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SimplePie RSS Parsing

I just switched TechWatching from MagpieRSS to SimplePie. Each of these is an automated RSS feed parser built for PHP, and both feature great features like caching, http-last-modified intelligent requests to lessen the overhead of feed-checking, etc. MagpieRSS, for whatever reason, has died on the vine - i.e.: last blog post is October of 2006. SimplePie has stepped up in the meantime to fill the gap.

So - I’m looking forward to not having to deal with a bunch of problems I thought I’d have to hack Magpie to handle - character encoding, CDATA encoded content blocks, inconsistent namespaces, etc - SimplePie does an awesome job of handling feeds and their data. Big shout out to the SimplePie folks for their great work - thank-you.

rss, simplepie techwatching

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RSS Feeds I no Longer Subscribe To

Every so often (twice so far), I’ll remove a feed from BlogLines (yes, I know GReader is better). So far, here are the two I’ve taken out:

Steve Rubel (MicroPersuasion): Was the first. Jumping all over every trend, he came across more and more as a paid advertisement (whether he was paid or not) - a sycophantic babbler. Not interesting. Then there was the whole “I throw my PC-Mag subscription in the trash” Twitter blow-up. Yay, you’re an egotistical jerk too. Uncov tears into Rubel in typical fashion. FEED DELETED.

Dave Winer (Scripting News): I know he originated RSS, and is friendly with lots of A-list bloggers. But, as I commented on the ‘wag, he’s a mean spirited, web-centric incarnation of Wozniak - riding high on past contributions that most everyone’s moved on from. And he really does seem to be a mean spirited jerk a lot of the time. His blog is unable to hold my attention, he’s acting up like a tool — FEED DELETED.

On the topic of Uncov: I wanted to delete them, because I think personal attacks aren’t required to make an adequate mockery of the average online business. But I couldn’t - they’re too good.

dave winer, feeds, micropersuasion, rss, scriptingnew, steve rubel uncov

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Engagement - 4 tips for Startups & Established players: using digg, del.icio.us, technorati, and google to build your community

Companies on the web (speaking in terms of 2.0 startups here) can be sorted into two categories - those that actively engage their communities, and those that don’t.

I base that on my first 2 month’s experience blogging here. Some reviews have been actively commented on over time by the company reviewed - take a look at the Collanos post, for instance: the Collanos folks are all over it with opinions, other ways of looking at things, feature updates, and so on. Same thing with Teqlo - lots of conversation flowed from that post.

Most reviews, however, haven’t gotten any attention from the firm in question. SuTree? TxtVox? Meshly? Hellooooo…?

There’s a number of ways that engaging Bloggers with comments or trackbacks is valuable for web companies (or any, for that matter) new or old:

1. Establishing a relationship often turns critics into advocates.
2. Share your side of the story: supplement, complement, and correct.
3. Gather feedback.
4. Gain eyeballs - posts with good discussion get more readers.
5. Build brand equity - your company looks better if its approachable and engaged.

Anyway, the benefits of Naked Conversations have been endlessly hashed out elsewhere.

So - how to go about realizing these benefits? Doing so does not have to be arduous or time consuming, nor do you necessarily need to rush out and hire a community manager. There’s 4 simple, fast ways to identify, track, and stay on top of conversations about your company:

1. Technorati: Subscribe to your tag. Enter this in your browser: http://technorati.com/posts/tag/YourCompanyNameHere. For example, here’s the Collanos page. Then, subscribe to it (there’s a nice RSS link right there). Now, you’re instantly updated in your feed reader whenever someone out there properly tags a post about you. For thoroughness, be sure to subscribe to feeds for all variations and misspellings of your name.
2. Google: bookmark searches for all common variations of your company’s name, as well as things like “YouCompanyName Review.” Try searching for “SuTree Review,” for instance. My SuTree post is on the first page.
3. Did you know you can subscribe to Digg search results? Well, you can. And you should. Digg weilds undue influence - you should be commenting on posts about your company, and ready to throw out a “Welcome Diggers!” message onto your site if a post goes front page (you should have a page ready to go, designed to convert notoriously shallow-browsing digg readers into members). Here’s the digg search for SuTree - the subscribe icon is innocuous, but there.
4. Del.icio.us: You should be following what’s getting bookmarked about you - your company, reviews, and so on. Read the user notes - those capsule summaries provide a good window into how your brand is perceived online. Finding yourself on del.icio.us can be cumbersome, as del.icio.us uses their own id strings for URLs. Here’s SuTree for example: http://del.icio.us/url/76ff772c19d0c546a3b70fc4e24b6080. Click that link though, and you’ll see a URL search box: enter yours there. And, if you scan all the way to the bottom, there’s an RSS feed for it too.

So there you go: adding RSS feeds to your reader from Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Digg, and bookmarking a few Google searches will keep you generally up to speed with what’s being said about your company. Following those feeds is a matter of minutes in your feed reader. Now, the onus is on you to act on that: get out there and comment - engage your community and enjoy the rewards.

EDIT: Guy Kawasaki posted an article today about DIY PR by Glen Kelmann. The 4 tips above would be good tools for someone going the DIY and engaging customers and stakeholders directly.

blogging, community, delicious, digg, feeds, google, howto, reputation, rss, startups, technorati tips

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Google Buying Feedburner; Feeds are another media like Radio, Print, or WWW

TC breaks it: GOOG is buying Feedburner for 100M. WatchMojo covers the origins of FB’s 10 million in VC funding, DeepJive says it only makes sense, and SEW sums up some good advantages for Google.

Holistic Analytics and Advertising

From where I’m sitting, it make sense. Feeds have been out in left field for a long time in terms of a consistent means of measuring their audience and impact on site traffic; with this acquisition and their existing analytics portfolio, Google has a means to connect all of the dots and create a truly holistic means of looking at sites.

Of course this also means that Google can expand their ad inventory as well, offering feeds as another media channel to advertisers. Feeds have evolved into another “media,” so to speak, and as Google has tried to expand into print and radio, so they are taking a stab at RSS.

Creepy

One final thought: as is mentioned more and more, Google’s reach is sort of creeping me out. The Internet is increasingly at the mercy of Google’s “Don’t be Evil” motto - here’s hoping they stick to it.

analytics, feedburner, google, news, rss, stats techcrunch

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NBC Buys RSS to E-mail Service R-Mail; Part One of a Social Strategy?

Roger Cadenhead draws our attention to the sale of rss-to-email service R-Mail, to - oddly enough - NBC. R-Mail.org is a wicked simple site with a “subscribe via email” widget for blogs, a very simple UI, a top feeds list (which shows an international user base), and so on.

According to Rogers…

The service has 50,000 users, 100,000 subscriptions and sends out more than 50,000 e-mails per day, according to DMW Daily, though I suspect a zero’s missing from the last figure.

Founded in 2006 2005, Rogers considers R-Mail to be one of the most missed stories of late, having been passed over for coverage in favour of Zookoda. With 50,000 users, a one-person team (Randy Charles Morin), and now a successful buyout (sum unknown), it does seem like one that’s flown under the radar.

That being said, there’s nothing on how much NBC paid, or what their plans are for the service. Morin’s blog notes the news, but adds nothing more to it. If they picked it up for a song (and hired Morin in the process, then it may have been less expensive than developing an email subscription service in house. The current NBC site includes neither RSS nor email subscriptions, and has the enigmatic byline “social-networking coming soon.”

email, nbc, rmail, rss social networking

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Subscribe!

Inspired by Danny Sullivan’s post over at SearchEngineLand, I’m throwing down a “Subscribe!” post. If you like TechFold, by all means subscribe! There’s only one TechFold RSS feed, and its full-text, and advertising free. Click the big orange doodad below…

Subscribe to TechFold

Now - Danny’s shooting for 20,000 subscribers by the end of May. I’ll be gunning for a more modest target; TechFold hit a peak of 69 subscribers last week - do you think I can break 100 this week?

I’m cautiously optimistic as I’ve got some good articles queued up, but your help would be appreciated: if you like the site, subscribe yourself and spread the word - its appreciated, and if you drop me line in comments (or pingback) when you subscribe or do some word-spreading, I’ll happily hat tip you and your blog, and subscribe myself to your feed.

And cheers to Danny for the concept.

appeal, feeds, rss subscribe

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The Google Roundup - big week

Many of these announcements have been sort of under the radar, but overall, Google has had quite the week:

1. GooglePoint: Google pulled the powerpoint trigger, completing the bulk of their anti-microsoft suite with the purchase of java-tool-maker Tonic.
2. Google Vs. StumbleUpon: After eBay’s questionable purchase of StumbleUpon, a pouty sounding Google fired back by adding dice to the Google toolbar - a button that apparently taps similar functionality as StumbleUpon’s.
3. Froogle is Getting Some Attention: Google Product Search. About time. Froogle was one of Google’s earliest branches out from core search, and has languished more or less since launch, getting demoted of the front page, and generally wasting away.
4. Charts: Google fleshed out the Sheets document type with charting - finally. EDIT: Zoli does charts.
5. RSS API: Google’s added an RSS/Atom handler to their search API. I haven’t really had a chance to dig into this, but its sounds a lot like the server-side functionality provided by MagpieRSS will now be available in JS.

api, atom, excel, google, magpie, microsoft, rss, stumbleupon tonic

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