Of course, we have to begin by sharing our own feeds with you. The ReadWriteWeb network has several different feeds you can subscribe to, including:

• ReadWriteWeb
• ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-Up
• ReadWriteTalk (RSS)
• ReadWriteTalk (Add to iTunes)
• Last100
• AltSearchEngines

Some of the RWW Network writers also maintain their own personal sites you can subscribe to:

• Marshall Kirkpatrick (Personal)
• Josh Catone (Tumblog)
• Sarah Perez (Personal)
• Corvida (Personal)
• Sean Ammirati (Personal)
• Alex Iskold (Personal)
• Steve O'Hear (ZDNet)

Or just grab a "Best Of" OPML file for all of these: (Download Here)

RSS/OPML Files We've Shared

Our primary OPML resources come from this January post called "What's Next on the Web: a ReadWriteWeb Toolkit for 2008," where we put together OPML files for the biggest trends in 2008: Open Data, Recommendation, Semantic Web, Mobile, and Visualization. From the post "WikiLeaks, Censorship and the Watchdog Web," we provided readers with many ways to keep track of leaks and news, one of which was a Governement Watchdogs Site OPML file. When we wrote about "How to Find the Weirdest Stuff on the Internet," we provided a "Best of the Weird Hunting Blogs" RSS feed created with Yahoo Pipes. And yesterday, on the article about "Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web," we rounded up some of the best Gen Y blogs into one OPML file.

Below you can get access to either the RSS or the OPML files for the feeds we've shared:

ReadWriteWeb 2008 Toolkit OPML Files (Save Each Link to Download File)

• RWW Open Data Feed Favorites OPML file
• RWW Recommendation Industry Feed Favorites OPML file
• RWW Semantic Web Feed Favorites OPML file
• RWW Mobile Feed Favorites OPML file
• RWW Visualization Feed Favorites OPML file

ReadWriteWeb 2008 Toolkit RSS Feeds (Subscribe - Copy & Paste to Your Reader)

• RWW Open Data Feeds - Best of Feed
• RWW Recommendation Industry Feeds - Best of Feed
• RWW SemWeb Feeds - Best of Feed
• RWW Mobile Feeds - Best of Feed
• RWW Visualization Feeds - Best of Feed

Government Watchdogs OPML (Download Here)

• Wikileaks
• Wikileaks "Best Of"
• Cryptome's Greatest Hits

Best of the Weird Hunting Blogs RSS (Subscribe Here)

• LaughingSquid
• We Make Money Not Art
• Wooster Collective
• EveryoneForever
• WebUrbanist

Gen Y Greatest Hits OPML (Download Here)

• Ypulse
• My Gen Y Life
• Twenty Set
• Our American Shelf Life
• Millennial Leaders
• Lisa's Generation Relations Blog
• Modite
• Life Before Noon
• Generation Y Voodoo
• Personal Branding Blog
• Newly Corporate
• The Marketing Student
• Young and Frugal
• Employee Evolution
• PR Interactive

You can preview these RWW feeds in the widget below:

Bonus Content!

In the past, Marshall had also put together five of his favorite OPML on his personal site.

International Free Speech News (Download Here)

Not local, not issue specific, not necessarily from any particular perspective but big picture, popular news from folks who focus on environmental issues.

Contains:

• ACLU free speech press releases
• Article 19: Campaign for Global Free Expression
• Index on Censorship
• Institute for War and Peace Reporting
• Amnesty International news

Big Picture Eco News (Download Here)

Not local, not issue specific, not necessarily from any particular perspective but big picture, popular news from folks who focus on environmental issues.

Contains:

• Popular recent items tagged "environment" in Del.icio.us
• Environmental News Network
• Gristmill, the blog of Grist.org
• Sprol.com, using maps and pictures to examine eco troubles world wide
• Tree Hugger, eco news for the hip and urban 
• WorldChanging, a great group blog on many issues including eco solutions.

Non Profit/Net Squared (Download Here)

Feeds from non profit groups using Web 2.0 tools to share news about the non profit sector.

Contains:

• The 501c3 Cast, a great podcast about non profit work.
• Items tagged Net2 in Del.icio.us, a news wire promoted by Net Squared
• Net Squared Interviews, interviews of folks using Web 2.0 tools explicitly for social good.
• Net Squared Blog, group blog by staff and participants in the Net Squared community.
• Non Profit Online News, long one of the most respected sources on the subject.
• Today in Tech Soup, news from the non profit technology assistance group Tech Soup, parent of Net Squared.

Political Audio (Download Here)

Three of the most moving and informative news audio shows online.

Contains:

• Democracy Now!, a daily hour of powerful media.
• Free Speech Radio News, daily half hour from correspondents around the world.
• The Global Shortwave Report, weekly highlights from English language shortwave radio world wide - a paradigm shaker.

Vlogs - Video Blog (Download Here) 

Contains:

• Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth - Video, world traveling social justice multi media activist.
• Brave New Television
• Geek Entertainment TV, funny interviews with interesting people in the Web 2.0 world
• Vlog - Flux, awesome radical street videography

Check out the full interview (about 5 minutes) below.

Last week, CBC released an official DRM-free BitTorrent of a prime time show -- a first for a major north American broadcaster (see last100 coverage). Since then we’ve been getting hundreds of emails of support and one clear resounding message: give us more. This begs the question, why aren’t broadcasters doing more? Why in the year 2008, seven years after BitTorrent’s birth and a lifetime in Internet years is this a groundbreaking thing? Let’s break down what it takes to get a legal torrent going and maybe we’ll get some answers.

The post is worth a read, and be sure to subscribe to the Last100 RSS feed to keep up to date on all the latest digital lifestyle news and commentary.

Securing Nokia’s support marks a major coup for Microsoft. Having already committed to developing a version of Silverlight for all three major desktop Operating Systems (Windows, Mac OS and Linux), gaining access to Nokia’s millions of mobile users brings Microsoft one step closer to fulfilling the promise of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework with genuine ‘write once, run anywhere’ capabilities — the holy grail of software development.

However, notes last100 editor Steve O'Hear, while scoring a partnership with Nokia is a huge win for Microsoft, it hardly means that Silverlight will be the de facto mobile RIA platform. RIM, Apple, Adobe, and Google each have their own platforms for mobile RIA development.

For the full scoop, check out the post at last100 and be sure to subscribe to last100's RSS feed to keep up on all the latest digital lifestyle news.

If Apple can't persuade all four majors to license their catalogs for DRM-free paid-for downloads, and even Amazon, seen as the company most likely to rescue the music industry away from the grip of Apple, is only able to do so on a trial basis (with regards to Universal and Sony BMG at least), then what chance does Qtrax have with an almost completely new and unproven model.

To put this into even greater perspective, both SpiralFrog (see last100's review) and We7, two services that have offered ad-supported music downloads for significantly longer, are only able to offer a catalog of around half a million tracks each of a million and a half million tracks, respectively. Why? Because the labels are far from convinced that advertising dollars can ever replace revenue from paid-for downloads or CD sales.

In a followup post today, last100 scored an exclusive interesting Q&A with We7 CEO Steve Purdham. UK-based We7, backed by Peter Gabriel, enables users to download free MP3s that have a short (and targeted) audio advert embedded at the start of each track. The ads then auto-expire after four weeks of listening, allowing users to re-download the same tracks ad-free.

Purdham talks on a range of issues including the company's mission, DRM, resistance by the major labels, new business models and We7's competitors.

On the major labels reluctance to embrace ad-supported music downloads, Purdham says the reason is "simple:"

"They are worried that if they leave the iTunes model, the revenues they get will be diminished. So out of 79p they get, say, 46p and they are worried that ad [supported models] will net a lot less. However, there is a realization that in a world where for every track sold by iTunes... 10 tracks are downloaded illegally with no payment, so the real track revenue is 4.6p. Ad funded models need to show they are additive on the whole or scale to make the total cash available higher than before."

And asked whether Qtrax's service is too good to be true, Purdham comments:

"Well let's just say the reports seem to suggest so, which is a shame as I want to see more ad models appear and then the winners are the ones that execute well. The strange situation with Qtrax, and Spiralfrog last year, do nothing for the cause. There are many big questions that are hanging over Qtrax which needn't have been there but I hope they don't destroy the opportunity for the rest of us."

You can read the rest of the interview over at last100, and don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed to get the latest digital lifestyle news and analysis.

"Overall, pricing on iTunes is inline with traditional DVD rentals from bricks-and-mortar stores such as Blockbuster, as well as directly comparable online offerings. Movie rentals are priced at $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, with High Definition versions costing one dollar more. However, when compared to subscription packages such as the eat-all-you-want service from Netflix, Apple’s prices soon add up, for all but the most casual movie watcher. Not offering a subscription option seems like a missed opportunity by Apple."

iPhone, iPod touch updates are incremental, welcomed, and point to future

"Today’s software updates for the iPhone and iPod touch are welcomed refinements from Apple. Are they earth-shattering? No. They’re incremental, carefully thought out, and point to what we can expect in the future.

"It’s a platform that competitors are no where near duplicating. By the time competing manufacturers introduce their versions of the iPhone (many of which may use Google’s open mobile operating system Android), Apple will unveil even more refinements as well as introduce iPhone 2.0."

AppleTV 2 breaks free from the PC, remains under Apple’s lock and key

"With AppleTV "take 2," the chains are off so to speak. No longer does the device require the use of a computer to download and manage content (although it can still access media stored on a PC), and is instead capable of fetching content directly from the Internet -- movie rentals; film, TV and music purchases; podcasts; and photos.

"But aside from Apple-sanctioned access: the company’s own iTunes Store and .Mac service, podcasts, Flickr and YouTube -- the AppleTV remains under lock and key, closed to third-party developers and web services, and subsequently unable to pull in additional content from elsewhere on the net."

Reading between the lines of Jobs’ comments on Kindle, Android

"What does Steve-o really mean when he says, "It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore"? And: "The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t ready anymore"?"

BBC tech chief: iPlayer on iTunes now a possibility

"Movie rentals on iTunes could pave the way for content from the BBC’s catch-up service, iPlayer, being offered on Apple’s platform, according to the broadcaster’s Future Media and Technology Director, Ashley Highfield."

Be sure to check out more great digital life coverage every day at last100.

A variation of a blog, that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, this format is frequently used to share the author's creations, discoveries, or experiences without providing a commentary. One of the many tumblelog sevices is tumblr.

Tumblr is announcing a number of new features today. We touch briefly on these features in the podcast, but also discuss David's vision for Tumblr. We also discuss how his service is specifically different than two competitors (Twitter and FriendFeed). In this post, I'll quickly cover how Tumblr is different, as well as put the spotlight on the new features being announced for Tumblr.

It has been six months since David and his colleague released Tumblr 2.0 and at that point they were still only working on it part time. (Beyond Tumblr, David was providing digital media consulting services in the New York area.) This is the first release since they started working on the project full time -- and they've been busy. David explained that it includes over 400 new features, fixes, and improvements. Beyond fixes, the features seem to cluster around four important themes for this release:

• Supporting Audio Posts
• Upgrades to Video Posting
• Private Communication: Channels
• Easier Integration Points (APIs)

Audio Posts

According to David, one of the most requested features was to support audio posts. The new version of Tumblr allows you to create an MP3 audio file or use your phone to create one and post up to one audio file per day. It will then play within a flash player on the post.

Upgrades to Video Posting

Before this release, Tumblr only recognized embed codes from major video sites. Now, they are supporting any video or Flash embed code.

They also have partnered with Vimeo to allow, from phone or browser, posting videos directly to your Tumblelog. It should be noted that Jakob Lodwick, founder and CEO of Vimeo, participated as an angel in the funding round that Union Square and Spark Capital led a few months ago - so I'm sure the partnership between Tumblr and Vimeo is deep.

Private Communication

When I was interviewing David, he was very excited about the ability to support private group communication from Tumblr's posting tools. They are calling this capability "channels." Obviously, there are a lot of tools that are trying to make it easy for groups to collaborate, but to the extent a group is comfortable with the Tumblr posting UI, I could see this proving effective.

Easier Integration - APIs

The Vimeo integration is clearly a good example of a traditional partnership with Tumblr. However, they also have expanded their API and now support JSON. This is allowing applications to be built on top of the Tumblr API. Some of the companies that have taken advantage of the APIs already include Jott and Disqus.

The importance of this is clear when you look at the value other companies have gotten from opening up their APIs. For example, when interviewing Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, on an earlier episode of Read/WriteTalk and he emphasized the importance of Twitter's APIs saying, "the API has easily 10 times more traffic than the website."

Competition

It is important to point out that there are a number of other companies that are operating either in adjacent areas or are direct competitors to Tumblr.

Twitter

When I first learned about Tumblr, the first service that jumped to my mind as competitive was Twitter. I asked David how he felt Tumblr was different than Twitter. His response was:

Twitter is a service you use to tell people what you are doing. We look at Tumblr as a service to share those experiences ...

It's also interesting that Union Square Ventures has actually invested in both Twitter and Tumblr. When Union Square announced the Tumblr investment on their blog, they proactively responded to the question of whether they are competitive services:

We don't think so. As you can read in our post on investing in Twitter, we see Twitter as a communication platform ... By contrast, Tumblr strives to be the easiest place to express yourself online, to create your web presence simply and beautifully. In the designing the best service to tackle their respective missions, both Twitter and Tumblr have become services that enable short-form expression. That's why many people see Tumblr and Twitter as competitive services. But, this comparison is superficial and does not grasp the goals of each service. If Twitter succeeds in fulfilling its mobile communications goals, all the problems that Tumblr addresses will still exist; and vice-versa for Tumblr. So, in our opinion, these two investments are not competitive.

FriendFeed

In the area of aggregating other web-services, FriendFeed seems like the most natural competitor to Tumblr. In our interview, David also contrasts Tumblr to his understanding of FriendFeed, but acknowledges he hasn't tried the service yet. This is understandable as the service is still in a private beta.

It's probably worth noting that Bret Taylor and Jim Norris founded FriendFeed as Entrepreneurs in Residence at Benchmark Capital after leaving Google. They have a great track record for developing innovative web applications while at Google including Google Maps, Gmail and Google Groups. While right now they seem more focused on aggregating different feeds from your life (such as Flickr, Twitter, YouTube) and letting you publish them in places like your blog or Facebook profile, it is a very early service so time will tell how they compete in the long run.

Other Competitors

Beyond Twitter & FriendFeed, there are other companies you could perceive as competitive to Tumblr. For example, Jaiku which was recently acquired by Google and Pownce which was founded by Kevin Rose. However, both of these really seem like direct competitors to Twitter. Therefore, they are probably only as competitive with Tumblr as Twitter is.

Conclusion

To learn more about Tumblr, I'd encourage you to listen to my interview with David. I'd love to hear what you think of Tumblr in the comments below. Are they competitive with Twitter and FriendFeed? What do you think of the new features released today?

• Session 1: Social Media Marketing Fundamentals
• Session 2: Linkbait - Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites
• Session 3: Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites
• Session 4: A Marketer‚Äôs Guide to Social Bookmarking & Tagging
• Session 5: Keynote Q & A with Joshua Schachter of del.icio.us & Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon
• Session 6: Effectively Leveraging Social Networking
• Session 7: Evangelist - The Marketer‚Äôs Role in SMM
• Session 8: Micro Communities
• Session 9: Wikipedia, Yahoo! Answers, and Answer Sharing
• Session 10: Final Session - Wikipedia Clinic

Top News

- Attention - NewsGator and Bloglines Join APML Workgroup (Marshall)
- Discovery Purchasing HowStuffWorks for $250 Million (Josh)
- AdBrite: Full Page "Skip This Ad" Units Now Available for Everyone (Marshall)
- On Copyright: YouTube Punts (Marshall); related: YouTube’s new video identification system places burden on copyright holders (last100)
- Adobe Partners with BBC on Streaming Video (Josh); related: BBC partners with Adobe to add iPlayer streaming option; Mac and Linux will be supported (last100)
- HypeMachine Readies a Relaunch of Its Popular MP3 Service (Marshall)
- Pew: Most Kids Online Not Threatened by Strangers (Marshall)

Blog Action Day

- The Top 35 Environmental Blogs (Josh)
- BadBuster Helps You Identify the Greenest Companies (Josh)
- Five environmental Internet TV offerings (last100)

Mobile 2.0

Richard was at he Mobile 2.0 event today in San Francisco. Here are his posts:

- Mobile 2.0 - The 7th Mass Media & Business Opportunities
- Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad Part 1
- Mobile 2.0 Launch Pad Part 2
- Taptu Launches New Type of Mobile Search

AltSearchEngines is also on the conference circuit this week - ASE editor Charles Knight is in NYC for the Search Marketing Expo - SMX.

Docstoc has been in private beta and approaching official launch, but they were kind enough to give 1000 Read/WriteWeb readers a chance to preview the service early. Just navigate to http://docstoc.com/User/register.aspx and enter "RWW" (without the quotes) as the invite code to claim your invite. These are released on a first come, first serve basis.

A video introducing Docstoc to Read/WriteWeb readers (you!) is embedded below.

Remember, go to http://docstoc.com/User/register.aspx and enter "RWW" (without the quotes) as the invite code to check out Docstoc. Let us know what you think of it.

One of those features is a sophisticated demo recording system that saves gameplay movies with game data, allowing them to be shared and remixed, in essence allowing the creation of gameplay mashups. The second feature is a file sharing service launched by Bungie -- the game studio responsible for the Halo series -- allowing users to share screenshots, game films, and custom game objects with other gamers.

"Interestingly, Saved Films are not video files but instead contain the actual game data. This enables users to replay the game at any resolution, and to change things like camera angles. Saved Films might seem like a minor feature at first, but I think it’s really important for two reasons. Number one, it allows players to create clips and screenshots that can be shared with other players, effectively enabling mashups and remixes of Halo 3. Number two, it’s the first step toward allowing players to script their own storylines and movies. There’s talk that a traditional, blockbuster-style Halo movie is in the works, but I think fan-created Halo 3 movies would be so much better."

Last100 also posits that Halo 3 may help promote and spread other Microsoft products, including Silverlight, Microsoft's rich media platform that competes with Flash and Java.

Be sure to check out the full scoop on Halo 3 from Last 100.

Now it's time to catch our breath and check out some of the recent highlights from the Read/WriteWeb Network...

Google Reader Goes Multilingual, Comes Out of Beta - Marshall Kirkpatrick reviewed Google Reader now that it's gone out of beta. He gave it the thumbs up, but with some provisos:

"Now free of the beta tag that even GMail still carries with it, a Google Reader primed for international use will probably increase its already huge market share substantially. The service just added search functionality earlier this month, something that was no doubt required before it could lose its label as an experiment. Still limiting the scope of its potential adoption, though, is lack of support for authenticated (password protected) feeds. So much for business use, or even filtering certain GMail labels to RSS, if you're a Google Reader user."

Check out the full review and be sure to leave your comments.

See also Marshall's review of Lunarr, "a deceptively simple looking collaboration platform" - and note we have invites for the first 200 readers who want to check it out. Marshall's first post on R/WW was also a goodie - a review of two new consumer apps from Intel; a developer focused beta testing site called Whatif and a mashup tool called MashMaker.

Wall Street Journal May Be Set Free - Josh Catone comments on the news that Rupert Murdoch is considering removing the $79/year fee for full WSJ access. Josh warns though that "free content doesn't work for all online businesses, however. Social networking and dating site Hot Or Not told its customers today that it will be switching back to a paid model."

Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare - last100 reports: "Winamp, that staple of media players, will soon turn 10! And its not letting it pass without a bang. On the 10th of October at 10:10am, Winamp 5.5 (PC-only) will be released sporting two new and potentially controversial features: support for mp3 blogs and the ability to stream your music collection over the Internet."

Picture this! Visualizing Search Results - AltSearchEngines attempts to persuade you that the Interface is the key.

AltSearchEngine's List of Charity Search Engines: Charles has compiled a very useful list of charity search engines. He concluded that while none of the search engines on the list rated a perfect 5 star rating, several were ‚Äúvery good‚Ä? - namely GoodTree, GoodSearch, CharityCafe, and EveryClick (U.K. only). Also, with just one exception (SearchGive), they all use a Major search engine to power their results, so you should get good search results.

last100's Internet streaming: five U.S. television networks compared explores how major U.S. television networks continue to embrace Internet technology and put their shows on the Web for online viewing. However - writes last100's Daniel Langendorf - their online offerings remain sporadic and their Internet strategies feel like ‚Äúwe have to‚Ä? rather than ‚Äúwe want to‚Ä?.

MySpace: Hot or Not? - Alex Iskold explores the current state of MySpace. So is MySpace still hot? As a trend Alex says the answer is no. But as a site, yes - while a lot of people are using the site to keep in touch with friends, for many it appears to be a place to trawl for dates and sex.

Podcast interview with Dan Cohen, CEO of Pageflakes - Read/WriteTalk host Sean Ammirati sits down with Dan Cohen and discusses his experiences working at first MyYahoo and then Pageflakes. I discovered a new term while listening to this: "social networking above the belt". When you refer to Alex's MySpace post, the meaning of that term becomes clear!

11 video download stores compared - last100 editor Steve O'Hear takes a look at eleven paid-for video download stores. He notes that while there appears to be much competition, many of the resulting services lack innovation - in terms of their technology choices and how they approach copy-protection.

Sony to challenge Apple, others in TV and movie download market - Sony is to challenge Apple in TV and movie downloads. On one hand, writes last100's Daniel Langendorf, that makes sense. Sony is carefully positioning its PlayStation 3 game console as the entertainment hub in people’s homes.

The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines - AltSearchEngines editor Charles Knight has released the latest Top 100 list. The Search Engine of the month is Answers.com.