Pocketed 05/18/2008
Posted in 
Mashable! (View Site) by Stan Schroeder - 05/17/2008
Back in the summer of 2006, a new and - to many - not that interesting service called Twttr was launched as a side project from Odeo. It was later renamed to Twitter, and it started gaining some serious traction somewhere in 2007.
At the time of Twitter’s humble beginnings, it didn’t seem very important to actively use the service. Most people I know sat on the sidelines and waited to see if this new thing is worth their time. Some, like Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel, were active on the service from the very beginning, following as many people as they can and updating their Twitter feed as often as they can (Scoble has over 11.000 updates at the moment).
And although many would see this as colossal waste of time, the fact is that these Twitter pioneers now exert a huge amount of influence through this new medium. Whenever Twitter is mentioned in mainstream media, Scoble gets a nod. Whenever he tweets, he gets loads and loads of replies, which turns almost every one of his tweets into an interesting conversation.
Of course, one can always argue that Robert was a very recognizable and popular internet persona even before Twitter, but I believe that his persistence at using the service frequently and from the very beginning was paramount in his Twitter popularity. I believe anyone who has something to say can do it if they catch the bandwagon early enough.
However, if you’re late to the game and if you think you can still reach Scoble levels of popularity on Twitter, I’m afraid you’re wrong. I’ve been checking out Twitterholic, the unofficial top list of Twitter users, ranked by the number of their followers, and I noticed that - as in many other social networks - the big get bigger faster and faster. The small ones can never catch up.
Take a look at a graph I’ve created (using this handy application) using the stats of a couple of highly ranked users on Twitterholic, comparing them to those lower on the ladder. Nick Douglas, for example, has added around 1800 new followers in the past 60 days, while Leo Laporte has added over 20000 in that same period.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but usually, early adopters tend to exert greater and greater influence on the network over time. Which means it’s like a little social pyramid scheme: if you’re late, you’re screwed.
There’s a good side to this, of course. It means that if you catch new social networks early and stick with them, over time you too will become more and more influential. It means that if you’re willing to spend some time trying out new stuff, in the end you’ll get rewarded. Even better is the fact that it carries over to other social networks; I’m sure that Scoble is somewhere at the top as far as FriendFeed followers go, too, simply because the two services are so interconnected.
What’s the lesson here? Next time you see a promising new network forming, don’t wait for others to start using it before you hop in. Be a pioneer, actively use the service, share it with everyone, and in time, your voice will be heard by many.
And of course, don’t forget to follow the Mashable team’s rants, thus propelling us into Twitter stardom.
Mashable Feed + Pete
Adam Ostrow
Adam Hirsch
Kristen Nicole
Mark Hopkins
Stan Schroeder
Paul Glazowski
Sean P. Aune
Tamar Weinberg
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Woman Sues Apple For $1 Million - Over $200 Price Cut
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Pocketed 05/18/2008
Posted in 
louisgray.com (View Site) by louisgray - 05/09/2008
Whether it be RSS feeds, social networks, or one of the many social media aggregation sites, it's no surprise that even your closest peers are sharing data they care about that you just don't. But so far, despite many users calling for content-based filters, solutions to block keywords or topics are missing from the vast majority of information spigots. In fact, I can't think of a single one I use that's gotten the formula right.
Not to overly repeat myself, but one of the major hopes I had for Google Reader last year was that they would add
what I called "Negative Keywords", which would let me block specific posts from people I had subscribed to, be they off-topic posts on politics, family and sports, arrays of links from
del.icio.us, or their latest cause du jour.
As the 2008 election season is heating up, it's no surprise that even the most geeky of tech news sources are starting to give some coverage to Obama vs. Clinton or Obama vs. McCain, and it will only increase over time. If I so chose, why couldn't I ask
Twitter or
Google Reader or
FriendFeed to preemptively hide updates that included keywords like "Clinton", "Obama" or "McCain"? Today, I can't do that in any of those services, so far as I know.
Taking things further, I've also at times been tantalized by the idea of a "nuclear option" for the Web, where if I so chose, I could eradicate the mentioning of a keyword of any kind from all activity.
On Wednesday,
Robert Scoble said “I wish when you blocked someone on Twitter they disappeared from Google Talk too.” Makes sense. But what if you had a button that not only blocked the person, but also, any mention of the person, from all social media services, by using their own name as the negative keyword? What if they were even automatically filtered out of Google searches, blocked just like profanity and pornography are from decency filters?
Google Reader hasn't yet debuted negative keywords. So
Mahalo fans still get updates on
Jason Calacanis' bulldogs and "fatblogging" and followers of this blog will still get summaries of Oakland A's games I attend. While I can always unsubscribe from somebody, there's got to be a safer middle ground in the social media and RSS space that lets me get the content I'm looking for, and not the content I'm not. Do you know of a service that's got negative keywords nailed?
Pocketed 05/18/2008
Posted in louisgray.com (View Site) by louisgray - 03/05/2008
In the world of online RSS feed readers, there are the most popular options, like
Google Reader,
BlogLines and
NewsGator, and just below the radar, there lies a group of new entrants to the market, who are looking to change the game through more interactive features - using innovation to potentially gain ground on the big brand names. One interesting entrant is
Shyftr, which combines the ease of an online feed reader with the ability to find friends, make shared comments on feed items, and see which are the most popular feeds.
Most popular feeds, and how many have them "Shyfted".In early beta now, Shyftr has only a few dozen users, and isn't yet overloaded with tech heads, showing a good mix of sports fans, offbeat news and a smattering of gadget lust. What it lacks so far in a thriving user community, it makes up for in potential, echoing some of the pleas I made almost a year ago in
10 Suggestions to Improve Google Reader, when I first asked for the ability to aggregate user statistics, and mirrors some of the work
AssetBar has done in this space, through offering comments to RSS items, and shared comments that can be viewed by all the service's users, along with displaying the most frequently commented items or most popularly subscribed feeds.
Shyftr in action, reading posts in line, with feeds on the left.Dave Stanley, the founder of Shyftr, came up with his concept for the site about a year and a half ago. As he wrote me in an e-mail last month, he wanted to see what feeds his friends were reading, "and have the ability to quickly add a feed of interest to the list of feeds that I read - a social rss reader." But six months after his idea didn't come to pass from anywhere else, he set out on his own, and with a small team, Dave has seen the service develop to where it is today, offering to give users a single place to read all feeds, share with friends, and discover new sites.
As
I stated in December, "Reading one's RSS feeds today is a journey of isolation." Shyftr now breaks through that isolation booth, letting you add friends, make comments on their profiles, or even suggest feeds directly from Shyftr. In fact, Dave, now the proud father of a 5-month old daughter,
saw my wife and I are expecting twins, and suggested I check out the feed for
Babygadget. We'll see about that, but I liked his thinking. From within Shyftr, I too can suggest any subscribed feed to any friend.
The best way to get feeds into Shyftr is to export an OPML file from whatever feed reader you're using now, and copy/paste the best ones in one at a time, for now, or add sites' RSS feeds as you run into them. They're working on full OPML import, but it's not yet here, something I forgot more than once. :-)
When you've added a feed, clicking on the feed name with new items displays the items in line, with all new items from a specific feed in the viewing pane, much like AssetBar or Google Reader. If others have seen an item before you, it will show you're viewing from archive, and if you make a comment, future Shyftrs will see your note, as you would theirs if you weren't first to the game. Most frequently commented items rise to the top of Shyftr's "Popular" page, and if you find somebody who often comments on sites you read, you can add them as a friend, or view their own profile to see their friends or what feeds they read.
Interestingly, you can even choose to read the feeds your friends have added to Shyftr. All of them. As I had added Dave as a friend, I can walk through the blogs he has subscribed to, see which sports teams he is following, or catch up on his gossip sites. This is a feature called "Their Feeds". Clicking back to "My Feeds" takes me back to those I've added.
Shyftr also is very public about recent activity, displaying the most recent blogs added, or "Shyfted", and the most recent comments. The site also keeps a running tab on the most frequently subscribed feeds, which so far is led by CNN and the New York Times. And like AssetBar, Shyftr wants you to not feel overwhelmed by RSS feeds as they rack up. Offering more options than just a "read all" or "mark all as read", Shyftr lets you mark all items read that are older than a certain point, letting you reduce your feed glut down to a smaller time period. AssetBar said this makes you
not a liar. Shyftr makes no claims to your morality, but it is a tidy way to clean up.
Choosing to mark some items makes sense if you're behind.Can Shyftr gain traction in what's obviously becoming a crowded market? Sure, assuming more people know about their service, find the shared comment streams and popular items compelling. Given the site seems a bit overweighted, thus far, with sports fans, and not enough with the
Twitter pushing,
TechMeme worshipping digerati, there's significant room for growth from those who have been actively calling out for a more interactive way to consume the news and RSS. As the site grows, adding new features, like OPML importing, improved feed searches and additional social features, it could carve out a space for itself.
Feel free to join in.
Shyftr is open for business now. No sign-up codes, and no waiting.
You can find me at the ID of "louisgray".
Pocketed 05/07/2008
Posted in 
Online Media Cultist (View Site) by Eric Berlin - 04/12/2008
A few days ago, I noticed that a story I wrote musing about whether Twitter had become the new RSS reader had been linked to from a site called Shyftr. Clicking over to Shyftr, I noticed that the full text of my article was included on the site. My first reaction was that this was a “splog” site, or a site designed to “steal” the content of my site and then trick people who stumble across it via Google search into clicking its ads. (Yes, apparently there’s good money in this if you can pump out thousands of such sites before you get shut down.)
But Shyftr’s not a splog site; it’s something else. It does “pull” full text RSS feeds onto its site, but with the benevolent intention (I’ve come to understand) of creating a community around it. There were a bunch of lively and positive comments around my Twitter/RSS story, for instance.
Louis Gray is a fan and supporter of Shyftr, writing that it’s a “a next-generation RSS feed reader that enables comments within its service.” In Louis’ opinion, enabling community around full text RSS feeds is where “things are going” and what readers want. That may be true, but in all respect to Louis and the people behind Shyftr, it doesn’t necessarily make it right.
Louis is further involved in this story as I threw out a question on Twitter last night to the effect of “what’s up with this wacky Shyftr thing?” which initiated a rather fascinating and far reaching conversation that took place on Twitter, Friendfeed, and later across a number of blogs, including Tony Hung, Mathew Ingram, Mark Evans, and even Robert Scoble.
I think my original question which set up the argument and discussion still holds: Shyftr pulls full text from your RSS feed and creates community around it. Doing that without the publisher’s notification or participation doesn’t seem right to me, but I’m willing to listen to counter-arguments.
Communities built around pulling RSS feed are different than social news sites like Digg, different than meme trackers like Techmeme, different than social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and different than specialized search engines like Google News.
Taking full text from publishers without permission (or even any communication or acknowledgement) and building a platform and community around it hurts publishers in several ways, even if that was not the intent.
* Publishers lose control over their audience – Yes, I understand in our new distributed age this is going to happen in part. But think about it: when a story is posted to Digg, submitted to del.icio.us, and so on, the idea is always to have a link and description text “tease” people back to the original story. It’s all promotion for the original story and the source website in essence. What Shyftr does is wrong as it removes any need at all to go anywhere except for Shyftr
* Publishers have no opportunity to engage the audience – If a publisher doesn’t know people are commenting on his/her work, it’s a huge disservice to both the writer and to readers. Most bloggers write with the intent to answer questions from commenters, moderate follow-up discussions, and pull future ideas for stories out of the comments. The way that Shyftr is set up does not allow this to happen.
* The difference between Shyftr and full text blog RSS feeds – But wait, you plead. Publishers already “give away” their content via full text RSS feeds. Doesn’t that break your core argument? Not really, I’d answer (throwing in a solicitous sir a la Paul Giamatti playing John Adams) because an RSS feed still has elements of control. Publishers can advertise on their RSS feed for one, readers can click back to the original story to comment, and importantly publishers can track RSS feed subscribers and count those numbers against their overall “reach” in the blogosphere and on the Internet.
Tony Hung seems to agree, writing: “I think there is a moral and ethical obligation to obtain content from the content owners about reproducing feeds in their entirety.” And Mathew Ingram sums up the big picture well as he so often does: “I think RSS gives people the right to read your content — but not to build a business around it.”
friendfeed,
louis gray,
rss,
shyftr,
twitter
Pocketed 05/06/2008
Posted in 
Shyftr Blog (View Site) by Dave Stanley - 05/05/2008
You can now import an OPML file or export your Shyftr feed list as an OPML file.
To access OPML, select the green plus button at the top of your feed list and choose the OPML tab. To import, select Choose File or Browse... and browse your computer for your OPML file. Once you have chosen your file, select the Upload button to start the process. To export your feed list, select the Export OPML link in the OMPL tab, and then save the file.
Please be patient if you are importing a large feed list as it will take a few minutes. The good news is, you will see your feed list build during the upload process. Do not refresh the page during upload. This will stop the file from uploading.
andrewsuggs
Matt
Dave
louisgray
suggs