So you’ve got yourself a feed-reader, eh? And you have no clue how to go about it? Well, let’s work this through step-by-step, through simple questions and answers:

1. What is RSS?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. Take each word on its own. Rich - Lots of information. Site - your web site Summary - smaller understandable chunks. Put them together and you get, straightaway:

“Lots of Information (from) your web site (put into) smaller understandable chunks.”

RSS also stands for Really Simple Syndication. To understand this seemingly difficult term, consider only the word syndication. Syndication means sharing or publication of material/resources into an extended network. The concept arose from cartoonists, writers and such newspaper related people ’syndicating’ their content for different publications.

RSS is the online method of sharing/syndicating content created by us. It is an efficient distribution system, that allows you to ‘pull’ content , instead of ‘pushing’ it like email, for example. The flexibility of XML allows better content management and allows developers to play with the feeds in more ways than you can imagine.

Geeks, head over to Wikipedia’s RSS page, and BBC’s RSS page.

2. What are Feed Readers or RSS Readers?

Ok, now we have lots of information pulled from your site. The question is what do we do with it?

The immediate answer would be read! And that is exactly what feed readers do. Read your feed. Rather, they allow you to read the feed.

A feed reader the XML equivalent of a browser. A regular browser reads HTML code and displays the information between the HTML tags, as per the formatting defined in the tags. Feed readers read XML information and display the content between XML tags.

This explanation over-simplifies the RSS/XML concept, but is good enough for understanding purposes, I think.

3. How do I use a Feed Reader (RSS Reader)

Like a browser!

The URL/Location/Address bar of a browser allows you to navigate to a site. Similarly, you point the feed-reader to an RSS feed published by a site. Usaully feeds are publisehed in .xml format, but with user-friendly software like Feed Blitz or FeedBurner (I use this for my site) the feed address can be a lot simple to remember.

Here’s the process to add a blog/website feed into your reader:

1. Look for a link/button called “Add feed“. An input box asking for the feed address will appear.
2. Enter the feed address in this input box. For example, the feed address for this blog is:

   http://feeds.feedburner.com/42quirks

3. The reader will then fetch the contents of the feed (article, individual posts, etc.) and allow you to read the contents online or offline, based on the kind of reader (Web-based or Desktop-based) that you are using.

You’re done!

4. Ok, so I’ve added a feed. What next?

Well, nothing actually.

That’s the beauty of it. With a feed reader, you no longer have to visit the blog for updates all the time. Every time a new post is published, it appears in your feed reader automatically. You can simply read the updated feed (i.e new posts) from inside the reader. You only need to visit the blog if you want to leave a comment.*

You can also chunk your feeds together in logical groups for better reading experience. For instance, some of the categories I user are as generic as ‘humor’, ‘tech-blogs’, ‘poetry’ etc. or quite personal like ‘blogs-of-friends’. You have the liberty to name yours the way you want.

Such chunking is permitted by all readers, though each reader names it differently. Some call it folders, others call it categories, yet others call it channels. The essence of all these terms remains the same - a user-created logical chunk of feeds.

5. What if I can’t connect to the Internet all the time?

Work Offline!

No, I am not kidding. There are desktop-based feed readers, too.A desktop-based reader is a program that runs from your system and polls the internet for feeds whenever you connect to the internet. Akin to an email client, these feed readers connect online and (literally) download entire updated feeds to your local machine.

Those of you who use Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird at work, might know what I am talking about. The workings of a web-based and desktop-based feed readers are the same as web-based and desktop-based email clients. So you are not entirely on unfamiliar territory there.

6. Which RSS Reader should I go for?

There are lot of arguments across the web regarding this one. I personally prefer web-based readers, since I work on different machines at home and work. A web-based reader allows me to keep a track of my feeds in these circumstances, just as a web-based email client.

Among web-based readers, I find Google Reader the best. With a wide array of keyboard shortcuts and the amazing speed that we have come to know and expect from Google, Google Reader beats everything hands-down, IMHO. Rojo and Bloglines come a close second.

Among Desktop-based readers, I haven’t tried many of them, but among those that I tried, Blogbridge (Java-based) and RSS Bandit (.NET based) are a good try. Attensa was interesting, but it crashed my Outlook once too often and out it went.

7. Questions?

Post your questions in the comments section. I think we can have a good FAQ setup here!

Cheers!

*Many publishers have an issue with RSS for this reason. Since most of the sites run on Ad revenue, publishing a feed means losing out on crucial page visits, and hence Ad revenue. Will Feed-vertising be the answer to all this?

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I’ve had various conversations revolving around this concept across the years. A comment I wrote on the 9rules community was the best explanation I could generate for such an abstract concept.

To many people out there, Web 2.0 is just a buzz-word. For quite a few, it is about AJAX and flashy effects on website. And very few really understand what it means.

The other day, one of my friends directed me to a YouTube video titled “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.” And suddenly, a few more pieces of the jigsaw fell into place.

The title was intriguing enough. Go watch it yourself…

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.

I will not embed the video here, because I have already had spats with my hosting providers for ’streaming’ content from my site. But I do urge you people to check out the video. It is one of the simplest, best and most explanatory videos I have ever seen.

And what’s more, it’s Web 2.0!

Perf Members denounced it left, right and centre blaming Perf for all sorts of things. Some even went to the extent of threatening to close down their accounts, which I found weird. Nobody ever said that to Writely. Or YouTube. Or del.icio.us, for that matter.

I think Nick, Chris and all the guys at Perf are a fantastic lot. I would doff my hat off to them, if I was wearing one.

And then, the deal was called off. Performancing went through a roller-coaster of a ride, and things seem to have stabilized.

Hmm, lemme see:

Ads on Blogs - GOOD
Pay per Post - BAD

Premium Content - GOOD
Pay Per Post - BAD

Community Reviews - GOOD
Pay Per Post - BAD

Summing it up, as long as you are not associated with explicit financial motives, whatever you do is ALWAYS good. That’s a thin red line there, methinks.

Weird sense of morality we have, eh?

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Well, here’s a quick roundup of the events in the last 48 hours. Not so much as a time-line, but more of an aggregation:

1. Jan 1st 2007, Haochi of Googlified posts a blog entry and follows up with a description of a demo exploit, describing how an attacker could use malicious XSS code to extract your contact addresses. He diggs his own story and gets a mute response (typical, Digg, did I hear you say?)…

2. Alex Bailey of Techread duly noted it on his blog which can be read here, which was then dugg and made it screaming to the front page as:
GMail Hacked: Visit ANY Website, and Your Whole Contact List Can be Stolen

3. About the same time as Digg, Slashdot picked up the story, and then, the whole world knew.

So, what exactly happened?

Apparently, when you log in to any Google-affiliate site, your GMail addressbook finds its way into your browser through some nifty JavaScript function calling. And someone, somewhere, forgot the mandatory checks and balances. What it means is, you can see all your Gmail contacts lined up here.

Don’t worry, only you will be able to see them and nobody’s using the link for any malicious purposes. Until today morning, the contacts could also be viewed in your browser. Google engineers acted immediately (well, 24 hours after the bug was posted by Haochi) and fixed a part of the bug. You can no longer see your contact’s list in a browser. However, you can still get them in the XML format.

The other part can still be exploited and is worse as it directly provides the XML version of your addressbook. Hope, the GTeam fixes this one up in time, before the email harvesters have a field day.

The standard warnings go with this one:

• Do not click on links from untrusted sources.
  Hey, when did you ever know a person who was named “DWickjasl Pfennry”?

• Do not click on suspicious links even if they come from trusted sources
  Your bank would never send you a referral scheme via e-mail. Period. And no, you are not gonna win that iPod (unless its freepay, and they do not operate in India. So, there.)

• Report all spam. It helps.
  Use that small button named “Spam” (or “Report Spam” in case of GMail). It really works, you know.

• All Links are NOT meant for clicking
  Use the status bar. Keep your nouse over the link and look to the bottom left, you should be able to see the address of where the link points. If it looks suspicious, DON’T click. Period.

• Above all, use your common sense.
  If you don’t remember participating in the Fifth Third bank International lottery, YOU DIDN’T PARTICIPATE.

So, there you go… Capisce?

All of us hailed the coming of a shareable, collaborative web and ‘lovingly’ named it Web 2.0. But along with it came announcements and offerings, options and varieties; faster than anything else. So much, that the low murmur of the internet rose to a harsh, loud, incoherent noise. So much, that we are beginning to denounce it like no other.

Hypocrisy? Nope, I think “Familiarity breeds Contempt” is more like it…

Web 2.0 was a concept. Each one of us interpreted the concept and put forth ideas of their own. As a result, there was a rush of ideas and hence a flood of communication. People started ’socializing’ on the web. Social networks boomed and people came ‘closer’.

IMHO, it all started with the advent of broadband connectivity. Being ‘always-on’ had a direct implication, that of being connected with all your near and dear ones. Web 2.0 looked upon the internet as one huge community, with local groups of people inhabiting it. This concept was publicized and then, taken too literally. Thus, were born the social networks of today.

The community is a market and markets have alternatives. Working on the same lines, social networks began to sprout, each claiming to offer something different from the other. But, the basic objective of these networks was the same - connecting people and conducting conversations across the globe.

The market analogy gives us yet another insight. Every product has competition. And every competitive product has a seller who is willing to canvass for it. The greater the competition, the larger the canvassing and the noisier the market. In the end the market become a large noisy mass of voices and nothing audible or coherent.

Get the drift?

The web as a marketplace has been inundated with offerings. The noise in the marketplace will remain until the day the sellers give up or the stocks dry up. Since, there is little chance of the latter happening, we will have to wait for the former to happen and pray that it happens sooner, rather than later.

The noise of the eMails and IMs that have been flying back and forth has overwhelmed us to the extent that we now want out. But without them, how would we communicate, let alone converse?

Or, are we wrong in assuming that eMails & IMs are the only methods of communication? What if there IS an alternative?

Will things be different?

Technorati Tags: web2.0, conversation, market, cluetrain

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Performancing users and authors had very interesting opinions. Dave, for instance, said:

…they could bring down the price of computing massively. All you would need on a desktop is effectively a thin client that handles inputs and outputs, and
connects to the internet.

… while georgemanty was worried about security:

Do I really want a third party to have access to everything on my computer’s hard drive???

searchengineblog put it really well with:

The problem is that there is no problem to be solved. In 2006, fat clients (read: PCs) aren’t expensive - bandwidth is.

The security concerns do make a valid point. But I guess, with the way things are moving, third-party storage (read: online storage with desktop synchro) is the thing to watch out for in the near future.

Technology has not only enabled cheaper and communication, but it has also been revamping the field of transportation. As travel becomes cheap, we will find ourselves at different places at different times. And then we will need one central location to store our data. Which is where third-party storage comes in.

One option would be a personal FTP server. Like your hard-disk away from your PC. Again, the only hindrance I see currently is the band-width (in terms of access). Thus it boils down, essentially, to two things:

1. A radically new, faster method of accessing the internet.Condition: It must support huge amounts of bandwidth so as to enable each one of the 6 billion people whoo will soon be online in the near future.
2. A safe and secure online storage system.Condition: The privacy concerns of the users must be put to rest. Each such third-party supplier must be liable for any leakage of information (intentional, or otherwise) occurring from their servers.

On ZDNet, 3D0G said:

There are still far to many people out there using computers who have no
clue how computers work and don’t want to know. They just want to browse the web and read email. There are also many people who know they know nothing about computers and so don’t buy one. Something like this would at least open the internet and email up to them

This would be like saying, we need hand-cranked cars because some old-timers cannot adopt to automatic transmission. Not a very good analogy, I agree, but just because people don’t know how to use the net does not mean we step back to thin-clients.

A similar attempt was made (if my memory serves me correctly) with public Internet Access kiosks (at least in India) But it was a huge failure, simply because:

1. People did not want to make their ignorance of the Internet public.
2. The kiosks were not supported by adequate bandwidth. They were too slow.
3. The thin clients were actually confusing and they allowed only one browser window - no tabs back then.
4. Around 25% of the screen space was consumed by ads that were run to support the costs of running these kiosks.

I have realized that, the more you attempt to make technology easier for people, the lazier they become. “Give a man fish to eat, he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will never go hungry for the rest of his life.”

If there are any such laymen, we need to teach them how to surf the waves and not try and make things easier for them. Simplicity does not always mean simplifying the product. It could also mean simplifying the process.

Let’s face it, the internet is a skill and not a toy. You have to learn it and the more inquisitive can even attempt to master it. Any attempt to simplify things further will only allow the lazy to become lazier. Do we really need WebOSes? The argument of thin-clients and simplification of things seems pretty thin to me…

I mean, is it really that difficult?

(It’s a pity that I have to summarize my Blogosphere Conversations here.)

Ok. Stop. Let’s go back to that last one. Online counterpart of an OS? uhh, erm…

Hmm. Let’s try Wikipedia. Wikipedia defines WebOS as:

More generally, WebOS refers to a software platform that interacts with the user
through a web browser and does not depend on any particular local
operating system.

What? Let’s go through this one more time, step-by-step:

I boot my desktop OS. I fire my desktop browser. I connect to the World Wide Web. I access the WebOS. I see my WebDesktop. Now what? I fire up my WebBrowser and access the Internet again?

Er, excuse me, but isn’t that where I am already? So, which one is my, ‘true’, definitive OS? The one I booted to fire the (desktop) Browser, or the one that I accessed on the web? Moreover, how would you access such an OS in the future, given this logical inconsistency?

When I put forth this question, AutomanG replied with the following:

One solution would be to have something, say…, linux embedded into a box that’s sole purpose is to fire up a browser and initiate a tunnel to a remote server (where your webOS of choice is located.) It would be a borderless browser so to you, it would look just like you booted a computer arriving at a desktop.

This sounds really weird! No offense meant, but I just want to explore this a bit further:

Currently, looking at the larger picture, we have three OSes in the Desktop Market. Windows, Linux and MacOS. With this proposal the intention to make Linux a standard (irrespective of whether all people want it or not). Or Windows or MacOS. Some OS which can be universally accepted and moulded as and when need be. Which inevitably brings us back to Linux.

Agree though, the argument that Automan provides makes some sense on some level. Okay, it doesn’t matter what boots the embedded browser as long as what they see on their screens is the same all throughout. Interesting point, I admit.

But again, then there are many options for WebOSes now. There will come a time when we will have to choose one of them as a standard, or maybe, define some standard specs for a WebOS. How do you do that, then?

And if you were to do it later, why not do it now for the desktop OSes? And if you intend to write embedded software to run the necessary hardware, it still is an OS!

I still can’t fathom the need for a WebOS. The ability to store data online, more than makes up for the inability to access my personal desktop everywhere. After all the applications that you intend to put on the Web will be run by their desktop counterparts. What is the point?

Ok, I guess, I oughtta stop. I sound almost desparate now!

Technorati Tags: WebOS, ZDNet, OS

I applaud this strategy. The more forethought and preparation put into the launch, the better.

Marc was talking about the eMail sent out by Foldera CEO Marc Orchant stating that Foldera is postponing its launch, simply because:

“we didn’t have the firepower in our datacenter to handle the sort of demand indicated by so many registrations.”

I wish to make it known for the record, I haven’t received the mail, this snippet has been extracted from the mail extract that Marc posted in the article.

Marc goes on to say that even after the resounding success of Gmail and the early frustrations of Gmail users, Google did not learn. The result was apparent for everyone to see with the initial pull-backs of Reader and Pages.

Some (personal) observations:

1. Personally, I believe Google did not pull back Pages because of high demand. It was probably due to a bigger glitch, something I have previously blogged about.
2. Foldera may be stretching the public interest a little too far. Going by the conversation on Mike Arrington’s Techcrunch, Foldera should have been launched and here many times over by now.
3. However, interesting a tool may be, the longer you take to launch, the shorter the buzz post-launch.

At least that’s what I think happened with Origami. Of course, Origami was a little early, about three years early, by my guess. In a world where laptops and palm-pilots have not yet become commonplace, introducing a gadget that was a level up in the futuristic scale seemed to me, a crazy idea.

One thing I have realized so far is:

“You can’t hurry up or slow down the future. It comes when it comes. You better be prepared for either case.” Probably that’s what Foldera is thinking. Or are they?

PS: I have decided to be a little more regular now. Hope to live upto my words…

Technorati Tags: foldera, google, peeves, launch

Remember todays A-Lister could be tomorrows “remember him?”, and they all started out somewhere. The audience you are ignoring could be tomorrows A-List.

If you define your A-list according to Technorati Top 100 or equivalent, then yes, it could be so. Also, the A-listers have something we don’t.

Let me start with a tentative OD (Operative Definition) of an A-lister:

“A-lister: Any person owning or authoring a blog which commands statistical superiority in a particular category/subject/topic over other ‘fellow’ blogs (and bloggers) in certain matters of detail.”

The certain matters of detail being outlined below, along with tentative operative definitions, for a randomly chosen category:

• Traffic: Daily page views in thousands
• Reader-base: in thousands (RSS/Atom Feed Subscribers)
• TrackBacks: Anywhere between ten to twenty per day.
• Comments: Genuine:S**k-up ratio of 1:10 (may be)
• Flamers: Flames:Comments ratio of 1:10

And last, but definitely, positively, not the least:

• Private/Closed Beta Invites

Scoops. The A-listers get the scoops. And the public seems to hang on to every word. And you and I are equally to blame on that front.

Think about this. You visit a blog and read an excellent article. Then, you scroll down and see zero (0) comments and you think, “Hmmm, no comments? Looks like this guy gets no traffic at all. So why bother, he’s not gonna miss me any way, heck he doesn’t even know I came here!” The next guy comes along and does *exactly* the same thing. And the blog ends up wth a meagre 20-30 unique visitor traffic with no returning visitors.

On the other hand, an A-lister blogs about his vacation in Miami or his Blogosphere experiments and watch the traffic shoot!

Are we hypocrites or what?

I am not saying that we suck-up to them all the time, but if you draw up the stats you will see that 80% of the “A-list” bloggers’ posts have been reviews/reports of ‘the next big things’ or stupid PR experiments. Occasionally, there are a few flames too. When was the last time you saw an A-lister come out with something genuine and refreshing?

Bloogging may not be all about the traffic, but it is human tendency to seek some recognition especially if one believes he/she is worth it. I will not blog for the masses if they are not going to acknowledge me. What’s the point? Isn’t it a failure? It is like a startup which does great things but doesn’t sell.

Blogging for the market and Blogging for the masses are polar opposites. Blogging for the masses is when you provide value and generate conversations, even if it means discussing whether the weather is good for flying or not. Blogging for the market means that you HAVE to look at the traffic. Remember, your blog is no different than the advertising bill board off Freeway 66.

After all, you have to make every stopover count, right?

Disclaimer:
Intelligent readers will please note the following very important points:

1. I have not linked any of my subtle references back to Robert Scoble of Microsoft, PR guru Steve Rubel and Jeremy Zawodny, for fear of getting flamed.

2. The A-lister stats in the Operative definitions were simple guesswork. If anybody has conducted appropriate research and can give me the correct figures, I would be only too happy to post them on my blog.

3. Yeah I know, I am lazy.

Technorati Tags: blog, a-list, market, masses, peeves ]]> http://42quirks.com/2006/03/16/blog-the-market-vs-the-masses/feed/ http://42quirks.com/2006/02/28/the-capit-a-list-bloggers/ http://42quirks.com/2006/02/28/the-capit-a-list-bloggers/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2006 22:05:37 +0000 Shrikant Joshi http://42quirks.com/?p=22 The rich get richer and the poor get poorer…All humans are born equal. but we just have to admit the fact that some men are more equal than the others. The society was, is and always will be divided into classes based on the financial status. Money is the deciding factor. Some people will always have more money than the others. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from. What matters is whether you are able to sustain it.
There is always gonna be an invisible glass-ceiling stopping you from reaching there. If you are a novice and you want to break the glass ceiling, you have to either try VERY hard or circumvent it somehow. There is no short-cut of course. The only way to ‘circumvent’ it is to somehow grab the attention of any one of the elite class. If you have done that, you have done the hard work. The rest is simply smooth sailing.

So how do you grab their attention? There are two ways of doing it:
1. Flame them - Oppose them vehemently so that they rant against you. Like someone said, there’s no bad publicity, only publicity.
OR
2. Claim them - Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Give them good references and you will be rewarded someday.

Are you done reading it? Very well, now follow these instructions:

1. Replace every occurence of the words ‘humans’ or ‘people’ with the word ‘Blogs’
2. Replace every occurence of the word ’society’ with the word ‘Blogosphere’
3. Replace every occurence of the word ‘money’ with the word ‘traffic’
4. Replace every occurence of the phrase ‘elite class’ with ‘A-list’

Surprised, eh?

Yes, apparently, you can treat blogs the blogsphere on par with human evolution human society. Just as the human society is divided into classes, so are blogs. And, every blog is a part of some closed community.

The Flame approach worked for these guys who started off as a rant blog. Look where they are today - among the top 10 in WordPress Blogs.

Like society, there is no dearth of writing talent in the Blogosphere. It just takes some time to be discovered and some discoveries happen too late. Some happen too early.

Some don’t happen at all.

I think I know what hapens to mine.

Technorati Tags: Blogs, capitalism, A-list, society, comparison ]]> http://42quirks.com/2006/02/28/the-capit-a-list-bloggers/feed/