ReadAir Isn’t Ready Yet

How excited was I when I heard that there was now a Google Reader Adobe AIR application that would let me browser through my feeds outside a browser? Pretty freaking excited! But then I thought "wait - why do I need this?" This doesn’t really help me solve a problem. With Twhirl, for example, I get easier access to all of Twitter’s features and it refreshes my tweets for me. Google Reader, though, isn’t really broken. (Well, except for NO SUBFOLDERS, which is literally killing me).

But, for the most part, Google Reader in the browser works just fine. ReadAir on the other hand, lacks a major feature: keyboard shortcuts. I don’t even think about it anymore, it’s just j, j, j, j, j, k, j all day long. I can’t imagine having to give them up just to use an AIR app.

That being said, it seems that adding keyboard shortcuts to the app is an upcoming feature, as is an offline mode, continuation, and alternate themes that don’t make it look like a Mac app (thank god). Maybe I’ll just have to check back later, then. (via DownloadSquad)

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This is a guest post by Perry Reed, Twitterer, and LJ and Spaces blogger.

Call me old-fashioned.   While I think all this Web 2.0 (or 2.5 or whatever number you kids are up to now) is great and all, I still prefer email as my primary tool for getting things done.  In particular, I use Outlook because of its rich features and its ability to easily tie together my email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and other information.  I use several plug-ins that help me with all of that, too.  I still subscribe to several email lists for content on all sorts of content.  So I use email for more than just personal information; it’s a source of incoming content for me.

But I also read a lot of blogs, which are slightly less old fashioned than email, I suppose, and I am lazy enough that RSS appeal to me greatly.  Why should I have to navigate to 50 different websites when I can have the content delivered to me, much like my email lists?  But that’s not the end of my laziness.  Why should I have to use a different application for email and RSS feeds, too?

Here’s my thinking:  Blog entries are usually bits of discrete content, just like emails.  So why not treat both as messages and deal with them in the same way?  I had tried a couple of different Outlook plug-ins back when I was running Outlook 2003, including an old version of Newsgator, that would let me read RSS feed entries as emails.  With Outlook 2007, that feature is built-in, and works pretty darn well.  I can read the entries just like emails, and I can forward them or reply back to the blog author (most of whom are people I know and are therefore in my Outlook contacts) right there.  Very slick!  One issue I have found with the built-in Outlook RSS feed service is that it is not able to handle feeds that require digest authentication (that’s where you pass your login credentials to the site).  Unfortunately, a lot of my friends use “friends-only” locked LiveJournal accounts which require that digest authentication.

The solution has turned out to be the latest beta version of Newsgator Inbox, about which I first read here when Sarah blogged it.  Now I should mention that the version you would download from their site has a bug that prevents the digest authentication from working.  But when I and a few others posted about the problem on their forums, they quickly (I mean really quickly, like in one day) put up an interim test build that resolved the problem.  Nice customer service!

So now, I have all of my feeds and various email lists all in one place, along with my personal correspondence, of course.  But it gets better.

Not only do I use Outlook, but I pay for a hosted Microsoft Exchange email account.  So all of my email is really sitting on the Exchange server.  And so are my RSS feeds because I’ve configured Outlook to store my feeds in folders that are on the server.  All I have to do is keep Outlook running on my desktop PC so that the feeds are pulled in periodically and synced up to the server.  Maybe someday Microsoft will add RSS feeds as a server-based Exchange plug-in…

So now I can access all of my email and all of my RSS feeds from my desktop PC, my Tablet PC, my Windows Mobile phone, or any other computer with a web browser via Outlook Web Access (OWA).  And it’s all synced automatically, so any email or RSS message I read or delete is marked as read or deleted on all of my devices everywhere.   And, since it’s all on the server, it’s all backed up for me, too.

Sometimes being old fashioned and lazy works out really well.

This was a guest post by Perry Reed, Twitterer, and LJ and Spaces blogger.

OK. I just added a bunch of new feeds to my RSS reader tagged in the category of "unknowns." And I don’t mean "unknowns" in the "not-internet-famous" way, oh no;  I mean unknown to me. I literally just found you. You have a blog? Oh! Well, let me check it out.

I hope I don’t offend anyone by calling you an "unknown." I know how bloggers like to be famous, I’m sorry in advance. You’re totally famous. I’m just ignorant and out-of-touch.

Anyway, I’m going to use this folder to debut new feeds until I can figure out what folder they belong in. (Speaking of which, if anyone knows a secret way to rename folders in Google Reader, I will love you forever).

So where did I find my unknowns? Linkriver. I honestly don’t think I’ve been giving Linkriver the attention it deserves. It’s a pretty dang cool site. Want to know more about it? Read Corvida’s review on Read Write Web.

Without further ado, welcome to my RSS, all you new guys:

• ideavine|stylebook (what is up with your description, by the way…go subscribe, you’ll see)
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog - a 19-year-old entrepreneur? This should be interesting.
• Chad Dickerson - tech and rock’n'roll - I would prefer you keep those separate, but OK. Also, I just removed my links from splicing into my feed, but I see you’re a fan. Too much of that isn’t good…so, we’ll see!
• Ross Mayfield - OK, not exactly "unknown" - Ross is the Chairman, Pres, and founder of Socialtext. However, again with the link splicing. Sigh.
• Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero - OK, first of all, killer name. I don’t know what you are all about yet, but I def. want to know about this superhero business.
• Howard Owens - a blog mostly about newspapers online and online journalism - I know very little about journalism, actually, maybe I’ll learn something!
• Joe Lazarus - a tumblr site, which always makes me think "catch-all," so I’m curious what will show up here
• Noah Brier - marketing, media, technology, and randomness - you had me till that last one; I like my randomness in very small doses
• Epeus’ epigone - I’m not sure how you pronounce it, but URLs are people, too, right?
• the8thsign - a Mac guy’s blog - you’re a Mac, I’m a PC…maybe if I subscribe we can learn to get along
• massless.org - I am confused:  is this a fashion blog, a tech blog, or a link blog? Is this still updated? I am going to find out.
• HighTouch - no about page, how mysterious!
• theory.isthereason - over 1000 subscribers? oh wow, I think I is reading. I think I is been missing out!
• Sample the Web - Editorial Director at Mahalo; maybe he’ll dish on Jason? (P.S. RSS feed waaaay down at the bottom?)
• Leigh’s Blitherings - a blog about networked ecosystems, culture, technology, and other stuff - I like ecosystems, my major was geography (don’t ask)
  Our American Shelf Life - this is where Amanda blogs, whom I quoted in today’s RWW "twitpitch" story; I just read a blog post over there that facebook "pokes" = flirting. Is this something only the kids know? I feel old now. Me and my friends, girl and guy, poke each other. Eww.

Despite Louis’s attempt to start this weekend’s bitchmeme on the topic of blogs and advertising - damn, Louis, you’re getting good at this! - I’m going to refrain from that discussion (as long as I can resist, that is) and write about something else instead.

…And we thought Techmeme was the echo-chamber!….OK, just kidding, guys…I’m actually looking forward to the influx of thoughts on this that are sure to come.

Thoughts on Pitches

However…what I’m interested in is the debate occurring now in the comments of Marshall’s latest post on the topic of how to pitch to Read Write Web: "Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way."

His suggestion, in a nutshell, was to let everyone know that the best way to get our attention was not via IMs, phone calls, and the traditional email pitch, but to send us your company’s OPML file or RSS feeds along with your news.

He highlighted a company that had done just that.

As voracious readers of RSS, Marshall explained that the best way for us to not just hear your news, but to stay constantly updated on the latest news from your company, was to provide us with a feed or feeds along with your pitch.

Most comments were positive, thankful for this new insight on how to be heard above the noise, but a few were downright negative, implying the post was "arrogant and condescending."

What?

Everyone, Please Breathe. Chill.

It’s just a suggestion people. Take it or leave it.

Just…doesn’t it make sense that when you’re telling a blogger about a new service/product that you would also encourage them to subscribe to the companies feed(s)?

To me, it clicks. It’s obvious. It’s no different than when a TV ad promotes a company’s phone number and web address…it’s just that the RSS address is the one a blogger wants to see.

Re: Phone Calls, a Personal Note

Also, on a side note, I’d like to point out that the reason I’m not a fan of the phone call is due to the past year I spent in I.T. where my phone just rang off the hook. I grew to despise the phone and its constant interruption of my workflow. I still do.

Unless we’re friends, an unsolicited phone call is met with shifty eyes as I try to determine who it may be (what’s that area code? an unknown number? am I expecting this call?) The exception, of course, is a scheduled call, but I digress…

I also have a personal goal of pushing out 6 posts per day (not including here) - 2 for RWW and 4 for Channel 10 (they don’t necessarily run all 4, but they do get written and uploaded as drafts). Interruptions, like calls, have to be kept to a minimum as I am not the speediest of writers nor the master of HTML.

Another Pitch Idea

I also highly, highly, highly recommend the Twitpitch, something I wrote about today on RWW: "Twitpitch, the Elevator Pitch Hits Twitter."

I have already subscribed to the Twitpitch RSS feed for the hashtag…(oh, thanks again Todd! I swear I am so blonde sometimes.)

I really hope that takes off. I am totally in love with the idea. (do you digg it, too?) Let me know what you think in the comments here, there, FF, Twitter, anywhere.

Social media maven, Corvida (who, by the way has a new URL: http://shegeeks.net/, learn why here) twittered to me today about gReader comments. I just had to laugh because I’ve had the exact page she referred me to open in my Firefox browser for days. That’s how I remember what I want to blog about.

Clearly, it’s working, right?

OK, perhaps not.

So, thanks to SheGeeks for the reminder!

Yes, gReader Comments is one of the more awesome Greasemonkey-script-turned-Firefox-extensions that I’ve ever seen, and right up my alley since lately I’ve been concerned about how blog commenting and commenting in general seems to be broken.

Not for much longer, perhaps.

What gReader does is add the Disqus comment system, like the one running on my blog now, to every entry in Google Reader. The comments are stored by the URL of the blog entry, so you’ll also be able to see the comments made by others using this extension.

Here’s what it looks like:

Highly recommended!

There are several "blog dashboard" type services out there right now. I, personally, have loaded up an iGoogle page with feeds and have a Netvibes (Ginger) account with tab after tab of bloggy goodness. For me, these two work because they let me customize my pages with the feeds and other widgets I want to see. However, the majority of my time is still spent in Google Reader, or lately, on FriendFeed, for discovering and reading news.

But unlike these customized resources, other sites just want to throw all the news at you, like you’ve visited one big online magazine rack. In the past, I’ve checked out sites like Popurls, Original Signal, and Alltop, all of which do a pretty good job at aggregating the top stories from around the web. But for me, these sites just don’t do it.

And then I see a post by Kelby at BloggingTips that gives Alltop a positive review, even saying the site is keeping her away from Bloglines. I’m actually rather shocked by this. How could a blogger who blogs about blogging be into this? I don’t get it.

So I looked at Alltop again.

I still don’t get it.

I mean, isn’t the best thing about RSS its ability to let you pick and choose your own feeds, your own slice of the web? Isn’t it designed so you don’t have to visit web sites? For me at least, that’s like the whole point.

Am I missing something?

Now, back when Michael A. dissed Alltop, calling "a big pile of nothing", I took that with a grain of salt. For all I knew Alltop’s creator, Guy Kawasaki, just pissed Mike off and this was revenge. (It’s not like you can count on TC anyway - I mean, they didn’t even get FriendFeed, you know?)

No, Alltop, Popurls, and the like are not, in fact, big piles of nothing. They’re big piles of news instead. Unfortunately, for me, this isn’t much better. I don’t want all the news, I want *my* news. I want all my news. Sometimes it is a bit much though, so unlike Louis Gray (an info addict!), I occasionally "mark all as read." But that’s what FriendFeed is for. Besides, if the news is that important, it will find me. 

So who is Alltop et al. for then?

It seems like the goal of many of these types of services is to bring RSS to the masses by removing it from geekery like RSS readers and providing users with a home page to visit instead. But this isn’t going to work for the masses, and here’s why:

Those guys don’t want a homepage for reading the news via blogs and RSS feeds - they already have a homepage with the news - and let’s be honest, it’s probably CNN, MSN, AOL, or Yahoo.

I mean, hello, I’m from IT. I’ve seen the homepages. They’re quite boring.

How would these people ever hear of Alltop?

Toluu, the new OPML sharing service that I blogged about on Read Write Web, has just added two new features folks have been asking for: RSS feeds for the activity stream and tighter integration with feed readers.

You can now subscribe to your activity stream in two different ways - either a "me only" stream or a "me and my contacts" stream (which makes more sense), so you can stay up-to-date with the happenings on Toluu. Since the stream is now available as a feed, it can be easily added to places like, say, FriendFeed!

Although I didn’t see any links on the page to these RSS feeds, my trusty Firefox browser helped me find them. The format for the feed is:

http://www.toluu.com/activity/username.rss - for just you

or

http://www.toluu.com/activity/username_and_contacts.rss - for you and your friends

I added mine to FriendFeed just now.

But even better is a new feature that lets you add any feed from inside Toluu into the RSS reader of your choice automatically. Although there is an export feature to export your OPML file from Toluu, it isn’t a good solution for just adding one new feed or two to your reader from Toluu. So now, when you find a good feed on Toluu, you can just click ‘+ Add Feed’ and it will be automatically imported into your reader.

You’ll need to set up your reader preferences first, though, which is done under your account settings. Toluu currently supports Google Reader, Netvibes, Rojo, Bloglines, Pageflakes, Newsgator, and desktop readers. If your reader isn’t supported, choose the desktop reader option to get access to the raw RSS.

Toluu is currently in private beta and I ran out of invites, but I have a list going on the RWW blog entry, so when I get more, those people will receive them first. You may want to add your name in the comments if you want to be included on that list, too.

Feel free to add me on toluu, my username is ’sarahintampa.’

UPDATE: Just heard that Frederic has invites; DM him on Twitter if interested.

Over the past few days, I’ve discovered lots of new RSS stuff, thanks to all the links and info flowing by on FriendFeed.

• From Louis Gray, I learned of Toluu, which aims to bring back the joy of "Share My OPML," (now defunct). Currently an invite-only beta, when the site launches, you’ll be able to upload your OPML, mark your favorite feeds, and find users similar to you, based on what you both read. Sounds like it will be a great way to discover new feeds to read (if you can stand to read anymore, that is!)
• From Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Ma.gnolia’d bookmark, viewed on FriendFeed of course, I learned of SimplePie, an easy-to-use RSS aggregator/tool/plugin. Now, which SimplePie Wordpress plugin should I try first?
• From Sean Ammirati’s tweet posted on FF, I learned about the Enterprise RSS Day (April 24th), which will "provide Enterprise RSS champions with materials and information they can use to run their own awareness campaigns inside their own organizations." Go socialprise!
• From Corvida (SheGeeks)’s FF, I saw a "Shared Item from Google Reader" pointing to an entry on WinExtra about how FriendFeed is "your new nerve center." I had to leave a little FF-loving comment that "FF is way more fun than using an RSS reader." (This probably explains why Google Reader keeps saying 1000+ to me. I wish I could hide that…too much pressure).
• And finally, all on my own, I discovered something I probably should have already known, but hey, 3 years late is better than never, right? Apparently, in Microsoft’s Live Search, any web search can be turned into an RSS feed. (Yeah, not just "News.") You just run the search on live.com, then append the text ‘&format=rss’ to the URL. Subscribe. Nifty!

Using my newfound power, I made a custom search feed which looks for mentions of "ReadWriteWeb.com" on Mixx.com, since I had Mixx on my brain this morning. (Digg link) Added to my iGoogle, which now has a "Conversations" tab, where I put all my RSS links from this post.

FriendFeed, I think I love you.

For fans of Google Reader, Lifehacker has introduced a Firefox extension you’re sure to love: Better GReader. The extension rolls up several Greasemonkey scripts that tweak the popular the online app into doing more. The extension offers adjustments like tweaking the max viewing area, skipping Google’s default subscribe mechanism, and adding keyboard shortcuts. You can download this new extension from here.

If you have a favorite RSS feed (or two or three!) that you want to stay on top of, a service from Web-Alerts.com can help. Similar to SendMeRSS, Web-Alerts is also a way to be immediately notified when a particular feed is updated, except Web-Alerts offers these updates via text message as opposed to email. The service is simple to use - you just type in a site’s URL or its RSS feed URL and click “go.” On the next screen, you enter your mobile number and, optionally, you can enter a keyword to go along with the feed. By entering a keyword, you will only be alerted when the new items contain your keyword. When the SMS text message arrives on your phone, you can preview the content and decide whether you really need to go online and visit the site. Now you can always stay on top of breaking news - no matter where you are!

UPDATE: I just found another service that does the same thing: Pingie!