Alex asked me to reblog his post on PodServer here. So here goes:
This afternoon we had a Big in Japan meeting and the guys presented several new features, a couple of which were interesting enough to share. So I have explained PodServer here. So if you need to catch up do so. For the rest of you, here goes:
Feature One: PodServer makes it easy to create, store and share your podcast by simply uploading an mp3. Each time you create a new ’show’ you upload it to your podcast and it becomes available to anyone subscribed to your feed. The relationship is simple – 1 person per podcast. What if the relationship model could be broken wide open? That is exactly what the Big in Japan guys have done.
Imagine that you are a member of the Book of the Month Club. Now you and the rest of the club can get together once a month to review your thoughts of the book, but what if you could time-shift the meeting? Each of you could record your thoughts in an mp3 and upload it to the Book of the Month Club Podcast (i.e. anyone in the club could upload their mp3) and the podcast would be a combination of all of your thoughts. This could work for public debate on topics (maybe not as well), but for limited groups it might be interesting. Thoughts?
Feature Two: FrankenFeed for podcasts. Imagine that you are a fan of three different VC podcasts and you want to share them with your friends. You could send all three RSS feeds (in their long URL glory) to your friends or you could use FrankenFeed to combine them into a single VC Podcast Feed. As you found new VC podcasts you want your friends to listen to you could simply add them to the original VC Podcast Feed without bothering your friends – they would just get the new content in the original feed. Neat, huh?
PodServer is written with Ruby on Rails and features touches of Ajax. Today it is deliverying ‘alpha’ podcasts and should be launched (in beta) as part of the Big in Japan toolbox next month.
Posted by admin | November 16, 2005 - 8:19pm | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Dallas, Feeds, Media 2.0, New PR, Podcast, Social Media, Web 2.0
Guys like Fred at WeBreakStuff are starting to realize that most of us are not using web content in its original or intended form. Instead we are using news readers like NetNewsWire to pull content from web sites and deliver it in text form to our readers. Do you offer RSS/Atom feeds? How do you feel about the loss of control feeds represent?
Posted by amuse | October 31, 2005 - 4:44pm | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Corporate Blogging, Feeds, Social Media, Web 2.0
One of the first things we do with a new client is help them set up an RSS reader and fill it with relevant reads. What a great moment it is when the lightbulb appears overhead and they realize they can make their favorite Web pages come to them. (Take their info to go, as it were.) Steve Rubel offers up a list of ten RSS hacks (RSS = Really Simple Syndication). A few of his tips:
Build Feeds for Your Favorite Writers Wouldn’t it be great to have a feed for your favorite columnist or journalist? Some sites, like ESPN, already offer these. But most don’t. Here’s a trick. Search for their byline and/or their column title on Yahoo! News and then subscribe to the search as a feed. For example, here’s a Yahoo! News search for Dr. Mac – Bob Levitus with the Houston Chronicle. The search has a link to this feed. Now anytime there’s a new column from Dr. Mac, they come direct to me via RSS. Here’s another feed I built to track Ed Baig’s columns. The trick is setting up the right search. (Hint – this hack works nicely for sites that don’t have feeds)
Find Cool Stuff with a del.icio.us Inbox Feed One of the most powerful tools I use to find stuff to blog about is my del.icio.us inbox. This tracks all bookmarks people are adding to the community under certain tags that I have flagged. The nice part is, I don’t have to continually hit the site to scan these. My inbox has an RSS feed. (Bonus tip – use del.icio.us to build yourself a custom vidcast feed)
Find New Desktop Wallpaper with Flickr I like to change my desktop wallpaper as often as I eat. So I used to subscribe to Webshots Premium. No mas. Thomas Hawk posts new original images every day in Flickr that are just incredible. I subscribe to his feed and download ones I like.
Posted by admin | October 19, 2005 - 7:53am | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Corporate Blogging, Feeds, Weblogs Work
There is a tight little Web 2.0 bombsquad all squatting together out in Atherton, CA this week: the TechCrunch boys, Frederico Oliveira and Richard MacManus. They’ve decided to gather their sites under one offering — the Web 2.0 working group. TechCrunch focuses on product launches and new startups, Fred’s site Webreakstuff on design & usability, and Richard’s Read/Write Web is a must read site for trends and analysis.
You can get all those sites in one convenient master feed here.
We mashed it up with our new pre-beta project, FrankenFeed, then tidied up the URL with elfURL. We encourage you to follow these guys.
Posted by admin | October 11, 2005 - 7:30am | No Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Feeds, Social Media, Startup, Web 2.0
Alex Muse ditched his newsletter yesterday. He had built 11,000 contacts in his newsletter database, and told them all yesterday that the best way to get information his current projects is by reading his blog or subscribing to his feed. It’s certainly more efficient. Much more of an nuanced conversation. More welcomed by the folks who opt in by reading his blog or adding the feed to their newsreader. He doesn’t need 11,000 sometime contacts who get email. He needs like 50 engaged comrades who are as excited about (and I’m going to say it) Web 2.0 apps and opportunities as he is.
Maybe you should ditch your email newsletter and use blogs and feeds as a better way to get your ideas out there. Plus, you can always give people the option to get your rss feed as an email if they’d like.
Update: see, the thing is, unsolicited email seems to really aggravate folks. Witness this sort of bizarro post/comment/email two-step between Alex & Light Reading editor Phil Harvey.
Posted by admin | October 11, 2005 - 6:55am | 4 Comments
Category: Uncategorized | Tags: Corporate Blogging, Feeds, Micromarketing, Social Media
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