Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 22nd May 2009
2 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
RSS is far from dead. Google have continued to show their commitment to it by frequently adding new features and updates to a product with minimal advertising (for now), a whole lotta usefulness but an enormous long term potential.
The app’s most recent update sees Google Reader make it oh so very easy to share your favorite sites. You can share them individually or grab entire (google reader) folders and make them available to anyone.
I recently wrote a post sharing essentially my entire tech blogs and news sites list. I spent a good hour compiling the list into an easily digestible OPML to share with you, our readers. Had I waited, I could have simply drag and dropped that list within Google Reader and copied & pasted the OPML URL, for you to import into your reader of choice.
To create your own bundles to share with the world. Click on “Browse for Stuff” in the Google Reader sidebar and follow the instruction – it’s painfully easy.
It’s a wonderful development and whilst some tech pundit are claiming the days of RSS are numbered, I stand firm in my belief that we are a long long way from it.
If you’ve created any bundles you’d like to share with the world, feel free to post them in the comments.
Written on 8th May 2009
3 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
A number of Google reader themes have popped onto the scene over the last couple of years, many unfortunately only last a few months before Google makes a UI tweak themselves. Helvetireader is probably the most popular, but the latest one which I happened to spot on Userstyles.org yesterday is titled “Google Reader: Mac OS X Snow Leopard“. It’s likely to have absolutely nothing to do with Snow Leopard, but that takes nothing away from how gorgeous the result is.
To install, ensure you have Greasemonkey for Firefox installed or GreaseKit for any webkit browser such as Safari. Then click here to install the main userscript. If you’d like favicons for each site too, you can get those here.
Written on 27th March 2009
12 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Visiting Google Reader today, I noticed a new addition to the Google ‘Recommended Feeds’ section, none other than Gary Vay-ner-chuk’s Twitter feed.
Gary Vaynerchuk, in case you aren’t aware, is an internet celeb stemming from his entrepreneurial work at WineLibrary.tv and his various TV spots. He’s a talented outspoken fella with superb personal branding/marketing skills, you can find his blog here – it’s definitely worth subscribing to too.
Back to my original point, it appears as though Google Reader has begun to expand on their feed recommendations to include people’s Twitter feeds as well as your standard news feeds.
According to Google, the Recommended Feeds are completely automated, and I quote:
Your recommendations list is automatically generated. It takes into account the feeds you’re already subscribed to, as well as information from your Web History, including your location. Aggregated across many users, this information can indicate which feeds are popular among people with similar interests. For instance, if a lot of people subscribe to feeds about both peanut butter and jelly, and you only subscribe to feeds about peanut butter, Reader will recommend that you try some jelly. This process is completely automated and anonymous; your personal information will be protected in accordance with our privacy policy.
So supposedly, other people with similar interests to mine are subscribing to Gary Vaynerchuk’s Twitter feed? Do people actually subscribe to the RSS feeds on Twitter pages now?
Also, this isn’t the first step Google has taken to include Twitter related content in it’s applications. Blogstorm’s Patrick Altoft discovered that Google had begun to include Twitter’s hash tag searches in it’s search results. A search of Gaza, highlights this:
Written on 11th March 2009
15 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Google have just announced an exciting new update to the “sharing” feature, already an established part of Google Reader. The new feature makes it a breeze to comment and discuss shares amongst your friends, colleagues and anyone else on your sharing list.
To view comments for your shares, you need to click on “comment view” which should appear at the top of your “friends shared items” list to the left of the page. Comment View orders your shared items by number of comments. If you see a comment icon on your friend’s profile photo in list view or expanded, it means there area new comments on that particular story.
How do I make a comment?
Simply visit one of your friends shared items and you’ll notice a comment icon at the bottom of the share – simple.
What happens when more than one person shares the same item?
In that case, all the various comments are listed as separate conversations under the story, so you’re not likely to miss any discussion no matter who shared the story first.
That’s not all, you can also read and comment on the iPhone version of the app too!
Implications
The new feature poses a number of questions, with particular regard to bloggers, publishers and content. With comments taking place further and further away from the original source, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of conversations and bring necessary page views to the content provider.
Whether shorter feeds is the answer, ensuring readers visit the sites themselves, or possibly better profit margins for in feed adsense – the solution isn’t clear.
Time will tell how big an effect this new feature will have on publisher page views, but rest assured – if it’s dramatic, expect dramatic reactions too.
Written on 19th December 2008
1 COMMENT
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Google Reader have just updated to inclucde a “What’s Hot” section. You can find it in the sidebar and it includes a variety of interesting posts from across the web.
If you can’t see it, here’s the Direct Link for you.
via Google Reader Blog
Written on 27th November 2008
7 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Helvetireader is a userscript released by HicksDesign which transforms Google Reader into a wonderfully minimalist RSS Reader. It’s still a work in progress but I’m loving what i’m seeing so far…
To install, ensure you have Greasemonkey for Firefox installed or GreaseKit for any webkit browser such as Safari. Then click here to install the main userscript and you’ll also want some favicons included too for which you’ll need to click here to install. Of course you’ll need to have helvetica the font installed too, which if you haven’t – you should be ashamed of yourself :) .
Many thanks to Chris Messina for the heads up.
**UPDATE**
Craig Erskine has made a few alterations to the script which I love. It will require to simply switch the css file linked to in the original userscript to this one.
Written on 11th November 2008
1 COMMENT
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
The Google ‘Reader team’ has announced a pretty cool feature for people interested in the rest of the world: automatic translation in Google Reader!
The integration of Google Translate into Google Reader was done by Brett Bavar, a Google Employee, as part of a 20% project. As you might know Google employees (only in the US) can spend 20% of their time on products and services of their own choosing.
The new integrated translation tools allow you to follow any blog in Google Reader which will then be translated on-the-fly, in your reader.
We all know that computer translated texts don’t always make sense. This is especially true for personal blogs which often use their own style, slang and typos which make it extremely hard to translate for someone or something not familiar with the subject.
Still, it is pretty cool to be able to read blogs in Japanese, Spanish and Chinese from within your Google Reader. If you don’t speak or read English now is your chance to also follow this blog in your own language. Or, as Google would say:
Chinese:
如果你不说话或阅读英语现在是你的变化也遵循这一博客在自己的语言。
Japanese:
話せない場合や英語を読む今も自分の言葉でこのブログに変更されています。
Spanish:
Si usted no habla Inglés o leer ahora es el cambio a seguir también este blog en su propio idioma.
Swedish:
Om du inte talar eller läser engelska är nu din förändring för att också följa den här bloggen på ditt eget språk.
Polish:
Jeśli nie rozmawiać lub czytać angielskie teraz jest również zmiana tego bloga w swoim własnym języku.
Russian:
Если не говорить или читать Английский сейчас ваши изменения, также последуют этому блогу в вашем родном языке.
Arabic:
إذا كنت لا يتكلم أو يقرأ الانجليزية الخاص بك الآن هو تغيير أيضا لمتابعة هذا بلوق في لغتك الأم.
Written on 21st October 2008
12 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Users who hadn’t already left Bloglines for Google Reader and other functional RSS readers are doing so now, largely because Bloglines has stopped working and the company has done absolutely nothing to communicate to users what is going on or when it might be fixed.
This is what Michael Arrington wrote three days ago in a post titled “Destruction Of Bloglines Now Complete; Founder Prepares To Switch To Google Reader“. We’re glad to bring you the story behind this “destruction”, since multiple sources who are really close to Bloglines told us the two main reasons for Bloglines’ downfall. On one condition, they want to remain anonymous.
Arrington wrote the post as he noticed a tweet by Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher. He founded the service in 2003, sold it two years later to Ask.com, and now, three years later, he’s thinking of switching to Google Reader:
Ask.com want’s to get rid of Bloglines
The problem is that Bloglines isn’t updating feeds from thousands of blogs, including TechCrunch (and you don’t want to piss them off). There are basically two reasons for this: a lack of commitment from Ask.com and a somewhat unfortunate outsourcing experiment.
According to our sources, Ask.com put Bloglines up for sale earlier this year, in an effort to cut costs. The company was expecting an auction to take place in August, but these plans sort of vanished as nobody seems to be aware about it.
When you look at Ask.com’s recent strategic moves, anyone can tell that it’s aiming for a larger share in the search market. Mainly by adopting technologies that several alternative search engines have successfully launched (e.g. related searches and clustering results). Oh, and don’t forget about the sexy ads. As it looks now, we can also add cutting costs to the company strategy.
Outsourcing Bloglines to China
Part of that is outsourcing the Bloglines development to China, our sources told us. Thanks to Twitter Search, we’ve found some confirmation. Ex-Bloglines engineer Paul Querna told Mark Fletcher via Twitter that “Ask.com moved all of the bloglines engineering to china, what did you expect :P”.
This cutting move apparently didn’t work out, as Bloglines’ problems still haven’t been fixed. It’s sad to see what can become of a promising start-up when a mother company doesn’t have a heart for it (Jaiku, anyone?).
Written on 11th September 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Google has just challenged Yahoo’s MyBlogLog in a face-to-face battle by posting a very peaceful-like announcement on the Official Google Blog:
At Blogger we’re passionate about helping communities form around blogs. To further that goal, we’ve introduced a new feature that lets you easily follow your favorite blogs and tell the world that you’re a fan. To follow a blog with the Followers’ Gadget, simply click the “Follow This Blog” link. You can show your support for the blog by following it right from your Blogger Dashboard or in Google Reader.
So as you can tell by this message, Google starts the battle in a guerrilla manner since the MyBlogLog rip-off boxes are only featured on Google Blogger blogs. Probably just to test the service for a while and preparing it for the real clash with MyBlogLog.
Not another rip-off
I think this follow box will particularly popular with beginning bloggers (like Blogger.com bloggers). The ones who are more experienced have their MyBlogLog tracking script running and aren’t waiting for yet another “connect to your friends”-tool.
Google’s secret weapon
But.., Google has one secret weapon, a deadly feature that might after all wipe out MyBlogLog: the address book. Calender, Reader, Gmail, and Docs all revolve around this feature. That’s what gives the Google tools structure. The address book is the glue that keeps them all together. No, it’s even better. It’s the DNA of Google’s web apps collection. Whether you want to share a Google Doc, invite somebody for an appointment or tip a good article from a feed, all your contacts are easily available for your sharing-needs. And now, your blog friends are included.
Written on 24th July 2008
6 COMMENTS
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
I first wrote about Google Knol when the topic was first aired in December 2007 on Google’s Blog, in my article “Knol is on a Roll: Google’s new economy for online authors?” at Digital Biographer.
A knol is a term Google had created for a ‘unit of knowledge’ and the announcement created a great deal of interest and speculation, as much for the lack of details as for the excitement at what it might evolve into. Many commentators called it ‘Google’s Wikipedia killer’ but as I said then, that was simply a lazy and incorrect generalisation – but there was little very specific information. And today, many commentators are again likening Knol to Wikipedia – see related links below.
Today, Google has announced its public beta of Google Knol, defining Knols as “authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects.” So from today, you can start to add your knol, or knowledge. This is a beta version, so of course there are rough edges, and Google will be looking to get feedback on many aspects and issues. (I for one found that I could not log at all in using Firefox on my Mac, but have had no problems with Camino or Safari.)
Some positive features are what Google calls ‘moderated collaboration.’ “Any reader can make suggested edits to a knol which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify before these contributions become visible to the public.” Nice.
Google, why I can’t verify my identity?
However, one issue that seems a very basic oversight is that ‘Name Verification’ (so you can verify that you, as an author, are who you say you are) is only available for those based in the USA. The systems available for those Knol authors in the USA are via Phone or Credit Card checks. Pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but there are telephone directories and credit cards used all over the world, Google. The raised credibility that Google cites arising from verifying yourself is therefore, at present, reserved exclusively for you only if you live in the USA.
So if you live anywhere outside the USA, do not send to know for whom Google knols, it does not knol for thee. (Apologies for that play on words to John Donne)
This is not the sort of even-handed approach you’d expect from a global player like Google – and the fact that there is no mention of OpenID or even Google’s own identity systems like Google Checkout or Adsense strikes me as a missed opportunity, even for a beta-stage development. The fact that one can share revenue with Google by electing whether or not to show Google Adsense Adverts on one’s Knol content makes this a very strange omission, and I fear, one that may open Knol up to a lot of spam entries or gaming.
I managed to log in and add a Knol to Google this morning entitled ‘How to read Russian in 75 Minutes‘ (I’ve proved that this works in a 75-minute lecture in 2005, by the way) but at present, my Knol on Reading Russian only appears in a search when I am logged in with a Google login (the login I use for Gmail, Google Reader etc), but it the knol is reachable with a link, whether or not I am logged in.
However, the range of ‘Featured Knols’ as samples that appeared on my screen today had me speechless – they covered Diabetes, Lung Cancer, Toilet Clogs and Tooth pain. Wow. Maybe that’s Google’s way of encouraging you to add better content – or at least, to add more cheerful and uplifting content!
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