rss - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/rss en Copyright 2009 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:45:49 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Google Now Scanning RSS, Atom Feeds, May Experiment with Real-Time Protocols in Future According to a post on Google's Webmaster Central blog, Google is now discovering web sites by automatically scanning RSS and Atom feeds. This new process will help Google more quickly identify web pages and will allow users to find new content in search results as soon as it goes live. While not exactly "real-time," using feeds to identify updates to websites is an arguably faster method than the traditional crawling techniques Google has used in the past. And Google may get even faster in the near future - the post also notes that the company may soon explore using mechanisms like the real-time protocol PubSubHubbub to identify updated items going forward.

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]]> The blog post doesn't say whether or not RSS and Atom discovery is displacing traditional web crawling for sites that are feed-enabled, but it's likely that, if given the choice, Google will opt for the faster method if available. As Vanessa Fox notes on the SearchEngineLand blog, since it's unknown at this time whether Google is using the feeds in place of traditional web crawling, it may make sense to use full feeds rather than partial ones in order to get your content indexed faster by Google's search engine.

Real-Time Web Crawling in the Future?

Although only briefly mentioned in the post, Google hinted that they may begin looking into other mechanisms such as PubSubHubbub, an open protocol that provides near-instant notifications of change updates. No further details were provided beyond the one sentence, but the announcement clearly shows that Google has seen the writing on the wall and knows that the real-time web is the future. This is one trend the company isn't planning to ignore.

The real-time web, heavily influenced by the speed of Twitter and other other rapid-fire social networking updates, has created a desire among internet users for faster access to information. This desire has, in turn, led to the creation of new real-time protocols such as the above mentioned PubSubHubbub and its counterpart RSSCloud. If Google began to use these technologies for scanning the web, their search results wouldn't just be updated faster - they would be updated in real-time. That means information would become available in the search results listings as soon as it was published to the web.

That, of course, would lead to a whole new series of challenges for the search engine - most notably, how to rank the real-time results? Given that Google's search algorithm has been built on top of the concept of PageRank, a way to determine the relevance of a website by what other sites link to it, ranking search results that are so fresh that there is an absence of links could prove a difficult feat. However, Google is already doing this to some extent now. Over time, the PageRank algorithm has evolved and can now reward sites with fresher, more fitting content and rank them higher than sites with more links on some occasions. And if anyone can figure out the proper algorithm for mixing in real-time content and ranking it appropriately along with static pages, it's got to be Google. In fact, we'll probably soon see exactly how they plan on addressing this issue, when they incorporate Twitter search results into their index, as announced last week.

...But Until Then, Google Delivering Faster, Fresher Results Instead

Although the PubSubHubbub mention may have been the most exiting part of the announcement, real-time search results aren't here just yet. In the meantime, we have to just be content with sped up results instead. The post advises website owners who are blocking Google's search bot software known as Googlebot from crawling their RSS/Atom feeds to unblock it via their robots.txt file. If unsure, webmasters can test their feed URLs with the robots.txt tester in Google Webmaster Tools, as the post recommends.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_now_scanning_rss_atom_feeds.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_now_scanning_rss_atom_feeds.php Google Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:44:01 -0800 Sarah Perez
Invisible RSS Technology in Visual Feed Readers: RSS for the Rest of Us Could a more eye-catching approach to syndication make RSS more accesible to mainstream users outside the geekosphere? Two new websites have just launched that rely on such a strategy gaining traction.

Spectives and Readfresh are the sites in question, and both offer thumbnail images and a limited amount of text. Readfresh monitors sites and brings the most recently updated sites to the top of a user's page, allowing users to see what's new at a glance. Spectives, on the other hand, gives users "one page, a lot of pictures, updating constantly" from RSS feeds and websites. Read on for a side-by-side comparison and our assessment.

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]]> These sites did remind us a bit of Guzzle.it or Lazyfeed. The major difference, however, is that users are content curators rather than being served pre-packaged feeds based on topics and keywords, which is something we'd wanted in the first place.

In other words, if you already know what sites you want to read, but Google Reader makes you cross-eyed and/or frustrated, either one of these sites might be great for you to try.

Spectives

One thing we love about Spectives is that it takes the tech out of subscribing to RSS feeds. Users can add a feed or type in a web address and click a link for the feed or feeds for that page. The content then appears in a user's "collection" of feeds with no futher fuss.

Content consists of a post title as well as a thumbnail of an image pulled from the post.

Here's a quick, one-minute demo video:

And here's what our collection looks like:

Collections are shareable and linkable, and Spectives offers their own curated collections for popular verticals such as humor and gadgets.

But be warned: Only sites and feeds where Spectives can find images will be added to a user's collection. So it might not work for some types of feeds. And with this stipulation comes a couple bugs.

We were beyond disappointed and slightly confused that the site couldn't find images on Penny Arcade and for some reason, the site bugged out once when we tried to add Questionable Content to our collection and once again when we tried Awkward Family Photos.

Readfresh

One thing we love about Readfresh is that it doesn't rely on RSS feeds to serve updated content at all. Users simply enter the URL of the websites they want to track, and content is served, with a thumbnail of each website gliding to the top of the stack when the site shows new content.

According to the developer, Emil Schutte, Readfresh "uses a combination of text and image analysis to decide when a site has changed. That's where most of the interesting work happens. It attempts to zoom in on new content in the thumbnail image when a site updates. The results right now are usually pretty good, but it depends on the site.

"It also has some smarts to discover changes as quickly as possible without flooding sites with pings all the time."

Indeed, Readfresh seemed to do really well at serving timely content. However, users will see one thumbnail per website as opposed to one thumbnail per post, and each thumb links to the site itself, not to an individual post.

Also, we can't figure out a way to share our Readfresh collections, which is a disappointment, indeed.

Who Wins in a Sudden Death Round?

As of now, each site offers unique benefits. We like Readfresh's implementation of non-visual content and sites without RSS feeds. We also like Spectives' post-by-post updates, which will surely make content easier to keep track of. Both offerings need work, as newly launched products, and Spectives seems particularly buggy.

So which site wins you over, readers? Let us know what you think about these two products and visual RSS in general in the comments.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/visual_rss.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/visual_rss.php RSS & Feed Management Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:39:11 -0800 Jolie O'Dell
Not Just for Developers Anymore: New York Times Launches Custom Times Feeds nytimes_logo_may09.pngThe New York Times just released an interesting new tool that allows users to filter articles from the newspaper's website by tags and keywords and turn them into custom feeds. While developers could already build similar tools on top of the paper's Article Search API and TimesTags API, the new Custom Times Feeds give everybody the ability to create persistent searches based on their personal preferences.

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]]> One neat feature of the application is that users can't just search by keyword but can also copy-and-paste the URL of any New York Times article into the search field. The software will then automatically suggest new search terms based on the tags the New York Times editors added to this post (and which are normally hidden).

nytimes_rss_custom_feeds.png

Interesting, But Intentionally Limited

Sadly, though, the tool is also still somewhat limited. It doesn't for example, support Boolean operators (AND, OR, etc.) in queries. Adding additional search terms simply restricts searches to articles where both terms appear. There is no option to turn this around and make the query an 'or' search. All of this wouldn't be a problem if the app allowed users to then combine different feeds, but this isn't an option - though you could obviously use Yahoo Pipes or a similar product to combine these feeds yourself.

According to the Times, these limitations are intentional and meant to "keep the application simple and approachable."

If you are only interested in receiving updates about a very limited set of topics, then setting up a tab in Netvibes or iGoogle for a number of custom feeds is definitely an interesting proposition. On the other hand, you could also get similar and more customizable alerts from a wider range of publications through Google Alerts (though Google won't help you to find appropriate keywords) or a real-time service like Lazyfeed.

The NYTimes is a syndication partner of ReadWriteWeb.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_york_times_launches_custom_feeds.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_york_times_launches_custom_feeds.php News Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:30:16 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
How To: See When Your Tweets Are Favorited, by RSS favstarlogo.jpgTweets on Twitter, you can favorite them - but do people take the time to? It turns out they do and someone's probably been favoriting Tweets from you, too. Favstar is a new service that tracks the most favorited tweets tweeted and finds some pretty funny stuff that way. The service will also tell you who's been favoriting your tweets though - and tonight it added RSS notification to its features.

That means you can now subscribe to an RSS feed showing you who likes your Tweets, even if they didn't reply, retweet or respond otherwise. That's interesting information to know.

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]]> It's very simple to do. Just visit Favstar.fm, search for your Twitter username, then select the "recent" tab. Once on that page, your browser will detect a feed for your otherwise silent friends. Or you could just cut to the chase and subscribe to a URL like this with your username in it: http://favstar.fm/users/marshallk/rss

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Right now the feed doesn't display the usernames of the people who favorited your tweets, you'll have to click through a notification to visit the Favstar site to see that. The site's creator wants to give people a reason to come back, and that makes sense, but I sure would like to see those usernames in the feed.

I've put my Favstar feed into my favorite RSS to IM alert system, just because I think that's where it will work best for me. I might put it someplace else later, but I sure am glad to have it; it's nice to know who likes your Tweets.

Why is this useful? Well, I had no idea that widely respected PR pro Constantin Basturea was thinking about me until Favstar showed me that he favorited one of my recent tweets. We haven't exchanged words in months - but his thinking of me makes me think about him. I know now that I could reach out to him about the subject of that tweet or some other matter and I'd already have a place somewhere toward the front of his mind.

If it's funny Tweets you're looking for, make sure to visit the amazing automated funniest Tweet finder Favrd, too. Favstar, though, has something for everyone who's ever been favorited at all. Now with RSS it can become a regular part of your social media monitoring, instead of just a fun one-off thing you check once and forget about.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_see_when_your_tweets_are_favorited_by_rss.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_see_when_your_tweets_are_favorited_by_rss.php How To Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:02:48 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick
WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud All blogs on the WordPress.com platform and any WordPress.org blogs that opt-in (using this plug-in) will now make instant updates available to any RSS readers subscribed to a new feature called RSSCloud. There is currently only one RSS aggregator that supports RSSCloud, Dave Winer's brand-new reader River2. That will probably change very soon. Update: Within hours another RSS reader called LazyFeed has announced that it will support RSSCloud as well.

RSSCloud is an element that's always been present in the RSS 2.0 spec but has drawn new attention with the rise of interest in the Real-Time Web. The element was just added to the WordPress code this afternoon. The implications of this big vote of support go beyond reading WordPress blogs; this is the kind of traction that new technologies can leverage to gain support in many different applications.

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]]> Supporting feed readers will now be able to request updates from WordPress blog feeds as soon as they become available, instead of polling a server periodically to check for updates. (Your blog posts typically get picked up by RSS aggregators 15 to 60 minutes after you posted them - this will change that.) The feature is already being rolled out, several WordPress users report seeing the cloud element in the source code of their RSS feeds. Update: Here's the official announcement from WordPress HQ.

This is like the difference between checking your email every once in awhile and using a Blackberry to get new emails pushed to you as soon as they arrive. The subscription method of RSSCloud works more like Instant Messaging than the old method of polling feeds for updates each time you fire up your feed reader.

Google Reader, the dominant RSS aggregator on the market, began a limited implementation of a related protocol called PubSubHubbub last month. Facebook-acquired FriendFeed worked with Google on that system.

Now RSSCloud has a posse. Half a million blogs are created each month on WordPress and if Google Reader keeps taking its sweet time checking those blogs for updates instead of turning on support for RSSCloud, it's going to look slow as molasses.

Real time updates could enable several things. Faster distribution of blog posts, more compelling conversations in real-time and a renewed timeliness for blogging vs. services like Twitter are all likely consequences. The list of possible technical developments on top of RSSCloud could be as open-ended as the developments enabled by the core of RSS.

RSS has made blogging viable by freeing readers of the requirement of visiting each site they are interested in. It has made podcasts subscribable. It has made wiki change notifications trackable outside the mess of the email inbox. It has made search a persistent action, instead of a one-off occasional delayed reaction. RSS is mixable, mashable, parsable, filterabile.

Now RSSCloud could add a real-time dimension to all of that. The paradigm just got a very big vote of support.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wordpress_just_made_millions_of_blogs_real-time_wi.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wordpress_just_made_millions_of_blogs_real-time_wi.php NYT Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:49:57 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick
The Blogosphere in Your Pocket: Regator Comes to the iPhone regator_gator_logo_aug09.pngRegator, the popular blog directory and feed reader, just launched its iPhone application (iTunes link). The app, which is available for free, allows users to browse stories from over 500 topics, ranging from travel blogs to pop culture and sports blogs - with a bit of beekeeping and local news from around the world thrown in for good measure. Every one of these topics is curated by Regator's staff, which ensures that only high-quality blog feeds make it into the app. Every topic also comes with its own memetracker-like 'popular' view and a list of currently trending terms within each category.

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]]> One interesting aspect of the app is that you always have to go to the original source blog to read the full text of each post, no matter whether the blog publishes a full-text feed or not. As the Regator team told us when we first wrote about the company last year, the idea here is to give back to the bloggers featured on the site. One nice aspect of the app is that Regator also displays related stories and images, as well as popular blogs about a specific topic whenever you are looking at a story's summary page.

Besides organizing stories based on popularity, Regator also offers a more traditional view, where stories are displayed in reverse chronological order.

 

Sharing

Once you bring up a news story, you can also easily share it with your Twitter and Facebook friends right from within the app. While you have to hand over your Twitter credentials, the app has implemented Facebook Connect for sharing stories with your Facebook friends.

Something for Everyone

Because the app covers such a wide range of topics, it really offers something for everyone. You can use it to keep up to date on recent tech events and to see what's hot within the beekeeping community (this story about urban beekeepers is getting quite a lot of attention right now, for example). Because it is curated by Regator's editors and doesn't allow you to add your own feeds, Regator won't replace your current feed reader. However, if you just want to get a quick overview of what's hot in a certain community, Regator does a fine job of giving you access to a nice collection of quality blog posts.

regator_app_large_aug09.jpg

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/regator_iphone_app.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/regator_iphone_app.php News Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:31:36 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Newsgator Shuts Down Its Online Feed Reader newsgator_logo_jul09.pngNewsGator, the company behind the popular FeedDemon and NetNewsWire feed readers, just announced that it will shut down the NewsGator Online Reader on August 31, 2009. The company will provide users with instructions on how to migrate to Google Reader. NewsGator's desktop and mobile feed readers already support synchronization with Google Reader. Until today, though, users could choose between syncing with NewsGator or Google Reader. New versions of FeedDemon and NetNewsWire for the Mac will be available today. A new version of NewsGator's iPhone app will also arrive in the App Store soon.

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]]> NewsGator Focuses on the Enterprise

This move probably makes a lot of sense for NewsGator, as the company can now focus more on working with its enterprise and government customers. Running an online RSS reader is pretty resource intensive. For the most part, NewsGator was only duplicating Google Reader's features anyway, though it did offer a number of features that Google doesn't yet offer in its online RSS reader.

newsgator_shuts_down_notice_jul09.png

The most important part of the announcement actually comes at the end of the FAQ about the transition. NewsGator argues that its enterprise products have grown at a record pace in the last 18 months. The company also announced that its Social Sites product already has over a million paying users. Under these circumstances, offering a free online news reader probably didn't make any sense for NewsGator anymore.

Free Desktop Readers Will Live On

It's important to note that the company will continue to develop and support its free desktop and mobile readers, though NewsGator Go! for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile will no longer be available for consumers after August 31. NewsGator's browser toolbar and desktop notifier will also be discontinued.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/newsgator_shuts_down_its_online_feed_reader.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/newsgator_shuts_down_its_online_feed_reader.php News Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:26:37 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
My6Sense: A Smarter Feed Reader for the iPhone my6sense_logo_jul09.pngGoogle Reader offers a nifty mobile interface, and apps like Byline (iTunes link) and NetNewsWire (iTunes link) are well-designed native apps that allow iPhone users to keep up with their feeds. But slogging through a few hundred subscriptions on the iPhone's small screen can quickly turn into a frustrating experience. My6Sense, which launched the first beta of its web-based mobile feed reader last December, is now finally ready to release its native iPhone app. Thanks to the app's ability to organize your feeds according to a personalized recommendation system that automatically learns from your preferences as you browse through your feeds, keeping up with hundreds of feeds on the iPhone is now easier than ever before.

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]]> Note: the app should have been available in the App Store by now, but Apple, as usual, is rather tardy. My6sense expects the app to go live soon, but the exact time is up to Apple.

The Good Stuff Machine

While my6sense is a capable feed reader in its own right, it's what my6sense's founder Barak Hachamov likes to call the company's "good stuff machine" that makes all the difference. While traditional feed readers just organize items chronologically, my6sense actually watches what you do while you read your feeds. The app, for example, looks at messages you read, links you click on, items you share and the position of these items in your stream, as well as items you skip. You can also actively mark a message as interesting by clicking the 'I like' button.

my6sense_iphone_screenshots_jul09.jpg

After you have spent only a few sessions with the app, my6sense will have already gotten a good sense of the items that are probably most relevant to you. Of course, the more you use it (we used the web app regularly since the beta launch last December), the better the recommendations get.

In our experience, my6sense's algorithms do a great job at figuring out a user's interests. If you are a real news junkie, you will probably still sometimes want to switch to the regular timeline mode that organizes items chronologically. After all, the items you don't usually think you would be interested in can sometimes really grab your attention (which is, to be honest, a problem that all recommendation systems have to grapple with).

Import and Share

It is worth noting that the app can also import your streams from Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, and Flickr. From within the app, you can also share the most interesting items you find on Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

My6sense can import your feeds from Google Reader, iGoogle, MyYahoo, Newsgator, and NetVibes. Thanks to this, it's quite easy to get started. Sadly, though, the app doesn't sync with any of these services, so items you read on my6sense won't show up as read in your Google Reader subscriptions. My6sense also offers a curated lists of feeds that new users can subscribe to.

A Few Things to Improve

There are a few nagging omissions in the app, though, that keep it from being really great. Most importantly, you can't tell the app to only display items that were posted in the last 24 or 48 hours. In a way, this makes sense - after all, the app is trying to give you the most relevant items, including those that you might have overlooked. But often, we just want to see what the most interesting items posted today are, and as of now, my6sense can't do that.

Another problem with the app is that once you import your social network feeds from Twitter, Facebook, or FriendFeed, your timeline often gets overwhelmed by these items. At least for us, my6sense performed far better when we disabled these feeds.

Currently, my6sense also doesn't offer an offline mode, so you can't use it to read feeds while on a plane or far from the nearest cell tower.

Overall, we recommend you give my6sense a try. After all, the app is free, and importing your feeds from your current feed reader is easy enough - just give it a day or two to see if the recommendation system works for you.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/my6sense_a_smarter_feed_reader_for_the_iphone.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/my6sense_a_smarter_feed_reader_for_the_iphone.php Products Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:10:00 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Company Receives Patent for Podcasting volomedia_logo_jul09.pngVoloMedia, a podcast analytics, advertising, and distribution company, just received a patent for "providing episodic media," including podcasts. According to the company, which filed for the patent in November 2003, U.S. Patent 7,568,213 covers all episodic media downloads, not just the RSS-dependent downloads that power today's podcasts. VoloMedia CEO Murgesh Navar says that the company doesn't plan to go after individual podcasters, but that the company plans to "work collaboratively with key participants in the industry." We do wonder, however, if VoloMedia can really claim to have invented podcasting in 2003, given that the concept was already under development by Dave Winer and others in late 2000 and early 2001.

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]]> The only company mentioned specifically in the announcement is Hulu (as an example for a content platform that might one day offer episodic, downloadable content), but in an interview with NewTeeVee's Chris Albrecht, Navar also revealed that the company is already in talks with Apple and a number of TV networks.

Prior Art?

While the patent was filed in November 2003, it is not clear when exactly VoloMedia argues to have invented podcasts. In his blog post, however, Navar argues that this was "almost a year before the start of podcasting." We have wondered about this timeline, however. Using enclosures in RSS feeds was first publicly written about by Dave Winer in January 2001. Indeed, the system for downloading and distributing podcasts in Winer's "Payloads for RSS" from 2001 looks quite similar to VoloMedia's patent. When we spoke to Winer earlier today, he also pointed us to an early podcast by Chris Lydon from July 2003.

The podcasting movement only really picked up steam in 2004, when moving downloaded files to iPods (which were also just coming of age) and other MP3 players became a lot easier thanks to numerous developers who wrote the first podcast clients.

Looking at the patent, it quickly becomes clear that VoloMedia laid out the fundamentals of podcasting in great detail, including how to synchronize content between mobile devices and PCs. Navar argues that in November 2003, it wasn't obvious that users would start to download episodic content. Given that Dave Winer first met with Adam Curry to discuss the concept in December 2000, however, we really have to wonder if this claim would hold up under greater scrutiny. We asked VoloMedia for a statement and will update this post once we hear back from them.

More to Come

For VoloMedia, which just switched gears towards a stronger focus on serving ads after it fired its sales team, this patent obviously comes at a good time. With some luck, the company will either be bought by another podcasting company interested in the company's intellectual property (and Navar says that more patents are in the pipeline), or it will receive a nice influx of cash based on licensing deals with other companies in the podcasting business. That is, of course, if the patent really holds up...

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/company_receives_patent_for_podcasting.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/company_receives_patent_for_podcasting.php News Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:30:34 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Google Removes Alerts, RSS Buttons from News RSS feeds for Google News search results have been broken for about three weeks, according to complaints in the company's help forum. Three weeks ago a Google engineer said they expected the problem to be fixed in about a week. Now the company has simply removed the links in the results page sidebar to both RSS and Google Alerts. Oops.

Inbal Drukker, a senior associate at Google News, said on the first and sixth of July that there are "engineering changes" underway to "improve Google News." So what seems like a loss today could end up for the better in the long run, but for now there seems to be a problem.

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]]> bushpic2-1.jpgRSS, Atom and email subscriptions for new news search results used to appear in the bottom of the left hand column of search results pages. Now there is nothing there. Both products are still available, if troubled, via the browser's RSS autodetection icon in the address bar and the Google Alerts product page.

Update: Marjolein Hoekstra points out that there is a link to create a Google Alert now at the very bottom of the search results page, as well as one to create an iGoogle gadget for a search, but still no RSS link displayed like there used to be.

Thanks to Russ Castronovo for bringing this to our attention.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_removes_alerts_rss_buttons_from_news.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_removes_alerts_rss_buttons_from_news.php News Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:32:49 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick
Non-Programmers Can Create an iPhone Newsreader App With TapLynx TapLynx_logo.pngHave you ever wanted to create an iPhone app, but can't code your way out of a wet paper bag? Users of NewsGator's NetNewsWire iPhone news reader will have to wait a little longer for the next version of that application because its creator, Brent Simmons, has been busy working on a new iPhone framework called TapLynx. The goal of TapLynx is to help users generate topic-focused media applications for the iPhone without any programming required. The first application, created by Simmons, has already been built for All Things Digital.

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]]> Fans of NetNewsWire who have been patiently waiting for an updated version shouldn't have to wait too much longer. The next generation of the NetNewsWire iPhone app, which promises to have added functionality like the ability to mark news items as unread and send articles to Instapaper, is said to be based on TapLynx.

According to NewsGator's Brent Simmons:

"The idea behind TapLynx is that you can take a collection of feeds and some artwork, make choices about colors and gradients and behavior (all in a configuration file you edit), then create an iPhone app. Without doing any programming.

But you can do programming if you want to -- use TapLynx as the base and add more features. (In fact, that's what I'm doing with NetNewsWire 2.0 for iPhone -- it's a custom app built on TapLynx.)"

TapLynx_screenshot.png

Being able to rapidly develop customizable and unique iPhone apps with no need to learn Cocoa is great news to those of us who are interested in building such apps, but know very little about developing them. We are anxiously awaiting for TapLynx to make its way out of beta, but meanwhile you can sign up for the SDK here and the company will let us know when it becomes available. Be sure to follow @taplynx on Twitter.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/non-programmers_can_create_an_iphone_newsreader_app_with_taplynx.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/non-programmers_can_create_an_iphone_newsreader_app_with_taplynx.php Mobile Services Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:09:28 -0800 Doug Coleman
Feedinvader: News Ticker and Feed Reader for Firefox feedinvader_logo_jun09.pngFeedinvader is an interesting Firefox plugin that combines an online feed reader with a news ticker right underneath your bookmarks bar. The feed reader in the back-end is currently mostly for managing the feeds in the ticker, but with a bit of additional work, it could also become a great reader in its own right.

The core of the plugin is the ticker, though, which also features a nice pop-up with a story's excerpt when you hover the mouse over a story. While a lot of similar tickers can be distracting because the developers insist on making new stories scroll horizontally, Feedinvader just fades stories in and out, making the ticker far less intrusive.

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]]> Nice Ticker - But Feed Reader Needs Work

Feedinvader's feed reader itself is also worth a look, too, though in its current iteration, it is held back by a few missing features. By default, Feedinvader uses a standard, email client-like, three-pane view, with a color scheme that is somewhat reminiscent of Microsoft Outlook. You can also switch to an 'expanded' view that shows the full content of a feed without a separate pane for the headlines, but one feature we really missed in Feedinvader was a river of news-style view. What's far worse, though, is that you can't mark a story as read, and hence you also can't see how many unread items you have in any given feed or folder, making Feedinvader almost completely useless as a stand-alone feed reader.

feedinvader_popup_small.pngOn the positive side, the RSS reader does allow users to import and export OPML files and even import Live Bookmarks from Firefox.

If you like the ticker feature, then the feed reader definitely makes for a good way to manage these feeds, but we wouldn't recommend you ditch your favorite RSS reader like Google Reader, FeedDemon, or NetNewsWire for it.

As of now, because feeds aren't marked as read (at least as far as we can see), the ticker will loop from feed to feed, instead of listing stories in chronological order, making it best for small, high-value collections of feeds instead of a way of keeping an eye on a large collection of sources. Because of this, we would rather recommend you use a program like Snackr if you are looking for a news ticker.

Thanks to Marjolein Hoekstra (@cleverclogs) for alerting us to Feedinvader.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/feedinvader_review.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/feedinvader_review.php Products Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:53:55 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
M.insight: A Mobile App for PR Folks, Marketers (and You Too!) The PR Firm MWW Group has just launched a new, cross-platform mobile application designed to bring the best RSS content to those in the public relations, marketing, and advertising fields. The application, called M.insight, features hand-selected RSS feeds from blogs and news sites which deliver relevant articles which you can read and enjoy without the hassle of having to set up and configure an RSS reader.

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The M.insight application sorts the feeds into four main categories: social media, public relations, marketing and branding, and advertising. It also includes two "in-house" categories which feature feeds from the MWW Group themselves ("MWW/DialogueMedia" and "D.insight").

M.insight functions like an RSS reader, but one that you don't have to set up on your own, meticulously adding feeds one-by-one. Instead, this blog reader is already configured and ready to go. You can, though, add and delete feeds within a category if you so desire.

The app is available on three mobile platforms: the iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile. On all three platforms, the app does full feed caching (including images) so you can read your feeds even when offline - a feature more useful on the WiFi-only iPod than the others. On the Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms, M.insight lets you email articles from within the app or post them to Twitter or Delicious. You can also access other news and info like weather, stocks, sports, flights, etc. 

Although targeted toward the PR/Marketing niche, we think many of you would also enjoy this application, especially the "social media" category which features feeds from top blogs like ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Chris Brogan, Web Strategist, CenterNetworks and Scobleizer.

To try M.insight for yourself, you can download it from the iTunes App Store by clicking here or for Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms, click here.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/minsight_a_mobile_app_for_pr_folks_marketers.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/minsight_a_mobile_app_for_pr_folks_marketers.php Mobile Services Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:35:13 -0800 Sarah Perez
OhPan's Recommendation System for News Comes to iPhone Ohpan, the scrolling news ticker web site we covered a few months prior, recently released an iPhone application which uses their same recommendation engine technology to deliver you the best content. As with their main web site, the iPhone app lets you rate the content you see to allow Ohpan to learn your preferences. However, the app also takes advantage of the iPhone platform to offer localized content as well as some other unique features.

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]]> In testing the app, we found a few bugs and some other confusing features, but overall, we saw the potential this application holds. Today, it's still a bit rough around the edges (OK, a lot rough), but hopefully later versions will iron out the kinks.

Rating Items to Train the App

The first thing you'll notice when launching the app is that it features multi-colored news items just like the internet site. However, on the iPhone, these items don't automatically scroll as they do online - you scroll through them with your finger...and frankly, we prefer interacting with the content this way, if we have to be honest.

OhPan on the Web

OhPan on the iPhone

The individual news items feature the same "star" and "lightning bolt" buttons which are key to the recommendation system. On the iPhone, the buttons are even colored (the star is green, the lightning bolt is red), so it's even more obvious which one means "like" and "dislike." We wonder what they have against the traditional checkmark and "x" though? Oh well.

Logging In: Where's my Facebook Connect?

When you log into the app, it automatically creates an account for you so you don't have to go through a set up process to starting using it. That's a nice feature but we would have at least liked the option to log in via Facebook Connect or Gmail, like their web site offers.

Instead, if you want to create an account of your own, you can click on "Setup" at the top and fill in your info under "Ohpan Account." Unfortunately, this feature didn't work for us - buttons didn't respond in some cases and when they did (after clicking "New Account" for example and filling in name and email - twice, ugh, they want you to confirm it) the info didn't seem to be saved. Trying the "Log in with Existing Account" was also disappointing. Because we had always used Facebook Connect to login online and that was not an option on the iPhone, all our previous ratings with which we had already trained the app were no longer available - we had to start from scratch.

Localization Could be Better

The localization features of the app have potential, but are not ready for primetime yet, mainly because of the odd selection of locales. We could understand if the app only offered major metropolitan areas (NYC, LA, San Francisco, etc.) to start with, but their list of cities/locales to choose from is downright bizarre. NYC and LA are present, but other areas include Arizona, Baltimore, Buffalo, Calgary, Canada, Carolina (which one?), UK, Vancouver, Washington (State or D.C.?), Toronto, and a few others. We're still scratching our heads to figure out how they came up with that list. We're hoping that it's just a work in progress - the app is, after all, only days old. Perhaps the list will be updated as new versions are released.

There's also a setting that allows you to send your location to Ohpan, which is confusing since it doesn't seem to do anything. Do they want you to pick from a list of places or do they want to geo-locate you? It's unclear what this setting is for at the moment.

Communities are Cool and Quirky

Still, even with the annoying and broken login and localization features, we enjoyed using the app once we delved into the "Communities" feature under "Views." This lets you pick a more specific topic (Tech News, Sports, Entertainment, etc.) and view and rate the items within that one area. Again, there are some bizarre choices made here. Some of the topics include things like "Spaceship Earth," "Change of Course," "Party," and more...not your typical fare and not really self-explanatory. But in a way, it was kind of fun exploring these non-traditional categories, each of which you can filter by "latest," "today," "this week," or "All Stars."

You can also choose to view "Charts" from within the "Views" area which show you the top publishers, images, and items of today, this week, and all-time.

Of course, you can ignore this area altogether if you wish and just scroll through the stream on the main screen of the app where all the different type of content is mixed together, ready for your rating. When you find an article you want to read in more detail, clicking the "Source" button opens up the full webpage within the app. When you're done, click "Stream" to return to the list.

You can also forward the article via email or publish it to Twitter ("Publish Item to Twitter"). Another button simply reads "Publish Item." We pushed it and maybe something happened, but we have no idea where it went. We never gave the app any of our social networking credentials, so what was it doing?

Conclusion: Needs Work, but We're Keeping Our Eye on It

In the end, we felt like we were playing around with an unfinished application, but one that could be great. We wish the developers had taken more time to fix bugs, complete the features, and add finesse to the UI before launching. These days, people are going to judge the app in its current state, somewhat poorly, and then move on. There are so many apps in the App Store, our screens are getting full. If it doesn't work well from the get-go, it could easily be deleted from our phones within days if not hours.

Still, the idea of news stream based on your own preferences is one that's innovative and unique and would be a great alternative to an RSS reader for those of us who are tired of being reminded how many unread news items we have. For that feature alone, we'll keep our eye on this app and hope that over time we'll see improvements.

OhPan is available now in the iTunes App Store for $1.99.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ohpans_recommendation_system_for_news_comes_to_iphone.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ohpans_recommendation_system_for_news_comes_to_iphone.php Mobile Services Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:47:21 -0800 Sarah Perez
Groups: Turn Information Overload Into an Asset groupspic.jpgThis post originally ran under the title Groups: The Secret Weapon of the Social Web. Since it's a holiday in the US and things are slow today, we thought readers might appreciate seeing this post again. Today might be a good day for you to take some time to create some key groups for yourself.

Social interaction online is not very sophisticated. The news feed model of conversation has taken over the social web, from Facebook to Twitter to FriendFeed to MySpace, but by itself it doesn't serve us very well. That's where the creation of groups of sources comes in.

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]]> Various services have different ways for users to separate their "friends" into different groups, viewable by topic, category or type of connection. Facebook is making changes today to make it easier to break your Facebook Newsfeed into groups. That's going to be very important. The best Twitter applications offer group functionality that the site itself doesn't. MySpace offers no such feature, yet. The Facebook news prompted us to try to articulate the value of group creation online. By better understanding the value that groups can deliver, we can better strategize our creation of groups.

First we'll discuss four ways that small groups separated from a full river of news can help you use the social web more effectively. Then, for context, we'll briefly contrast this with the value of the full stream of information. Using both together is more useful than merely limiting the full stream to a manageably small group of sources on a given topic or of a certain priority.

Forgive me if this is all obvious to you; I know it's not to everyone. Even if it is, I think there's value in discussing fundamental qualities of emerging methods of communicating. The assumption in discussing these values is that you're an ambitious knowledge worker. If that's not the case then this logic may or may not apply.

The Value of Groups

Prioritization

Pulling high-priority sources out of the full stream and putting them in a special place enables you to catch more of the high-value information those sources publish. Why lose valuable messages in the whole sea of marginally valuable information that we all have access to? High value sources don't always publish high value information, but the increased likelihood of their doing so warrants putting them in a special place so that the unusually high signal-to-noise ratio they offer is maintained.

Below: I follow thousands of people on FriendFeed but have about 100 people who often discover or make news early in their own group.

FriendFeedNewsmakers.jpg

Context

TweetDeckAnalysts-3.jpgDifferent words and links have different meanings in different contexts. When subscribing to a large set of sources it's sometimes easy to forget who or what certain sources are when their content comes barreling down a full stream of information. Placing sources into contextual groups helps put messages in context, adding meaning and offering insight into the significance of some content.

Right: I've got a list of 300 tech industry analysts on Twitter pulled into a separate group in Tweetdeck. It's good to know that when I read these messages, they are coming from professional analysts.

Intimacy

SkypeRoom.jpgWe've all got far more connections online than it's realistic to maintain closely. You may be familiar with the concept of the Dunbar number. Researcher Robin Dunbar argues that 100 to 150 is the approximate natural group size in which everyone can really know everyone else.

Serious users of social media often maintain far, far more connections than that, though. What can you do? Strategic creation of groups facilitates social contact disproportionately frequently relative to contact with the entire list of our social connections. That disproportionately frequent contact lends itself well to greater intimacy.

Left: The ReadWriteWeb writers' chat, an invaluable resource for us in a world swimming with social connections.


Speed

zaptxtscreen-1.jpgSome sources of information are more important to be up-to-the-minute with than others. Strategic creation of time-sensitive groups allows you to have those groups alone delivered in a way that fits their time-sensitive nature. You don't want to be interrupted by updates from every source of information you have any interest in - but some sources are worth being interrupted by.

Right: High-priority RSS feeds delivered by IM.

The Value of the Full Stream

Many people are tempted to solve information overload by cutting back on the number of connections and subscriptions they are signed up for online. We argue that this is a mistake; group creation can help capture some of the same benefits of cut-back without incurring the loss of benefits felt by restricting a well-populated stream of information.

Serendipitous Discovery

Do you cancel your cable TV subscription just because you end up not watching most of the shows that are on at a given time? (Maybe with Hulu you do now.) Probably not. Channel surfing is a way to discover new things.

So too with the web; it's better to have too many options than not enough. Subscribing to a source of information substantially increases the likelihood that you'll see something good from that source.

Just don't worry about reading everything. Scan what you can and let fate bring you value from a bulk of undifferentiated information. Problem solved.

Weak Connections

All of us have some social connections that are stronger than others. There's value in those weak connections, too. Welcoming people into your full stream of social information is how weak connections are built and maintained.

Reciprocity

Some people say that social media makes almost everyone famous, at least to a small group of people. One definition of fame is a circumstance where the number of people who care about what you're doing is more than you are capable of paying attention to yourself. Online, though, we can all pay a little passing attention to the people who are paying attention to us. People appreciate RSS subscribers; they like friends on Facebook and Twitter. If someone follows you, it only makes sense to follow them back. (I need to follow my own advice better on Twitter.)

If a person isn't terribly important to you, just don't include them in a high-priority group. Interact with them when you get the chance. They'll appreciate the reciprocal connection, though

That's one take on the strategic value of groups and the full stream of information. What are your thoughts on this topic? Have you come up with any other super-useful ways to build, manage, or find value in groups online? We'd love to hear about it!


Title photo: Your Days - December test Group : 31 Décembre 2006 by Nawal_ CC on Flickr

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/groups_turn_information_overload_into_an_asset.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/groups_turn_information_overload_into_an_asset.php How To Mon, 25 May 2009 14:46:03 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick