conclusions about how audiences are consuming content in new and different ways.”
Among their findings: All subscribers have different reporting standards, “default” feeds in certain aggregators have a disproportionate number of subscribers, and, MyYahoo!, Google and Bloglines are the dominant readers. Here’re the two most interesting charts:
In sum, what they’re able to measure may not accurate reflect the full reach of your content online. Until there exist better reporting standards that can be applied to all types of RSS applications, Feedburner ’subscribers’ will only cover a portion of the industry.
2007 Search Industry Breakdown
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | January 3, 2007 | Share This
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Another year, another set of predictions. So, Search is turning 13 this year - is that why the market is looking more and more like a middle school dance? Google is the “cool” kid, Microsoft keeps trying to pick an outfit, Yahoo is having a breakdown in the bathroom and everyone wants to make best friends with the 2.0 kids. Based on the multitude of blogger opinions, polls and our internal Reprise Media survey, here are our predictions for the search engines in 2007:
Google
Digital video and online TV are this year’s hot ticket items. Given that Google basically owns user-generated video via YouTube, they’re in a good position to keep growing. Not only that, but Google’s already testing ways to monetize new media by applying their auction system to radio and video ads. Apart from video assets, Searchviews predicts: Checkout is the new PayPal, Docs and Spreadsheets are the future OS (this might not happen until late ‘07/2008), and Feedburner should be Google’s new best friend.
Microsoft
Dear Microsoft/MSN/Live.com, PICK A BRAND already. Live.com won’t significantly increase traffic for MSN, but like we said before, at least it looks pretty. Vista won’t make an impression until late 2007/2008, but when it does, it could give Microsoft an edge on user-generated rich media. Searchviews predicts: Live Image Search will pick up a big name image search engine with 3-D facial recognition tech, Microsoft will take Office further online to compete with Docs and Spreadsheets, and as MSN recongizes that they have a better opportunity monetizing their own assets across Vista/Live properties, they will NOT become a major player in contextual advertising.
Yahoo
How many Yahoo employees does it take to screw in a light bulb? evidently two - one to stick his finger in the socket and one to call the Wall Street Journal. But at least Yahoo seems more on track with their re-org under public scrutiny. Searchviews predicts: Panama, though not a world-changing improvement, will improve Yahoo’s revenue per click, and offer enough stability to allow them to focus on innovation. In ‘07 Yahoo! may finally figure out how to get more out of their lucrative social media and “lifestyle” assets… that is, if they get their re-org together.
Etc
We have only two things to say to the remaining small% of the search market - don’t expect to compete with Google and Yahoo, but find your niche - either as a general 2nd tier or a vertical engine. Searchviews predicts: MSN will pick up one of the 2nd tiers, AOL will pick someone to buy them out, “Wikiasari” will attract approximatelyyy… 15 minutes of press.
Overall, we think 2007 will be characterized by the pervasive role of search across all types of media. Without further digression, Searchviews would like to summarize our thoughts on the…
Top Five Trends for 2007
- Ad Revenue Sharing Will Subsidize Everything: Cheap mobile service, long distance, online television, P2P sharing of copyrighted content, etc.
- Social Networking will cease being referred to as “new media” and will become just another standard element of “media”.
- Quality-Based Metrics will emerge as Page Views become less relevant. New metrics will capture stuff like, length of time spent on page, and other indicators of the “quality” (aka: “engagement”) of the conversion. The newly launched Turn.com is an example of a CPA (cost-per-action) network that is attempting to bridge the disparity between old and new media advertising.
- Geo-Behavioral Targeting: Social/Local user search data + GPS tracking = v. powerful ad targeting for mobile - though marketers will have to figure out how to create mobile ads that don’t invade the user’s sense of privacy.
- Internet Becomes Preferred Source of News: As newspapers move increasingly online, publishers will look for new ways to differentiate online to offline story coverage. Online coverage will be more up-to-date, though with less editing and faster turnover, whereas offline news will encompass a more analytic voice, incorporating reader feedback (that was perhaps, generated online). The recent Washington Post re-org is one example of a major publishers recognizing the Internet as the preferred source of news.
Is Edelman Spamming My RSS Reader?
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | October 23, 2006 | Share This
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At least once a day, a mysterious feed will spontaneously prompt my FeedDemon account to ‘Import OPML’. At first I ignored them, but when they kept coming back uninvited, I took an actual look at where they were coming from. Check out the screen shot below:
Yes, yes it does say “www.edelman.com/rss”. But, […]
At least once a day, a mysterious feed will spontaneously prompt my FeedDemon account to ‘Import OPML’. At first I ignored them, but when they kept coming back uninvited, I took an actual look at where they were coming from. Check out the screen shot below:
Yes, yes it does say “www.edelman.com/rss”. But, upon clicking ‘Next’, it returns an error message, “This file is either not a valid OPML file, or it is an OPML file that doesn’t contain a list of feeds.” Even more intriguing, the URL goes to a Grazr-supported OPML list of all blogs by Edelman employees, including Steve Rubel and Mr. Edelman himself. I tried to track down the root page that was sending the feeds, but ran into a ‘Listing Denied’ error.
So, unless this is some freakish glitch in FeedDemon (I checked, no one reports a similar error in their forums, though the FeedDemon customer support is yet to get back to me), it appears that Edelman has set up a spam opml feed to automatically subscribe people to their employees’ blogs from a hidden page on their site. Sheesh - last week they were Flogging for Walmart, now they’ve got OMPL spam (SPO-PML)… what is this, Black Hat 2.0? I mean, I know they have a reputation for being blogging savvy, but from one spam technique to the next, it’s like they’re compiling the next big whitepaper on the subject. Social Media PR: Who Not To Hire.
UPDATE:
Since this was posted, Steve Rubel alerted me that his Grazr OPML file is unintentionally interfering with FeedDemon. The bug was brought to the attention of FeedDemon, who identified it as an error with Grazr that will be fixed in the next FeedDemon update.
Burn! FeedBurner Consumes Blogbeat
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Written By Reprise Media | July 17, 2006 | Share This
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We read it on TechCrunch: RSS feed management outfit FeedBurner bought out Blogbeat, a blog analytics start-up, for an undisclosed sum; the terms of the deal are not even “whispered in hushed tones among those in the know,” according to a playful FAQ FeedBurner prepared (if you’re into a more sober account, there’s always the press release).
At the moment, FeedBurner can only give you information about your RSS feed; taking on Blogbeat’s analytics would turn it into a one stop shop for webmasters already using FeedBurner. They would still have the option of using an alternative analytics service, but the Blogbeat technology will be there for the using.
FeedBurner hopes to be done incorporating Blogbeat’s know-how into its current offerings sometime during Q4 of this year. In the meantime, Blogbeat will still keep chugging, but they won’t take on any new customers. FeedBurner, which is free, plans to refund existing Blogbeat-ers once the changeover is finished.
At least one question is left only partly answered by the press release and FAQ: “What happens to the Blogbeat staff?” Founder Jeff Turner jumps to FeedBurner as Lead Engineer, Web Analytics, it says, but uh…the staff? The FAQ features a cartoon of a newspaper depicting green aliens running from flying saucers; it bears the headline, “FeedBurner Invasion! Planet Blogbeat acquired by FeedBurner Overlords.” We shudder to think…
Listen Up: Google’s Got an RSS Reader
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Written By Reprise Media | October 7, 2005 | Share This
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Google unveiled a RSS reader today at Web 2.0.
It’s called Google Reader and its mission is to allow you to:
“Spend your time reading what you care about most.”
(please note: celebrity news, sports scores, etc. doesn’t count)
Like a lot of what’s already out there, Google Reader is a browser-based application and is compatible with most popular browsers. A Google search box at the top lets you search for feeds and you can view the feeds you’re subscribed to on a reading list with a preview pane that lets you get a sneak peek at feed content.
Some of the more interesting features include a built-in algorithm that learns what content you like and prioritizes your feeds accordingly. There’s also sharing capabilities which let you post feed content to a blog (only on Blogger though) or email your feeds via Gmail.
Take a guided tour now and get the full scoop here, courtesy Search Engine Watch.