Written on 12th May 2009
4 COMMENTS 
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Written on 7th May 2009
18 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
![150+ of the most popular blogs and news sites about the WorldWideWeb [The OPML files]](http://thenextweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/3382977725_519a106d2a_b-300x200.jpg "3382977725_519a106d2a_b")
It’s no secret we completely disagree regarding the recent discussions over the death of RSS and as a commitment to it, we’re starting a new series titled The OPML files.
The series will feature lists of the most respected and popular blogs & sites in various different categories, and to make things easier for you – we’ve done the hard work and include an OPML file for each list.
Ok, so lets get started:
Download OPML file here and below are the list of the sites included and their RSS feeds:
Written on 17th March 2009
12 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
One year ago, Guy Kawasaki launched a simple categorised RSS directory called Alltop.com. The site organised RSS feeds into various topics with separate domain names for each http://startups.alltop.com, http://fashion.alltop.com etc…
The site earned a great deal of attention and discussion, primarily due to its web celeb founder Guy Kawasaki – a legendary marketing guru – but also due to it’s similarity with another RSS orientated site with an almost identical layout PopURLs. Over the last year, Kawasaki has continued to add topic after topic to the site, and its current count stands at an impressive 550 topics according to Jennifer at Mashable.
Today however marks the launch of a brand new feature which greatly enhances Alltop’s product offering, it’s called MyAlltop.
MyAlltop is your own personalised version of Alltop. Once you’re all signed up, simply browse or search Alltop’s numerous topics and add your favorite sites as you along to your own MyAlltop page. (It should be noted that PopURL’s also let you create your own personalised profiles but primarily based on shared individual stories rather than specific website feeds.) (more…)
Written on 9th February 2009
3 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
Earlier this month Zee explained “How to Snap Up that Twitter Username You’ve Always Wanted“. We were stuck with a
Twitter name for the blog here that, well, sucked. Our Twitter name was @NextWebLog which made sense when we registered it, as @TheNextWeb was taken, but just didn’t feel right.
So last week I decided to contact Twitter to ask if they could, pretty please, change our Twitter name to @TheNextWeb. That account was taken but never used and didn’t have any followers either. Within 48 hours I got a reply that my wish had been granted.
Since then we have been actively using it to promote the blog and keep in touch with out readers. As The Next Web Conference is approaching (only 65 days & 85 early bird tickets left!) we want to get more feedback from readers and keep everybody up-to-date on new speakers and start-ups. The blog is important for that but Twitter seems even better.
We automatically post a link to every blogpost we publish on Twitter as an alternative to RSS. people seem to like that and are now also actively retweeting those links.
We have been very focused on getting more RSS readers and even set a goal of 10.000 readers in April. It seems however that our readers are more interested in receiving notifications of new blogposts via Twitter than via RSS. RSS certainly has its advantages but right now I’m getting more interested in Twitter. Compared to the one-way communication of RSS the two-way communication with Twitter is a lot more interesting.
If you have a brand, product or blog now it the time to get yourself a Twitter account and use it to build your audience. Could you imagine a blog without RSS? No? Within a few months you will feel the same about a blog without a Twitter Account.
As you can see in the TwitterCounter graph up here we have been steadily adding Followers for the last few weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get to 10000 followers on twitter before we get to 10000 RSS subscribers…
Written on 5th January 2009
6 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When Jobs spread the word about his weight-loss this afternoon, Next Web editors Zee and Boris immediately started typing an article. Since they’re not sharing an office (Zee lives in London, Boris in Amsterdam) and both were utterly excited by the words from Mr. Apple himself, they didn’t see each other’s post. Thus sharp readers might have seen two posts about Jobs’ announcement on The Next Web (We deleted Boris’ post. At first he was devastated, but he’s feeling better now).
Anyhow, an hour or so later Boris called for my attention as he thought TechCrunch had made the same mistake. He noticed two posts about Jobs in his feedreader. One titled “Steve Responds to Rumors with a Steve-Note: I’m just Thin” and a second one called “Steve Jobs Explains His Weight Loss in Healthnote“. Did Erick Schonfeld and John Biggs pull the same trick as Zee and Boris?
Nah, it’s just Arrington force-feeding you some CrunchGear and MobileCrunch news. See the graphic Boris made to check out how TechCrunch’s 1.7 million RSS readers also get a load of John Biggs and the likes. Some of these articles also appear on the recently redesigned frontpage of TechCrunch.
This raises an interesting question: is it OK to show your readers posts from other blogs you own? Some readers are obviously not amused and speak of violating trust and all that. Others just ask the same question like me. I believe you can of course share news from your blog network, but doing without any notice or graphic hints is less stylish – if not confusing.
After all, you haven’t asked for Crunchgear posts, have you? Maybe you read Gizmodo for the latest gadget news because you like the tone of voice better. Who knows? Arrington doesn’t, that’s for sure. So there’s no motivation for him (except promotion) to shove it under your face.
Written on 18th December 2008
9 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Following everything must be great. The all-seeing eye, yeah! Never miss anything worthwhile. Be the first to know. I’m signing for it.
Such a beautiful utopia, but oh so dangerous to strive for. Though there are plenty of tools that will help you getting you there. Turn on a sound effect every time you receive an email or tweet. Wear your head set all the time. And…, install an Adobe Air app which keeps you up to date about all the latest articles in your feed selection.
Snackr is such a service. After installing it on the Adobe Air platform, importing your OPML file, and placing it in the preferred corner – your RSS feeds are always available. Right there, in the corner of your eye.
I’m running the RSS reader while I’m typing this post, and man, it drives me crazy! It keeps asking for my attention. Like a TV screen in a bar. The design, features, and usability: it’s all very well-executed. – but using the nifty little program will mean the end of productivity for me.
But hey, maybe you’re the kind of guy/ gal who needs a little bit of distraction. If that’s the case, don’t hesitate and click here.
Written on 3rd December 2008
22 COMMENTS
Paul Vereijken, Next Web Journalism & Media editor
Of course you’re using a RSS reader to check your feeds. But don’t you just love the feeling of reading a newspaper or magazine? Well, take a look at Hewlett-Packards Tabbloid. This free service converts the latest posts of your favorite blogs into a printable PDF.
Tabbloid is very easy to use. Surf to their website, enter your favorite feeds, your e-mail address and decide when you want to recieve your magazine. Tabbloid compiles the feeds and mails a printable PDF to you.
Personally I love the idea. Reading from paper is much more relaxed than reading from a screen. But I have to admit I wouldn’t use it. Why not? Well, links, embedded video and other dynamic stuff don’t work on print. And that’s to much too give up for me.
[Via Springwise]
[poll id="17"]
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 9th October 2008
0 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
One of the nice things of sending out a weekly newsletter, are the replies of our readers. Man, a lot of them are doing interesting things. Like Gabriel Aldamiz-Echevarria, Strands.com VP of communications. His company has been around during four years focusing on developing recommendation technologies to help people discover new things. Over the years they’ve raised $55 million in funding. Now they’ve used their technologies and money to develop a lifestreaming service, one that, Ars Technica says, has “big advantage” compared to Friendfeed. Interesting, uh?
Strands.com has all the regular lifestream things going on: sign up, fill in the RSS feeds forms, and see the content popping up along the way. But the main advantage I was refer to earlier, is that you can filter somebody’s or your own content on its type. So if you have this great friend X, who makes the best songs, but sucks at writing. You can only check his songs (and trying not to hear the lyrics). Why didn’t Friendfeed come up with that? It’s just too logical.
There’s also a tab within Strands.com showing some recommendations and hot content from across the network. That’s were Strands is using its recommendation muscles and where we, users, can discover new stuff.
At least, that is when you’re one of the first hundred to grab an invite with our promotion code thenextweb. Go to Strands.com, click “request an invitation to join Strands” and use the promo code. You will then get an email with the invitation code.
Written on 11th September 2008
6 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Ok, so I have the urge to keep track of when people mention my username on Twitter. Call it vanity, call it the need to stay in touch with other human beings. Ever since Twitter decided to stop sending SMS updates outside North-America and India, I depend on the replies function to see updates about me. At least, that would be the ideal case. After all, the replies function is designed to notice Twitter users whenever an other user refers to you. But in reality, the replies feature sucks. Really bad.
I think it only shows me 60 percent of the times my name is mentioned. You think I’m exaggerating? Compare the screenshot below with the search results on Twitter Search. If you take a good look, you’ll notice some messages from Twitter users @edial, @polledemaagt and @jaapstronks didn’t make it to the replies tab. For what reason? Only Biz and Evan know…
So here’s a thought. Just a simple one. Why not grab the RSS of the search results and show it on the replies page? I mean, the search feature (Summize’s product) works just fine, so why not use that as the replies feature?
Maybe there are some developing issues I’m missing here. If so, please tell me. Because now I’m tortured by the thought that an annoying problem can be easily solved, but nobody does it.
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