New Newsgator Products

NewsGator has released the NetNewsWire 3.1, FeedDemon 2.6, and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile 2.0. At the same time public beta of NewsGator Inbox 3.0 also was started. The award-winning products for PC (FeedDemon), Mac (NetNewsWire), and mobile (NewsGator Go!) deliver a best-of-breed RSS reading experience that synchronizes through NewsGator’s online platform. All of the new product versions deliver a better user experience with the inclusion of significant performance, usability, and relevance enhancements.

tag: NetNewsWire 3.1, FeedDemon 2.6, NewsGator Go, NewsGator Inbox 3.0, feed reader,

Blogger The Trip Through 2007 and The Roundup

Yes I have been with Blogger with for more than three years and always wondered why didn't I start before? So if you have slightest inclination, start now.
Yes the year 2007 passed without noticing that Blogger beta became The Blogger and I was one of the first to try the Beta Blogger. I am not much of a tweaker (I am not much of a writer either) so I just used regular templates and learned bit by bit how to add stuff. But with the new layout system, it is a breeze!
Yes, I have been breezing through more than 3000 posts in various blogs that I command. I thank Google and the Blogger team for the service they provided and only one time I had to contact the support was to get my site checked to verify that it is not a spam site!
The Blogger Buzz has an article about what they went through during the 2007. I think you will enjoy! I did.
Blogger Buzz: 2007 Roundup
tag: Google, Blogger Buzz, Blogger, ravenii

Indexing Trouble At Technorati Is Being Fixed

According to Technorati blog, they are in the midst of repairing most of the effected data due to some indexing troubles they had this past week.
Technorati's spiders were shutdown for several hours last week due to this reason while the Technorati team was investigating and fixing the problem. Some newly created weblogs had their data scrambled.
No blogs that existed in our system before Dec. 18th were impacted at all.
They expected to fix everything during the weekend but it proved to be not the case due to vast amount of data that Technorati handles. Since then further work on the problem is working andd they are recovering now and the backlog of data processing is getting worked through.
So if your blog is not showing correct data or if your blog is not there at all, when you visit;
http://technorati.com/blogs/YOUR_BLOG_URL
you can inform Technorati at the support request page. A selection for 'The January 8th System Outage' will be available this month to specially aid the abnormal troubles with this case if there are any!
Information is from Ian Kallen's Dog Ate Your Blog post.


tag: Technorati, Technorati index,

VOIP IP Telephony: Just Broke Technorati 50000 Rank Barrier!

Give me more feeds!
VOIP IP Telephony: Just Broke Technorati 50000 Rank Barrier!
tag: Technorati, Technorati Rank, voip ip telephony, ravenii, snapvoip

Re-learning the Web at its principles

I was hunting for information on Feed Technology when I came across this gem of a n article. Although I do not agrre with all it has to say, I enjoyed reading it, in fact, I changed some of my directions, indirectly, based on the information and links provided in the article.
So if you also want learn something about about Content Negotation and URI, information spaces and so on dilemmas, in the Semantic Web areas, head over to Casual Info Ina Bottle.
tag: Feed Technology, Semantic Web, Content Negotation, URI, information spaces,

Technorati Authority Bug Fixed, But My Rank Is Still Low ;)

Technorati Fixes Authority Bug. The bug gave some sites with sub domains an inflated authority, according to Dorion Carroll at Technorati. (I went there to find out about why pings are not registering and article posts are all haphazard. Some of my blogs show old posts as latest. I will check support later.)
The bug fix to the Technorati Authority should not affect many of us who are in the lower rungs of the ladder. According to the same post, mostly affected were top 100 or weblogs and sites. I wish Technorati gave me some of those fallen off authority rankings! ;). Well may be I have to work on it.


tag: Technorati, Technorati Authority Bug, Technorati Authority Rank

Wikia Search Goes Live today

Search Wikia, the widely awaited search engine from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is slated to make its official debut on Monday, with the bet that an open-source, community-driven effort can disrupt and reshape this Google-dominated market.
tag: wikia, google

Have A wonderful XMAS!

Find Santa Here!
VOIP IP Telephony: Track Santa OnLine As NORAD Follows Santa,!
Tags: Track Santa, The Worlds Fastest Flying Object, XMAS,

Why You Should Redirect Blogger Feeds

Yes I thought like you too. Why redirect my feed to feed burner? Blogger is good. I had a feedburner account and basically playing with it. I also had the feed count showing on one of my sites. But the count was about 10! Yes nothing big, in fact tiny. Then Yesterday I redirected my feeds through feed burner. It was because some people were using my posts and taking my keywords away.
This morning I was a bit surprised. feed count is 129 and I also found few others who were using my feeds, which were in full for their own good.
How do you go about doing this? well you can follow the instructions on feedburner Blog;
"Getting started
Our Blogger QuickStart guide has been updated to include all the necessary info for redirecting your feed. And, since you've made it this far in today's post, now is a good time to let you know we're still accepting Publisher Buzz submissions, so if you have a good story to tell about your newly integrated Blogger feed or your experience using our feed-related services, submit it to buzz@feedburner.com."
Tags: Feedburner, Feed redirection, Feedotopia, blogger

Newsgator Puts OpenSocial to Use

Latest NewsGator social application taps into a programming model developed by Google to deliver and enable discussion about the best video and image content for Google users

Nov. 2, 2007 — NewsGator Technologies, Inc., a pioneer in RSS and Enterprise 2.0, today announced the release of Didja Hear!?, the latest NewsGator social application that will give Google users the ability to easily share and discuss video and image content.

Didja Hear!? leverages OpenSocial, a programming model developed by Google in which developers are provided with a set of common APIs enabling distribution of their applications across multiple sites all with the aim to help the Web become more social and to make sharing great content easy. Didja Hear!? and its participation in OpenSocial reinforces NewsGator’s continued commitment to innovation and highlights the power and flexibility of NewsGator’s RSS platform to deliver compelling, social and useful applications.

Didja Hear!? leverages NewsGator’s database of nearly two million feeds and the editorial controls of NewsGator’s Widget Framework to present the images and videos that are most compelling and enjoyable for users to pass on to their friends. With Didja Hear!?:

• NewsGator automatically recommends the top video and graphic content from nearly two million RSS feeds – more than seven million articles per day;

• The NewsGator Widget Framework divides those videos and images into categories including movies, sports, celebrities, television and more; and,

• Users can easily send a cool video to their friends along with comments – and reply back with comments on any videos they get – as well as see existing comments on anything they have sent.

“Didja Hear!? and our early participation in OpenSocial exemplify our mission of getting the right content to the right people. We developed Didja Hear!? to filter and deliver the best video and graphical content from across the Web to the users who want to interact with it,” said Brian Kellner, vice president of products at NewsGator. “Didja Hear!? is like a Web 2.0 mashup of a greeting card store and a coffee shop – it’s a fun way for people to communicate, interact and socialize around quality content.”
For more information, visit www.newsgator.com.

Tags: OpenSocial, Didja Hear, NewsGator, RSS, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, mashup

Quantifying your Feeds, Casts with Quantcast.

I just joined Quantcast free service to checkout their services. I only added one of my blogs and it is yet to get any meaningful data from my site. (It is not a very busy site but I using it to verify accuracy of the services as I have other systems from Google to tiny startups providing similar services. I have looked at reports on sites that Quantcast has collected enough data and seem to be interesting. You can follow the link in the following News release by QuantCast.

San Francisco, CA - September 25, 2007 - Quantcast, the world's only open internet ratings service, today announced that it has launched a robust suite of media measurement services for publishers in its Quantified Publisher program. The program, which is free to join at Quantcast.com empowers publishers to demonstrate the unique value of their audiences by tagging their websites, videos, widgets and games for direct measurement.

Available today, Quantcast's enhanced suite of free media measurement services includes:

• Tabbed Quantified Publisher Profiles for individual media properties including a rich traffic overview that provides greater depth and insight on key audience metrics.
• The Quantified Publisher Network View, providing measurement of unduplicated reach and aggregated traffic statistics as well as a single point of control for publishers with multiple sites and services.
• Secure Quantcast Measurement Tags to measure transactional pages on e-commerce sites of all kinds.
• Video and Widget Measurement Services to track impressions and interaction with Flash-based videos, widgets, games and more.

"The response has been overwhelming. More than 15,000 publishers with several million web media assets, including sites, blogs, widgets and videos, have joined our free program," said Konrad Feldman, co-founder and CEO, Quantcast Corporation. "Today, we are pleased to continue the drive for transparency and accuracy by providing a robust suite of media measurement services that help publishers better understand and monetize their properties."With millions of 'Quantified' web destinations and services, Quantcast measures more than a billion page views per day. Quantcast's models are derived from visits by more than 350 million Internet users every month, including more than 80 percent of all U.S. Internet users. "Quantcast's Network View helps us demonstrate our unduplicated network reach and highlight the popularity of our sites - which net 50 million visits per month," said Christopher Batty, Vice President, Sales, Gawker Media. "And the new traffic tab makes it easy for advertisers to see the power in the network - complete with daily, weekly and monthly statistics on all of our sites combined and individually - from Gizmodo and Valleywag to Wonkette and Defamer."Details on Quantcast's enhanced suite of media measurement services follow: Tabbed Quantified Publisher Profiles: Quantcast profiles will always feature the popular summary view for each online property. But now they include an enhanced traffic tab that provides greater depth and insight on key audience reach, engagement and frequency metrics.Key metrics, including unique visitors, visits and page-views, are presented in dynamic daily, seven-day and trailing 30-day charts. In addition, a traffic summary automatically calculates average visits per unique visitor and page views per visit. Coming soon, this tab will include time-on-site metrics. The Quantified Publisher Network View: This new interface enables publishers to track their portfolio of properties, including websites, videos, widgets and games, in a single dashboard. It also provides one-click access and a single point of control for the Quantcast profile for each media property. The network view features the new traffic tab with the same easy-to-use dynamic charts to provide a rich overview of network metrics. Unique visitors ("uniques") are reported as unduplicated network reach, and the other network metrics are shown in the aggregate. The network view is automatically created when a Quantified Publisher tags a second website or media element such as a video, widget or game. As always, Quantified Publishers can adjust their Quantcast profile settings to control which elements the world can see. Secure Quantcast Measurement Tags: Paired with conventional Quantcast measurement tags for content pages, new secure Quantcast tags enable online retailers and e-commerce providers of all kinds to measure the traffic on their transactional 'https' pages with no interruption to check-out, and no affect on the shopping experience.The secure tags are available free of charge to all Quantified Publishers. They can be found by logging-in to Quantcast.com and going to the 'My Quantified Sites' page. Video and Widget Measurement: As announced in July, Quantcast now offers free video and widget measurement services with the ability to track any Flash-based file. These new capabilities help publishers track the web-wide distribution of their media elements to demonstrate their true network reach. Visit http://www.quantcast.com/quantified-video.jsp.

Pricing and Availability: Quantcast's enhanced suite of media measurement services is available free of charge to any web publisher, site or service that joins the free Quantified Publisher program http://www.quantcast.com/quantified-publisher.jsp.

Tags: quantative analysis, Data Feeds, site feeds, Quantcast, video cast, widget, service measurement

PRWeb Webinar Series, Orientation for New Users and Avanced Features Training for Current Users

PRWeb would like to welcome you and provide you with the basics of how PRWeb works, press release tips, and show how easy the submission process truly is. They also will show you how to get the most out of what has become the most advanced and robust system for distributing news releases to reporters, search engines and thousands of web sites that download news via PRWeb's daily XML/RSS feeds.
I am a member and it has been a smooth news feed for me!
Mario Bonilla of PRWeb will be conducting the series and you will be able to enroll here.

Tags: News Feed, daily XML feeds, daily RSS feeds, PRWeb

News Feed On Your PS3

The 2.00 Firmware Update for the PS3, which was just released, will add the Information Board to your XMB. Once it's activated, headlines will begin scrolling in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Sony plans to use the Information Board to release information on games, hardware, Store updates, and so forth, but you can choose not to display it if you'd rather not be bothered.
PS3 News Release

Tags: News Feed, information board on PS3, PS3, XMB

Microsoft's web analytics tool, Gatineau, Introduced

After getting exposed by a attendee of ADChamps about Gatineau, screenshots and all, Ian Thomas, who is "responsible for bringing Microsoft's new web analytics solution, codenamed Gatineau, to market", decided to provide his own informative report and also about the beta program with that anyone interested could apply to be included.
He also provided some screenshots (one above) of his own; according to LiveSide, Microsoft's official news blog.
The Gatineau is not much different from Google Analytics but LiveSide says that it will be able to leverage Live ID to provide to offer demographic information. But I have already seen these information on other Analytics product, not only Google Analytics.
Of course as with any product that links user to the web, privacy concerns have come up regarding Live ID usage.
But Ian has replied the querry;
"the answer is that we do get this information from users’ Live ID (formerly known as Microsoft Passport) profiles, but I would stress that we get this information anonymously, and there is no use of PII (Personally Identifiable Information, such as name or e-mail address) in the product."

LiveSide Article

To request an invitation to Gatineau: http://advertising.microsoft.com/microsoft-adcenter-gatineau.

Lies Damn Lies (Ian's Website)

Tags: Advertising, Gatineau, gatineu, PII, ADChamps, Liveside

Are you aware That You are Being Tracked on the Internet

I know I am!
Geemodo: Most People are Unaware That They are Being Tracked on the Internet

Tags: Ehavioral Advertising, Tracking, Targeting, Technology, Federal Trade Commission, The Samuelson Clinic, Annenberg Public Policy Center

Future of News Media, and Tom Curley Yes....

Associated Press Head Tom Curley seem to have got it all right. (To borrow from Blodget at SAI);

We -- the news industry -- have come to that fork in the road. We must take bold, decisive steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role in both our economy and democracy, or find ourselves on an ugly path to obscurity.

Yes...

Tags: News Industry

Get Your Site Optimized and your Feeds smoother: Upcoming Website Optimizer online seminars

If you are going to get your web site optimized, (Good websites give Good Feeds!), then I think you attend two web seminars provided by Google's Website Optimizer team has brought about.
I am going to register as soon as post this post.
"

The first online seminar, Introduction to Website Optimizer, will be geared towards those who are unfamiliar with website content testing and optimization. Tom will discuss the importance and benefits of optimizing your website design and content, and he'll provide a detailed introduction to Website Optimizer and review the product's latest features (including A/B Split testing and the ability to delete experiments).

The second online seminar, Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments, builds on the first and is designed for those who have previous experience with Website Optimizer or other site testing tools. Tom will give a step-by-step demonstration of how to successfully launch multivariate and A/B experiments, and he'll also answer your questions.

Other members of the Website Optimizer team will be available during the online seminars to chat individually with attendees and answer questions in real time.

Here is the schedule and registration information:

Introduction to Website Optimizer (New or inexperienced users)
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 10:00 - 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.

Website Optimizer: Creating & Launching Experiments (Intermediate and advanced users)
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 10:00 - 11:00am PDT
Register to attend.

Once you've registered, you'll receive an email from WebEx with participation details."
Google Analytics Blog: Upcoming Website Optimizer online seminars

The Gap between PR Professionals and Media is Widening According to Journalists

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The results of Bennett & Company’s 25^th anniversary survey suggest the divide may be growing between PR professionals and the media. This year’s survey polled more than 29,000 journalists, with 688 completing the survey, or 2.3%.

When asked if they see a growing divide between PR professionals and the media, 49 percent of journalists say “yes”.

Bennett & Company found that 62 percent of journalists now obtain less than 10 percent of their content from PR firms. “Communication channels have expanded to the 1000s, including grassroots social networking, and therefore, our relationships with the media are one of many tasks we do every day; twenty five years ago when this survey began it was how we spent the majority of our day,” explains Laura Bennett, president of Bennett & Company, in reference to this year’s results.

One reporter responded, “I don’t feel a growing divide, but I don’t see the divide getting smaller either. PR professionals need to become more informed on the needs of print media.”

Building a relationship with the reporter fills one such need and makes a difference. Thirty eight percent of journalists said the number one reason they open their email is because they know the sender. Reporters are more likely to use a responsive source they know and trust.

PR professionals need to be just as reliable when things get negative. “Speak openly and honestly when bad news happens. We are seeing a trend of PR people trying to avoid the media or ignore bad news. It only makes things worse,” wrote a network television news director.

The prevalence of “fluff” remains a distracting put-off for busy journalists. “Be fair. Don’t stretch the truth or tell half-truths. When words such as “first,” “best,” “biggest,” or “only” are used, there better be supportive explanations,” one journalist noted.

However great or small the divide is between PR professionals and the media, building relationships with open communication and reliability are still the key. After 25 years, Laura Bennett does not personally feel there is gap, but concedes that her team’s approach to marketing is now more holistic than it was five years ago. Bennett concludes, “The media plays a very important role and PR professionals serve best when they know and respect that role.”

Bennet & Company

Tags: PR professionals, the media, journalists, Communication channels

RSS Feeds, PodCasts Turns to Phonecasts

Feed your podcast feeds directly to a phone!
VOIP IP Telephony: PodCasts Turns to Phonecasts

Tags: Feed, podcast.phonecast

Popuload Feeds for While You Wait

Popuload is a free RSS reader with a difference: it appears and disappears alongside your computer's loading bar. The innovative idea is that computer users will never sit there bored waiting for their computer to perform tedious functions. While waiting to download, copy and print files, with Popuload, you can read the latest news, sports result, celebrity gossip or the news feed of your choice. Indeed, the choice of feeds is vast; from news to entertainment, Popuload offers an expansive range of top quality news feeds. Additionally, if users see a piece of information that is of particular interest to them, they can simply click on it to take them instantly to the full article online. Now when you are waiting to download that file or movie, you can browse leisurely through the news snippets to keep you both informed and entertained with the latest information.

The main difference between Popuload and other feed readers is that Popuload loads automatically with your computer's loading bar. It is also designed so that it can be accessed at any time. In addition, rather than the common method of displaying news feeds in a list, Popuload allows users to interactively browse news items individually through its streamlined, compact window. This feature eliminates the frustration of being confronted with too many feeds at once. Best of all, Popuload is free, and very easy to use. All these features, when taken together, are what makes Popuload truly innovative. Entertainment while you wait has never looked better.

Popuload is free. Go to www.popuload.com

Tags: feed reader, popuload, rss news