louisgray.com

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-11-06

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-11-06

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

louisgray: If all @Google's major innovations came from 20% time, why not give everybody 5 different 20% projects and wait for the magic to happen?
louisgray: New Blog Post: TweetDeck iPhone Update Fail Makes the Day "Manic". http://bit.ly/1ZhKr0 @tweetdeck @iaindodsworth
louisgray: I think I need a second iPhone - just so I can play games when I am on hold.
louisgray: Dear Blogs: "Best of 2009" awards and lists done now are worse than Christmas decorations before ThanksGiving. Be patient. -- Mgmt.
louisgray: @alanashley there should never be autocreated Twitter lists. If you created a group in Brizzly, it will convert to a private Twitter list.
louisgray: New Blog Post: Brizzly and Seesmic Web Get Into the Twitter Lists Game as Well http://bit.ly/2BR5G8 @brizzly @seesmic @loic
louisgray: Almost Famous: Brizzly’s Chris Wetherell | Voices | AllThingsD http://ff.im/-b4iwm
louisgray: The new Twitter lists from @jenna rock. Some solid people to follow who dig Google Reader or are nerds in general. :)

TweetDeck iPhone Update Fail Makes the Day "Manic".

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:22:27 PST

Earlier this morning, Iain Dodsworth, creator of TweetDeck, posted that the day could potentially be "manic". While he cautioned the day's updates would not be list-related, as many updates from his competitors have been over the last week, it was hinted it would not be desktop related either. That left the iPhone, as TweetDeck doesn't yet have a Web option. But the iPhone release was found buggy, was later pulled, and now the service, and its devoted followers, are once again in a holding pattern with Apple - which makes them the undesired middleman. And yes, that means the day is officially "manic".

While I doubt few would want Apple's role as moderator to completely disappear, there should be some way to quickly post point releases or bug fixes for products that have previously been approved.

The Morning Started Off Well...

But Too Many Crash Reports Prompted a Pull...

And After Resubmission, All Wait for Apple.

For whatever reason, TweetDeck's quality assurance process did not catch that the new version of the application would crash as frequently as was reported, but once it was in the wild, it proved too much to accept. The next step was to pull the update from the store, resulting in false positives from would-be downloaders, myself included, who were told it was available, but that the item had been removed.

Now, after the team thinks they scrambled the troops and got a working version ready and submitted a few hours later, they have to wait for Cupertino to agree. The new version reportedly added Facebook support, which had previously been limited to the desktop application, as well as video uploading, integrated with 12seconds.tv, a new Landscape compose mode, trending topics support, a "Nearby" option that showed when Twitter friends were close, thanks to the iPhone's built-in GPS, and the option to open new links in Safari.

But we'll still have to wait, at least until Apple agrees their bug-free version is good enough. Until then, all we have is a video of the promised new updates (See below).

So what's the solution? Is this Apple's fault for forcing a wait, or TweetDeck's for bad code?

Brizzly and Seesmic Web Get Into Twitter Lists Game

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:27:34 PST

At this point, it's almost getting easier to see which popular Twitter clients have not yet added Twitter Lists support than it is to track those that have enabled support, as in the last 12 hours, both Brizzly, a product from Thing Labs, and Seesmic Web, Seesmic Desktop's sexier counterpart, have weighed in with their support for the increasingly utilized Twitter Lists functionality. Assuming TweetDeck wraps up their support shortly, as they have promised, and we hear something from Tweetie, all the majors will have reported for duty.

Brizzly Highlights Integrated Lists Support
Brizzly, having supported Web grouping from the day it was introduced, had the simpler job of converting its existing groups that you had made into Twitter lists, tapping Twitter's API. If you had existing groups, as I did, they would display both in Brizzly and Twitter's Web interface as private lists, and you could opt to update them, or delete them from either app. Like with Twitter's interface, clicking on the list shows you the updates from people you have grouped, and no more.

Seesmic Web Now Supports Lists (Click for Larger Image)
For Seesmic Web, the introduction of lists is the first time such grouping functionality has made it to their app. The company has supported groups on Seesmic Desktop for some time, and added list support on Monday, but the Web version had been lacking. Twitter's List API made the move much simpler, so this morning, Loic LeMeur's Web service turned on the functionality, showing lists you have made or subscribed to in your sidebar, below your direct messages, and above searches.

Also added to Seesmic Web is a simple Trending Topics list that echoes the top items trending on Twitter.

With the adds, both services are essentially offering users a full package when it comes to Twitter's functionality, and the decision as to which to use comes as much down to the user interface as a feature war. Should be interesting to see both what TweetDeck and Tweetie will do, as well as what Twitter has planned next to kick off another round of updates.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-11-05

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-11-05

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Listiti Watches Twitter Lists for Keywords and Alerts

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:29:41 PST

Regardless of where you sit in the RSS vs. Twitter debate for information discovery, you know the power of finding out when people are discussing topics of your interest, wherever they do so - be it on blogs, blog comments, social networks or anywhere else. With the advent of new Twitter lists, smart folks are manually curating lists of fellow Twitter users who to them provide value. And if done well, the lists should be spam-free, delivering only quality. A new service called Listiti debuted today, to help monitor lists which you hand select for keywords of your choosing.

Today, I use TweetBeep to get alerted to mentions on Twitter, be it for vanity searches or for topics I find interesting. But TweetBeep scours all of Twitter, not differentiating between what is a good hit and what is a less valuable one. Listiti can, in contrast, search only a specific subset of Twitter users to find relevant data, and send it to your e-mail.

Setting up an Alert in Listiti
For example, I have set up a pair of Twitter lists that are interesting to me. One is "myfavoritegeeks" for real-world techies I've grown to know well, and the second is "toptechbloggers" which is a hand-selected list of people whose content I trust. I can use Listiti to watch this list for any time they mention pet projects I am interested in, such as "Pubsubhubbub", and get an e-mail immediately.

Acknowledging the Alert Has Been Set Up
So far, the alerts are not yet "real time", but they are set up to run hourly, so you will get an update containing all positive hits in the last hour. They promise digest modes are coming. This makes another great use for Twitter lists as a trusted source, whether you set up the list yourself or go to a friend of yours with good taste.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-11-04

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-11-04

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

TweetMeme Goes Mobile for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:55:02 PST

TweetMeme has rapidly become the most popular and practical default engine for content authors to enable their Web sites and blogs to be forwarded on to Twitter (in the form of a Retweet). The company is now serving more than 100 million Retweet buttons across the Web each day, and is aggregating the statistics of most popular items on its Web site. Today, the company jumped forward, introducing a new capability that lets users retweet from their favorite Twitter apps - as many people, including me, do not use Twitter's standard Web interface when unchained from the laptop.

The new functionality essentially tracks if you are viewing a site through your mobile phone, be it iPhone, Android or BlackBerry, and then prompts you to select your preferred application - including those from Tweetie, Echofon and others. And if you don't yet have a mobile application on your handset, TweetMeme will provide some suggestions.

I spoke with Nick Halstead, creator of TweetMeme, this morning, and he said the new mobile functionality is yet another reason the product has stayed ahead of competition and copycats. "We want to respond by being as far ahead as we are, and creating more functionality," he said. "Not many people use mobile Twitter. When you hit the retweet button, it opens the application you have selected and it will do the retweet from there."

The new functionality will be available very soon. You can see their official post on the TweetMeme blog: Mobile Retweeting

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-11-03

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-11-03

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Stalqer: A Location Sharing App for Real Friends

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:08:28 PST

I have always felt my life was not interesting enough to broadcast every small update. That's a major reason why I was initially slow to embrace Twitter, and why, thus far, I have shunned application broadcasting services like BrightKite and the extremely popular at the moment Foursquare. But a new application, set to hit the Apple iTunes Store any day now, called Stalqer, has a permanent position on my iPhone, because instead of being focused on badges and contests, its aim is to connect real friends, and it can work in the background - enabling me to have it run passively as I go about my business.

Stalqer Shows Connections on a Map And I Can Message Them
Mick Johnson, creator of Stalqer, and I met a few weeks ago, and he said he felt the focus for designing such an app was not to start up contests about how often somebody could check in to a specific location, and he didn't want people to create yet another user account for his app. In fact, he felt services like FourSquare created the badges mentality to force people to "check in", as the application would not automatically do so.

My Stalqer News Feed and an Update from Mick
In contrast, Stalqer utilizes Facebook Connect to have you log in, and it can present you the last-known location of your friends on Facebook. If they are using Stalqer, these friends' locations will start to populate your News Feed and you can send them messages from within the application itself, assuming you have their e-mail addresses registered with Facebook. Stalqer also makes updating your location very simple, as you can tell it to update in the background, every time you check your e-mail. If you are in WiFi range or connected to 3G, Stalqer can update your location throughout the day, without your even having to open the app.

Background Preferences and Connections in Stalqer
Stalqer shares some similarities to Google Latitude as much as it does the more-hyped FourSquare, in that your friends' avatars display on a map. You can zoom out as much as you like, to see how your Facebook connections are strung across the globe. But it's those nearest to you that are of course the most interesting. If you peek at the screenshot in this post, you'll see fellow tech blogger Steve Gillmor at the nearby Starbucks, and Robert Scoble visiting the Cupertino Apple Campus - both close enough for a quick drive. Using Stalqer, I could send either a message and meet up.

Depending on your preferences, you can get updated via Push alerts on the iPhone if friends manually check in to a location, or if they get within a certain number of miles. And if you wanted to, Stalqer has a "Places" function, which selects from the nearest registered and known places for you to announce you have arrived. If a place doesn't exist, you can add it yourself.

Choose Registered Places In Stalqer Or Who Has Checked In
If you do utilize the "Places" functionality in Stalqer, you can see which other Facebook Friends are checked into the same place. For example, when Mick Johnson checked in to the Googleplex in Mountain View last week, I could click through and see who else was there. In fact, if I wanted, I could even check in there myself and announce I had arrived, even if that wasn't true. You decide whether that's a feature or a bug...

Don't get thrown off by the "Stalqer" name, as the app is no more invasive than many others we already use today. I wouldn't ask Stalqer to change the name. The biggest bug so far tends to be its speed. With 1,300 Facebook connections, it can be slow to get avatars and updates. I'll be very interested to see how the service holds up once it hits the iTunes Store.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-11-02

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-11-02

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Seesmic Desktop: First Major Twitter Client With Lists

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:18:45 PST

With Twitter lists becoming the biggest release for the microblogging service in almost a year, the many Twitter clients out there who have significant user bases are rushing to support the new feature. On Friday, I quickly mentioned that TweetDeck has promised list support. While they continue to work on bring the feature to their client, today Seesmic Desktop has already delivered. And the columned desktop application is no doubt the best way I have seen, so far, to consume lists, both of those you have created, and any others you might be following.

The new Seesmic Desktop, which will be distributed by e-mail early this week to users registered at http://seesmic.com/team.html, and soon after, be made available through auto-update, automatically discovers lists on Twitter that you have subscribed to, and displays them as options in your sidebar, between Facebook pages and saved searches.

The New Seesmic Desktop (Click to Enlarge)
Those user lists that you are following are displayed with the username and then the name of the list. Those from other Twitter users are shown with a gray Twitter logo, while those you have made are in blue. But whether they are yours or not, they still display the same, in the familiar column format seen on Seesmic Desktop and Web, as well as TweetDeck. On my 15-inch MacBook Pro, I could comfortably fit three lists, while those of you with more impressive displays can no doubt fit many more.

The Twitter Lists feature works just as it does on Twitter Web, letting you add any Twitter user to any list you have. Also announced in today's news was that Seesmic Desktop has surpassed three million individual downloads. You can also expect that Seesmic Web, one favorite of mine, will support the lists feature very soon.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-11-01

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Videos for 2009-11-01

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Matthew and Sarah's First Trick or Treat Outing

	Matthew and Sarah's First Trick or Treat Outing At 16 months old, Matthew and Sarah go trick or treating on Halloween. They got a good candy haul, but didn't want to ride in the wagon. Oh well!	From: asypta Views: 58 1 ratings
	Time: 03:33	More in People & Blogs

Tweets for 2009-11-01

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Why I Wouldn't Accept $25k To Stop Using Google Reader

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:41:07 PST

Cross-Posted on my Ecademy Blog and Shared Here

Information is power - and the ability to take in more information more quickly than anybody else, all in one place, is an incredible power. The Web has been built to enable all of us to share and distribute information quickly, through new posts and links.

Tools like RSS (Real Simple Syndication) let us pass information from one site to another, letting you get updates in a single location - be it to your favorite blog posts, your favorite news and sport sites, or simply updates from friends' videos on YouTube and updates on Flickr. RSS Readers capture updates from all these RSS feeds in one application or on one Web site. In my opinion, the very best RSS reader is Google Reader. It has become such a mainstay of my online activity that I've determined its value to me is easily in the tens of thousands of dollars per year.

I thought I would let you know why I would be so crazy as to proclaim that if somebody offered me $25,000 to stop using Google Reader for a year, that I would refuse.

A little background:

1. I Have Relied on RSS to Send Me Updates For Years.

A 2006 post showed screenshots from my use of NetNewsWire to track updates on sports, tech news and politics. At the time, I called it "A Demanding Mistress", because if I subscribed to a lot of high quantity feeds, I would be constantly receiving updates.

2. In late 2006, I switched to Google Reader as my RSS reader of choice.

In November of 2006, while the product was in Google Labs, I called it a formidable RSS option. Benefits to the new Web-based Reader were mainly:

I could subscribe to the same feeds on multiple computers and avoid duplicates
I could share my favorite items to a dedicated link blog

3. In early 2007, I suggested 10 ways Google Reader could improve.

I loved the service, but thought I would provide feedback in a public way. Surprisingly, a member of the Google Reader engineering team responded in the comments:

"Funnily enough, the Reader team just had a big all-day brainstorming session about where to go next, and ideas similar to many of your suggestions were discussed."

This was a huge deal for me, as I had the first experience of talking to companies and getting a response.

4. Google Reader Continued to Add Functions Over the Last Two Years

In addition to reading and sharing, Google Reader added the ability to "like" entries, and to add comments to shared items that you were subscribed to. The service also introduced the ability to "bundle" your favorite feeds and point people to them to subscribe in bulk, as well as integrating better tools for discovery of feeds, and trends data, showing how often you read and what your favorite feeds are.

Over time, more than 1,000 people have subscribed to my shared items feed, and these people can have conversations with me. Sometimes, as I noted in this post, there are more comments on Google Reader than there are on the original blog posts itself. Despite Google Reader's protests to the contrary, it is becoming a social network.

5. Google Reader Feeds Everything I Do Downstream

Data comes in and data comes out. I now read more than 700 feeds, comprising between 900 and 1,000 items per day. I hand select about 25 to 30 of those items each day to share to the link blog. This link blog then populates downstream social networks, including FriendFeed, Socialmedian and Facebook. Additionally, I set up my feed so that it populates Twitter. You can see that dedicated account for my shared items here: http://www.twitter.com/lgshareditems.

See What I am Reading in Google Reader

See What I am Sharing in Google Reader

See My Friends' Statistics in Google Reader

You can see Google Reader plays an incredible role for me in terms of information discovery and sharing. There is no single service that lets me get all this information so quickly, so completely and so centralized. Yet, naysayers argue that blogging is declining or that Twitter is becoming their place to find news, and it's simply not complete. Twitter consists of headlines and links, while Google Reader consists of content in its entirety. And with RSS being a standard, you can bring in RSS from other services, including Twitter, into your Google Reader, should you be so interested.

And if you don't want to read so many feeds, as I do, Google recently introduced a feature called "Magic", which brings those articles you are most likely to enjoy to the top of your feed. Maybe, assuming it is coded well for you, you can read a much smaller percentage of your stories and get all you need.

The more I thought about the recent debate on Google Reader, the more I realized that there can be no substitute. There are other RSS readers, to be sure. Some are very good. But to migrate away from Google Reader would lose my personal history and preferences. It would eliminate the social connections that have been cultivated for years. It would also very likely be much slower and lack the feature set that Reader does. I determined that if somebody approached me with a check for $25,000 US to give up using Reader for 12 months, I would decline. $25,000 is a lot of money, no doubt, but to lose access to this product would be debilitating to me. You can expect to also see new ways for me to leverage the work I have done within this Google Reader platform before the end of the year that will further explain the financial elements involved.

When I first made such a crazy statement, somebody in the Google Reader comments jokingly said, "I think it would be fascinating to read a business plan that involves paying Louis Gray $100,000 to stop using Google Reader." But they understand. You cannot replace the best, an engine that pushes everything forward.

Are there other services you use where you couldn't be paid to stop? Or what's your price?

-- Find more about me at www.louisgray.com

It Just Might Be the Droid You Are Looking For

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:15:56 PST

If you are a long-time user of any product, be it a computer, a TV, a cell phone, or even power tools to help you with landscaping, you get comfortable and accustomed to those products' capabilities. As you become a product expert, you know what these products can do and cannot do, and unconsciously work your way around their limitations. Sometimes, you can try and highlight these limitations as not being relevant, or even say that their lack of a feature is to their benefit - when, in fact, that's not really true. That's how I felt earlier this week when I first came in contact with Motorola's Droid, the new iPhone competitor that has everybody's tongues wagging.

Whether it ends up taking share from Cupertino or not, it's no doubt a high quality device that you should be watching closely - just like all the other reviews you have no doubt seen online have said. While I have not been a big fan of their annoying ad campaign, it is the first Android-based phone that has caught my attention and had me looking just a little bit more of what the world is like outside an iPhone universe, when I remove my Apple-shaded sunglasses.

In December of last year, I said there were essentially two types of phones in the world: "iPhone and Not iPhone". The iPhone's vast array of applications, its touch-screen capabilities and unequalled Web browsing functionality essentially put BlackBerry and all other quasi-smartphones in the rear view mirror. Since then, Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS with video recording and speed improvements, but it is essentially the same device it was last year. What has changed is the world surrounding the iPhone. While Apple has been fighting with AT&T over getting acceptable coverage and things like Push or MMS going, Google's Android team has been pushing beyond their middling first-generation device and making something very competitive indeed.

One of the stones thrown at Apple's iPhone has been its lack of multitasking. (I mentioned this in my list from June: 10 Ways Apple's iPhone Leaves Me Wanting More) Earlier this week, Google announced free turn by turn GPS on their platform. My natural inclination was to not care, as I already have a standalone GPS unit, and I wouldn't want to force my iPhone into playing the role of GPS when it could be playing Sirius Radio. But this week, while driving with a Droid owner, not only were we hearing the turn by turn GPS on the Droid, but Pandora Radio was streaming via bluetooth audio to the car stereo.

It wasn't until shortly after that I put two and two together. While I was teasing about the GPS turn by turn being quiet, I was missing the point that the phone was multi-tasking, and on top of that, it had bluetooth audio out, which the iPhone does not. Because I have been a full-time iPhone user for more than a year, I had framed my understanding in terms of the iPhone, not in terms of what I really thought a phone could do.

At the risk of sounding like a big hypocrite given my pushing of the iPhone and its ecosystem for the last year, the Android platform is compelling - and even if it is a few tens of thousands of applications behind Cupertino in the application store, every iPhone developer I talk to is looking at Android in a way they have never truly considered the Palm. Android has e-mail and text messaging and Web browsing and contacts, just like the iPhone. It has the opportunity for simple games, just like the iPhone. I found myself playing a Boggle-like game on the Droid and it worked, as expected, of course.

But beyond the basics, the Droid is a very interesting hardware product. The Droid's camera puts the iPhone to shame - not only having more megapixels with better clarity, but auto-zooming on the object of note. It has an easily accessible full keyboard, which the iPhone obviously doesn't. It doesn't suffer from the oddities of the first Google offering, but is something you wouldn't be embarrassed to show off amidst your peers. The Verizon coverage certainly doesn't hurt either.

My use of the Droid this week was a major influence in my thinking of an Apple fan potentially "Going Google". If I assume that Android 2.0 is very good, and that Google is making major upgrades to their ecosystem at a faster rate than Apple is right now, then 3.0 and beyond will be extremely interesting. I don't think this will be the last phone that will catch our eye running Android over the next few months, and Apple's already said their holiday lineup is set in stone. So why not just take a look at the Droid and see if Google deserves your dollars?

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-31

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-31

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:00:00 GMT

louisgray: @erickschonfeld on a Friday night, the rules on transparency are more relaxed. We're among friends. Wearing the new Lenscrafters now.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-30

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-30

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

TweetDeck Promises to Add Twitter Lists Support Soon

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:42:39 PDT

In July of 2008, when TweetDeck launched, it was the first Twitter client to support the ability to group those you follow - so you could see like-minded folks in a single column and ensure you didn't miss their updates. Now that Twitter is rapidly rolling out their own Lists functionality, many have been curious as to how TweetDeck would adapt to the change. In a blog post issued today, the company promised that support for Lists will be coming soon, "at the heart of the application".

The post didn't say just exactly how list support would be rolled out, or if you could export the groups you had already created into these new lists, but it is easy enough to assume they are working on it. In fact, the post says, "we're not just planning any old run-of-the mill integration...oh no. We think you'll find that what we have planned for Lists is going to take your social media experience with TweetDeck to new heights."

So if you are a TweetDeck user, worried about making more groups or starting your own lists, it sounds like Iain and team have you covered.

Update: Shortly after this was posted, Loic LeMeur of Seesmic said that his desktop program would also be soon supporting lists, in a tweet, saying: "OF COURSE Seesmic will have user lists very soon. I have them on my Seesmic Desktop already testing."

The Blurry Picture of Open APIs, Standards, Data Ownership

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:27:10 PDT

Look beyond "real-time" and "social", and you'll easily find another pair of tech buzzwords that everybody wants attached to their product or service - "open" and "standards". Companies are practically falling over one another to show they have embraced developers or users, letting data stream in and out of their products, while avoiding words like "proprietary" and "closed", which are PR death. But as you might imagine, the very definition of "open" can vary depending on who you talk to, what the service's goals are, and how they may leverage existing standards on the Web. Following the much-discussed news of Facebook debuting its "Open Graph API" on Wednesday, I traded a few e-mails with a few respected tech-minded developers, and found, unsurprisingly, that not everyone believes Facebook is fully "open". In fact, it's believed some companies are playing fast and loose with terms that should be better understood.

To quickly summarize the discussion, there are essentially three major ways to bucket "open" APIs, agreed those I contacted.

The first, "open access", means that anybody can use the API, but all the data in or out of the services is owned or controlled by the company whose service you are using. The Facebook Open Graph API "is open insofar as you do not violate their ToS", one developer wrote. "Here, 'open' is superfluous -- no (question) you're giving people open access to it, how else would they use it?"

The second type is that of an API that leverages open standards, including those such as XML, HTTP, and others. But that doesn't mean APIs that leverage those standards are open by definition. For example, Twitter's API is proprietary, even though it is built on open standards. The developer adds, "Here 'open' is just saying they've tried to incorporate best practices from other engineers -- it would be stupid if they didn't."

The third type is the most "open", including open standard APIs like OpenSocial, OpenID, PubSubHubbub, AtomPub and others. These APIs have a clear definition that can be utilized by multiple providers in a way that is interoperable, decoupling providers and consumers.

In short, you have "open but we control the process", "standing on the backs of open" and "truly open", if this opinion is accepted. The developer adds, "In short, the first two mean nothing, the last one actually fits the dictionary definition. The Web is built on open standard APIs and protocols."

Chris Saad, VP of Product and Community Strategy at JS-Kit, well known for his efforts in the data portability space, concurred, writing over e-mail:

"Facebook in particular has made a concerted effort to dilute the word open and use it in reference to a human/cultural thing when talking about the platform and their products."

He added, "In reality there is a VERY big difference between having an 'Open API', an 'Open Standards API' and an 'API'. An API is just a thing you poke and you get data back. When you get FaceBookPropietaryXMLData using FacebookPropietaryAuthMethod and you can only cache the data for 24 hours - that is NOT an open API - it is an API."

So who cares? Historically, services like Facebook and AOL have been characterized as walled gardens, meaning their information is sealed within, beyond the reach of the standard Web. Other services are known as "data roach motels", where data gets in, but never gets out. As the first developer said, the Web is built on open standard APIs and protocols, so sites can work well with each other, and activities operate in a similar manner, regardless of service.

Jesse Stay, a friend of mine, fellow blogger, and well-versed developer for both the Facebook and Twitter platforms, agreed that there is a tremendous amount of confusion around the definition of "open". In fact, just last month he wrote a post on his site, "The Open Web – Is it Really What We Think it is?"

Today he said Facebook's move gave full access to "users' walls, comments, likes and social graph... accessible from any Web site, desktop application or mobile application, using open API access protocols." Meanwhile, Facebook users can now opt into letting their status updates indexed by search engines, and the company is open sourcing architecture like the Tornado Web server (acquired as part of the FriendFeed buy) so other developers can make new platforms.

Jesse is more optimistic about Facebook's goals than was Chris. He said that the site lets users decide how open they want to be with their data, and that they are "working to give users full power" in that regard. But he also states frustration with the company's restricted access to search, and a lack of access to the entire network in aggregate, with the exception of their fan page directory. And he didn't address the core issue with Facebook in terms of them owning your data bidirectionally, and yes, them having the option to block your access if they felt you had violated the terms of service. (Remember this one? Scobleizer: Facebook Disabled My Account)

Web standards are very well known and we usually recognize them by their acronyms. JSON. HTTP. XML. POP3. Atom. Open means that developers can tap into the standard and use it as they wish, both procuring data and pushing it elsewhere. When we start to blur the lines about open and associate them with specific companies, like Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo! or others, you can usually guess that the solution is slightly less open. Somebody has the option to change their proprietary code and block you from having full access.

As stated more than a few times here, I have chosen to trust companies with my data. I put a lot of data into the Web and move it around. I expect standards to work the same way across sites, and I hope that those services that I use treat developers as well as they do their users. I recognize I am not as technical as folks like the developers I pinged today, and thus I need to trust their comments at times once my expertise is surpassed. But we need to be more knowledgeable about what is "open" and what is "sorta', kinda' open". Maybe Facebook can help us all understand their level of openness as time progresses.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-29

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-29

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Could A Real Apple Fan Completely "Go Google"?

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:45:26 PDT

As a Mac fan in the 1990s, it was a lot easier to understand who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Apple was very good. Intel was bad. Adobe was usually good. Microsoft was bad. Very bad. Evil. But over time as we have morphed into the latter part of this decade, Intel switched teams and became good. Meanwhile, Adobe looked less like a close friend and more like a despised ex, as Microsoft went from hated bully and thief to playing the role of crazy uncle who nobody really likes but puts up with because he's not going to disappear. The hardest to label? Google, a younger cousin who everybody really likes, but just might be too smooth to be trusted, even as it gets too popular. Now the stage is set for an awkward family reunion - as Google and Apple are so overlapped, tech fans have the option to choose between the two for practically their entire digital life, and the loyalty once sent Cupertino's way, exclusively, is getting some serious competition.

Over the last few years, if one can look beyond the striking hardware and arguable operating system differentiation between Mac OS X and Windows PCs, Apple has unquestionably led the way in terms of seamless integration between applications and devices. The company's iLife package ensures that media is treated in a similar way across multiple applications, and its user interface guidelines protect the users from odd menu behaviors that change between each program. Meanwhile, the company's iTunes/iPod/iPhone juggernaut has made managing media easier than ever before, especially when one considers the addition of the fast-growing App Store and the good, even if not given much respect, Apple TV, which brings the core of the store to the core of the home.

But while we Mac fans may have been resting comfortably as the Mac vs. PC commercials made us giggle with egotistical self-pride, and the company's balance sheet has grown ever stronger with quarter after very profitable quarter, Google has been changing its spots - morphing from search engine and advertising powerhouse to a Web services monolith that can go head to head with almost every single Apple product out there. As the company integrates its many different products, they too may offer the integration we have always come to expect from Apple, but in an open, Web-focused way. And with every single new announcement, Apple fans have to start thinking if their future is one that is Google as much as it ever was Mac - and if "Going Google" would be that bad anyway.

If Mac OS X is the platform on which all Apple software starts, so too will be Google's Chrome OS. We know it's coming, and some sharp engineers are slaving away in Mountain View to capture the flexibility of the Web and make the cloud the equivalent of your hard disk.

Apple's Safari browser, the built-in Web browser for Mac and for iPhones, is equally matched by the Chrome browser on all major operating systems and on Android as well.

The iPhone and its 80,000 to 100,000 applications in the iTunes Store are being challenged by Android's new fleet of phones, led by the Droid from Motorola, and its rumored 10,000+ apps.

Apple's Mail? Easily matched by GMail. iCal? See Google Calendar. iChat? Google Chat. iMovie and iDVD? Well, it's not the same thing, but you would be hard-pressed to say YouTube doesn't win that battle. iWeb? Really? See Blogger.

On the professional side, Apple's iWork sports Keynote, Pages and Numbers. One has to wonder why they even released these apps, as they're not exactly keeping Microsoft at bay, and I don't know anybody who uses the last two. I use Pages once a year to do our Holiday letters home, and that's it! You better believe that Google's online office suite of Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations is the real deal. Beyond that, do you expect Apple's iDisk to trump GDrive? Will Mac OS X Server beat out the Google File System (GFS) or can you expect XServes to replace Google's commodity rack servers in their datacenters around the globe? Not likely.

This isn't a rant stating that Apple is doomed. Far from it. After all, Google doesn't "yet" make excellent laptops. But I've tried the Motorola Droid with Android 2.0 and it's good enough that if iPhone were not an option, it would be an easy second choice. I find that I am using my Apple OS and my Apple Web browser to go Google, not just for the search engine, but all the downstream Google services. (10 of which I highlighted last month)

Google spokesperson and king of anti-spam Matt Cutts said his October goal was to avoid Microsoft software, a task made easier than ever now with Google providing an alternative just about everywhere. But I wonder if it's possible to do something very different - use ONLY Google software for a month. That would mean using the company's Web browser exclusively, and their office suite exclusively, and their mobile phone OS exclusively. That would mean using GMail and Google Talk and Google Wave and Google Calendar and Google Reader instead of Outlook or Mac Mail. I bet we're very close to this happening.

On Wednesday, Google also announced some of their first forays into Music search. This is an area where Apple still has the clear advantage - with iTunes. But Google offers Pandora on the Android platform, so iTunes isn't needed. Maybe I could push them to buy Spotify, and set up a killer alternative to iTunes with the Google logo? That would be something indeed.

I am a Mac guy. Maybe I'm less of a Mac guy than I once was, but I still trust Cupertino. That said, Google is growing on me in a big way, and they are the real alternative - something Microsoft never really was. Maybe soon I'll also be going Google in a way I never expected.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-28

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-28

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-27

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-27

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

louisgray: Schoolyard Rules of Social Media (via @sunshinemug) http://ff.im/-aBiDH

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-26

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-26

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cinch Puts Simple Podcasts In Your Pocket

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:27:32 PDT

In August, I suggested that Apple should find a way to record phone calls on the iPhone, leveraging its Voice Memo product, to make it drop-dead simple to create podcasts at any time. While the company hasn't achieved such a goal, an offering from BlogTalk Radio, called Cinch, has delivered on an extremely easy to use product that lets you record audio clips and post them to your social networks, including Facebook or Twitter. I've been using it the last few weeks, and while I try and discard a huge number of different technologies, this is one I know I will be returning to often - as it meets a need not currently served by other providers.

The idea behind Cinch is to provide short-form audio updates much like Twitter is for text, and 12seconds.tv is for video. Twitter's ease of use has come largely due to its short-form definition, keeping us all in 140 character soundbites, and CinchCast makes it just as easy to provide short updates, in audio form.

The Cinch Interface on the iPhone - Record and Publish
A free iPhone application, Cinch provides you with the option to record using the iPhone's built in microphone - good for solo updates, or one to one quick interviews - perfect for "people on the street" situations or for events. Once recorded, you can hit play to preview the Cinchcast, or hit Publish to send it off to destinations you have selected, including Twitter or Facebook. You can also add a photo to help tell the story, and can provide, yes, a 140 character update explaining what the Cinchcast is all about.

Should you want to, you can also search the service to find other CinchCasts or click Radio to see BlogTalkRadio's on-air schedule.

Cinch Shows My Published Updates and Those from Others on the Service
I never got into 12seconds.tv given its brevity and my lack of need for quick video shorts. But I can already see getting into regular updates on Cinch to augment my other blogging and social networking activity. As you can see on my Cinch page, I used the product to have a quick interview with Ethan Gahng of Lazyfeed last week, and earlier today, made some comments on the new report that once again, people are blaming social media for employees' lost productivity.

Now, whenever I want to speak directly to people on all the social networks, and have a follow-on discussion in the comments on Cinch, all I need to do is take out my iPhone and speak into the microphone. I will be looking forward to posting many more. You can find Cinch at http://www.cinchcast.com/.

See Also: Webtop Mania: Cinch: better than Twitter, better than Evernote.

Twitter Snags Platform Manager Josh Elman From Facebook

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:51:41 PDT

Twitter has made yet another high profile acquisition to its executive ranks, as tomorrow, Josh Elman joins the microblogging powerhouse after nearly two years as Facebook's Platform Program Manager, gaining a role as one of Twitter's small team of product managers. The move is a big win for Twitter, who has been working to improve the company's interaction with its development community after running lean for the last year-plus.

Prior to joining Facebook in March of 2008, Elman headed product management at Zazzle for three years. He also has history at LinkedIn and RealNetworks dating back to 1997.

Pulling off the LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter trifecta is a rare one, but the Valley is dotted with tech geeks who can count their current homes as Twitter or Facebook, but also sport both Google and Yahoo! on their resume.

Twitter Welcomes Josh to the Team Via a List
Rumors about Elman's joining Twitter had been bubbling in the tech backchannels in recent days, and while he has not yet made announcement of the move, thanks to Twitter's new list feature, you could see his account added to the company's official Twitter team late tonight. That Twitter "Team" list now sports 113 members, including part-time contractors.

Word of the News Has Been Out on the Street for A While
Elman was first reported to have left Facebook in a story on Inside Facebook that posted in mid-September. The article said he and Facebook left on positive terms.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-25

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-25

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

There Is No "Osborne Effect" In Web Services

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:42:47 PDT

In the world of technology, practically no story of warning is better known than that of Adam Osborne's ill-fated promise of his next generation of computer models outperforming the current offerings. The story states that the result of his premature leaking was a dramatic decline in sales that led to the company's death. (Even if truth later proved the story somewhat incorrect) This, in combination with competitive pressures in practically all markets, has led to a culture of secrecy, undisclosed roadmaps and obfuscation in the industry, aimed to prevent a similar fate. But as I look at many of the products we use today, including Web services, which can be updated in line, and don't require a specific point purchase, this mentality is overblown - especially when it comes to the market leaders, for whom users' switching to an alternative is unlikely.

In May of 2008, I said that I believed a simple feature war between sites was "the wrong war." Users of products including top Web services like Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others absolutely benefit from the features offered, but they stick around thanks to their data being on each service, and the many connections they have cultivated - whether you define that as a community, or instead, as an audience.

If you are a hardware manufacturer, like Apple, Dell, EMC or Cisco, it makes a ton of sense to only discuss future products with potential customers who are not going to purchase in the current buying cycle, and do so under non-disclosure agreements, to prevent their whisperings from impacting your sales. But I think users of the many different Web services out there would benefit from gaining greater visibility into these companies' plans and priorities - which would serve as an early platform for feedback, provide guidance into how they could expect the community to evolve, and at the very least, show that they were continuing to improve the platform.

As you no doubt saw at the end of the last week, and from coverage this weekend, Facebook introduced a new look for their news feed. Some people love it, some people no doubt dislike it, and many are in between. But the hardest part for some is the element of surprise. Often when a site has a massive overhaul, they leave up a link to the previous version for those not yet ready to make a move - even if it is clearly outdated.

But if you think about it, are people going to switch from Facebook to MySpace or Friendster because of a UI change? Probably not. Are they going to use the site less often? Maybe, but not in a dramatic way. So Facebook can be pretty secure in knowing that their users are going to stick around.

In contrast to the secrecy, I have been impressed of late as to the transparency seen from Twitter in terms of the company's rolling out feature enhancements, and telling users in advance what is to come. The company has talked openly about their new ReTweet API, and also talked about the addition of Lists. Twitter has learned from its previous mistakes that abruptly made changes, impacting users and creating something like a mob.

Twitter, despite incredible competition for mindshare from Facebook and others, is confident enough that their tipping their hand isn't going to create a competitive problem - and easing users into new features makes it seem much more collaborative. But not everybody believes in this model. During the hubbub around Facebook's future plans for FriendFeed, co-founder Paul Buchheit said "we don't pre-announce things, so for now all I can say is that there's good stuff on the way." His update to the FriendFeed community was both reassuring and not reassuring at the same time - showing they were not asleep at the switch, but giving no clarity at a time when many are looking for some. Would his telling us a few features on their plate for Facebook have upset the apple cart any?

As noted before, Feedly, the next generation start page powered by RSS, has a public roadmap. (Here is their 2009 offering) Feedly is confident enough to show you what they are working on months in advance, even if there is potential slippage, and even if there are competitors who might integrate similar features into their own plans. But there is no potential for an Osborne Effect here. You either use Feedly or you don't. It's very unlikely that you will look at their future plans and walk away because you don't like the product direction - and it's less likely that you will write down their itinerary and make a competing offering.

If I am Apple, I would keep secrets. But if I were running a Web service, and was confident I could deliver on my promises, I would be sure to open up to the users and let them know what my priorities were early, rather than hiding under a cloak of mystery. Users need guidance and confidence that they are part of something that is continuing to improve, and won't be abandoned.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-24

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Videos for 2009-10-24

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Sarah Dancing and Rocking Out to Deadmau5

	Sarah Dancing and Rocking Out to Deadmau5 It's clear Sarah has natural rhythm and good taste in music. A sampling of her talent from Friday night.	From: asypta Views: 39 0 ratings
	Time: 01:03	More in People & Blogs

Tweets for 2009-10-24

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-23

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-23

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-22

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-22

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Google Reader's Magic Finds Personalized Highlights In Feeds

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:43:59 PDT

If you're a normal carbon-based life form and not an always-on robot like me, you probably don't want to spend the entirety of your day dialed in to the Web, reading every single article in the fear that you might miss something. It might make more sense instead that you get the best of the Web, tailored just for you, sent your way - be that through the use of human filters, or through software that can determine what you like, either through explicit or implicit actions. Following the lead of My6sense, which debuted earlier this year, Google Reader introduced a new feature today, called "Magic" that finds the best offerings in your subscriptions and brings them to the surface. And it works! The service also increased the visibility of recommended feeds, and showed the most popular stories from around the Web - all part of making the RSS reader more personal.

(Note I also asked for these features way back in March of 2007.)

As Google Reader outlined in a blog post this afternoon, "The goal of personalization at Google remains the same as ever: to help you find the best content on the web."

When Sorted by "Magic", You Can See I Share Those Items Most

When Sorted by "New", The Items Are Less Relevant
Many people are intimidated by Reader's potential to get full. Complaints about seeing (1000+) atop the stream are everywhere - and while there are ways to sort by time or by individual source, it has not always been easy to find the stories that are most relevant to you - until today. With the addition of "sort by magic", Reader presents articles atop your to do list that most match your interests, no doubt gauged by your previous viewing history, and explicit actions, such as sharing.

As mentioned often here, I share about 30 items a day from the near 900 I go through. With "magic" enabled, I found myself sharing not just 3% of the first few articles but nearly half of them - and after having read through the offerings, displaying my activity in list mode showed that to be the case. No doubt as I continue to use the product, it too should get better.

In parallel, while away from the Web browser experience, I have been using My6sense on the iPhone to deliver a similar effect, presenting me with the most relevant and interesting items atop my feed. But the company's approach is not due to "explicit" actions, such as "likes" and "thumbs up" or "thumbs down", which many services use for personalization. Instead, the company uses "implicit" actions, including what I read, how long I spend reading it, whether I scroll to the end of the article, or whether I share it, to help improve my data.

Both approaches are looking to tackle the information overload mentality, making the feeds not so much "magic", but intelligent - which will become even more important as each of us subscribe to more streams of data.

Popular Items that Are Most Often Liked In Google Reader
You might also see some similarities between Google Reader's "most popular" section to that of services I've pushed on this site since the beginning of 2008, including the dormant ReadBurner (where I am an advisor) and RSSmeme. One Google Reader employee back in 2008 said this function would be "less interesting" as it just highlighted popular sources (including Engadget, the FAIL Blog and others), and so far, it looks to be the case - even if there may be an occasional pop from a lesser-known source.

I've recently begun an engagement with My6sense as part of the day job, and the more I talk with the company's founder and chairman, Barak Hachamov, the more the two of us believe that while there is a time for the wisdom of crowds, you can never overstate the importance of the individual. Both My6sense and Google Reader, especially with today's announcements, are working to do that.

So Was This The Item That Made My Head Explode? :)

FTC Disclosures: My6sense is a client of Paladin Advisors Group, where I am Managing Director of New Media. I am also an advisor to ReadBurner, and have met with the Google Reader team multiple times at their campus, where on at least two occasions, lunch was served. :)

Video: Trends and the Future of Social Networks (With TurnHere)

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:26:22 PDT

Morgan Brown of TurnHere and I sit down to chat about social networks, business and trends. All three videos were recorded earlier this summer.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-21

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Videos for 2009-10-21

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Babies as Musical Instruments - It's a Trend Sweeping the Nation

	Babies as Musical Instruments - It's a Trend Sweeping the Nation Just more evidence of Dad being silly with Sarah and Matthew at 16 months.	From: asypta Views: 22 0 ratings
	Time: 00:17	More in People & Blogs

Tweets for 2009-10-21

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Video: Leveraging Social Networks to Build Web Traffic

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:23:55 PDT

Courtesy of YourBusinessChannel, filmed while in the UK with Ecademy, some of my comments on how being active in social networking can aid business and Web sites' search engine visibility. (Apologies for looking and sounding tired. I was.)

Twitter Gives Bing Access to the Firehose, Promises More to Come

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:18:30 PDT

As previewed in a scoop by All Things Digital's Kara Swisher, Twitter has enabled Microsoft's Bing search engine to have access to the full firehose of all public tweets, adding these real-time elements to the company's data pool. In a post confirming the partnership, Twitter called the onslaught of updates an "overwhelming deluge", hoping that Bing could help you find those that make sense for your search query "right now".

Solving search and discovery for Twitter Search has been extremely challenging for the San Francisco-based startup, and the company's incomplete database has led to a swarm of competition, notably that of Searchtastic most recently, who gave top billing to the fact their index dived deeper than Twitter.

This obviously is no free transaction, so it is safe to say Twitter clearly has revenue today. And more will come as the company promises the development of meaningful relationships with companies that share their vision of creating value for users - be they big companies or small ones. More on the announcement can be seen on the Bing blog.

Update: (I just received this via e-mail from a Bing PR rep)

Hi Louis,

This morning at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Qi Lu, President of Microsoft’s Online Services Division is announcing a new beta feature that enables people to easily search Twitter’s real-time information feed directly in Bing. This new feature helps people make better decisions and more fully understand Twitter conversations by collecting, analyzing and uniquely presenting real-time Twitter content.

More specifically, the new Twitter developments in Bing include:

A real-time index of the Tweets that match your search queries in results. This feature makes it easier to follow what’s going on by reducing the amount of duplicates, spam, and adult content.

Giving you the option to rank tweets either by most recent or by “best match,” where we consider a Tweeter’s popularity, interestingness of the tweet, and other indicators of quality and trustworthiness.

Providing the top links shared on Twitter around your specific search query by showcasing a few of the most relevant tweets. Additionally, Bing automatically expands those small URLs (like bit.ly) to enable you to understand what people are tweeting about. Instead of showing standard search result captions, we select 2 top tweets to give users a glimpse of the sentiment around the shared link.

You can try out the new Bing Twitter search beta here momentarily or learn more about it at the Bing blog. Please note that this is a U.S. only feature at this time.

Facebook Partnership

As part of his on-stage discussion at the summit, Dr. Lu is also announcing a global partnership with Facebook that will bring public Facebook status updates to Bing search results. The experience will be available at a later date.

Simler, the Interest-Based Microblog Network, Open to the Public

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:07:44 PDT

Simler, a fledgling interest-based social network, which I covered in early September (See: Find Similar People and Interests With Simler's Microblogging Platform) is now open to the public and no longer requires invites. You can find my account at: http://simler.com/user/louisgray/.

Simler lets you set up new discussons around tags, and like other real-time services, discussions on specific topics bump them to the top. Check it out if you don't already have a login.

Can Twitter Replace RSS for Sharing the Best of the Web?

louisgray@gmail.com (Louis Gray) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:14:27 PDT

On Monday, early adopter and Web provocateur Robert Scoble suggested that my use of Google Reader to share the best of the tech Web each day was antiquated. In fact, he called Reader "a dead product" compared to Twitter, which he believes will grow in importance for information discovery, especially as the lists feature is released more widely into the network. I respect Robert a great deal and we're good friends, so this kind of discussion doesn't bug me at all. As usual, it got me to thinking about why I do what I do, and whether it should change.

As discussed many times here, I share the best RSS items that enter my Google Reader in box per day. Lately, I have been sharing upwards of 30 items each day, up from the previous 20 to 25. These hand-selected items are then available on my link blog, in Google Reader for comments to other connections on that service, and downstream on other networks, including FriendFeed, Facebook and Socialmedian.

Last month, I noted the introduction of a new PubSubHubbub-enabled application called Reader2Twitter, that made it easier to share these items directly to Twitter as well. I even created a new Twitter ID for this, called @lgshareditems.

In parallel, Robert has been trying to do something similar, using not RSS, but Twitter, to share the best of the technology Web as it streams on his screen. While I have chosen to read 716 different feeds, Robert has chosen to follow more than 8,000 individual Twitter users. Similarly, his favorite Tweets are sent to an account called @scoblefaves, via FavStar.fm.

My Approach on the Left, Scoble's On the Right
In theory, both of us have the same goal. Both of us want to act as aggressive information filters, passing along the very best data to those downstream. But we are using different tools. My tools haven't changed much in the last two years, and Robert thinks that he is on to something. I like that he is being innovative, and once again, taking a chance by using a familiar tool in a new way, but there are more than a few reasons I won't be giving up the link blog in exchange for a Twitter favorites list any time soon. Not the first of which is that I have typically used my Twitter favorites to highlight positive mentions, similar to how I run my Delicious account, not to highlight news of the day.

See How Self-Centered I Am?

In Contrast, Robert Is Acting As a News Filter
In the discussion Monday, Robert said that Google Reader was "slower and lamer than Twitter is". That's been a common refrain from people who have said RSS "is dead". He also mentioned that Twitter doesn't have full text. So let's compare the two.

Advantages: Twitter Favorites

1. Speed.

Assuming that Robert is following the same people I am, but on Twitter instead of in Google Reader, Robert is correct that many people post their blog items to Twitter faster than they make it to Google Reader. This assumes that there could be a delay for RSS readers to get new posts of about 20 minutes. Many pieces in the ecosystem are PubSubHubbub-enabled, but not every leg, and therefore, there can be delays.

2. Ease of Resharing.

If Robert favorites a Tweet and that goes to his @scoblefaves account, it can be easily retweeted downstream, further into the network.

3. Some Native Content Is Not Link-Based

There are some interesting observations or comments on Twitter that are not links to a third-party site.Advantages: Google Reader Link Blog

1. Sharing of the Original Source

A shared Google Reader item is one click away from the full source data. A favorited tweet is essentially a share of a share, as the original content is somewhere else.

2. Full Content Beyond 140 Characters

Google Reader items contain as much data as presented in the RSS feed, going beyond the headline, but also including the body text, layout, etc.

3. Rich Media

Brizzly

4. Integrated Comments On Each Item

Each shared item in Google Reader offers connections the option to have a parallel discussion away from the blog post - something impossible with Twitter, which would instead require a series of replies or retweets.

5. Not All Blog Content Gets Sent To Twitter

I cannot safely assume that every blogger I follow also posts their content as links to Twitter. I cannot also believe that I am following them all, or that I see their every update. Therefore, RSS cannot be replaced.I am a big believer in RSS and in blogging. I believe Twitter is infrastructure, and that it has many uses. I believe that even if it is possible to find links to some content as much as a half-hour before, that it is worth seeing the full content from its original source, and sharing the content in its entirety. I also have two years' worth of inertia into the Google Reader link blog, which is powering my social graph everywhere else. Lastly, I believe that the speed discrepancy we see today is going to improve with greater adoption of tools like PubSubHubbub.

With the potential for FriendFeed to disappear, I fully understand Robert moving away from his "likes" initiative he had on the service, hoping that moving to Twitter favorites would fill that need. It's a noble approach. Maybe in time others will do the same, much like I followed him to cultivating an active link blog two years ago, and continue today. But we are far from the point where I am going to trade out my current process for something that not only seems less useful, but would certainly be less fun. As long as Web sites still publish and bloggers still blog, there will be room for RSS and room for a great reader and room for sharing. Until that ends, I'll keep going.

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-20

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Videos for 2009-10-20

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Matthew and Sarah: Constant Motion, Sticking Tongues Out

	Matthew and Sarah: Constant Motion, Sticking Tongues Out At 16 months, Matthew and Sarah aren't yet talking, but they obviously have a sense of humor.	From: asypta Views: 39 0 ratings
	Time: 02:24	More in People & Blogs

Tweets for 2009-10-20

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-19

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Tweets for 2009-10-19

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

FriendFeed Updates for 2009-10-18

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT