Do not Feed the…

February 2nd, 2007 § 18 comments § permalink

RSS feeds have dramatically changed the way we consume content online. Over the course of time, I have come to subscribe to 90+ feeds of which I manage to read about 20 of them completely.

If there’s one debate that keeps raging across the blogosphere, off and on, it has to be about RSS feeds. Even now, I hear occasional raves and rants about how partial text feeds are irritating and nonsensical, and all that.

What if (this may be a very silly what-if) the choice were left to the user?

What if I as a reader could decide whether I wanted a Partial-Text, Full-Text or Headlines only feed for a given site?

For instance, I’d prefer to have a Headline-only feed for heavy output websites like Slashdot and ZDNet while I’d prefer a full-text feed for sporadically updating sites, like friend blogs.

Alternatively, this can be achieved from the client-side itself, i.e. within the RSS reader. To me, it makes sense to open the feed in three stages:

Headlines >> Partial Text (Excerpt*) >> Full Text

In either of the cases, the publisher must provide a full-text feed.

Of the few readers that I have tried and tested, Google Reader comes close, offering Expanded and Reading views. Combined with keyboard shortcuts, these make for an amazing experience.

At the end of the day, reading RSS feeds is nothing but consuming content, and right now, there are only so many ways to do it.

I have a sneaky suspicion, things will be different soon.

(*caveat: I would define an excerpt as a paragraph or two, having a total of about 5-7 lines at least)

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We, the PPPL

January 31st, 2007 § 8 comments § permalink

A while back, a deal between Pay Per Post (PPP) and Performancing (Perf), caused quite an uproar over at the Performancing Community Forums.

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?

Note:
This post is not intended to revive old wounds, but it’s just my $0.02 worth. Maybe I am wrong there, but I’d love to know your views on this one…

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Go-aah!!

January 24th, 2007 § 6 comments § permalink

Just as there are things that make you go “hmmmm…”, there are things that make you go “aah!”

Three days in Goa did exactly that to us… Aaah!

Have uploaded a few pics on Flickr and Picasa Web. Click on the links to check them out.

Do let me know what you think.

More coming up later in the day. Especially a few thoughts on the difference between Tagging and Categorizing that I wanted to pen for a long time.

Nobody…

January 17th, 2007 § 30 comments § permalink

I see I have not been missed.

Hmmm, so I am wondering now, whether I should or shouldn’t tell you about my 3-day trip to Goa.

Should I tell you that we were camped at the Colva beach? Should I tell you about the babes on the beache? Should I tell you about the amazing Goan Fish Curry and Chicken Xacuti? Should I tell you about the complete inactivity that we had chosen as the only task for three days?

Should I tell you about the relaxation, which incidentally was better than any spa?

Maybe I shouldn’t tell you about any of this, if only to spite you. May be I shouldn’t even upload the loads and loads of pics.

You think I am kidding? Nope, I am not. Wait till I upload the pics to prove it.

Goa was fun. Three days of complete relaxation, rest and unwind. More details & pics coming soon.

*****

On a side note, this bugger met the woman of *my* dreams. What kind of a justice is that?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. C’est la vie and all that jazz…

Sudden Disappearances – The sequel

January 5th, 2007 § 18 comments § permalink

This time around, it’s not my fault.

My Web Hosting providers suddenly got into their mind that Blogging was an activity they did not want to allow on their web servers. And for some reason they thought that my YouTube videos were hogging their bandwidth. So they suspended my account.

Just like that.

Without information, without notice, without anything. And this happens right in the middle of a post submission!! No prior intimation, no update, nothing! So I did what anybody would do. Got myself pissed and mailed them immediately. 11 emails and 3 days later, i.e. today they ‘relented’ to my questions and ‘unsuspended’ the site.

Just like that.

In the course of the email exchanges I learnt that my site was blocked because of streaming and blogging activity. Huh? Blogging is a perfectly acceptable activity for a website. In fact I choose to use my blog as a website, instead of the other way round. As for streaming, the only streaming came from the YouTube video, which streams directly from source!

What irritated me further was this line in their Terms of Service Agreement:

Denial of Service: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason.

That line just absolves them of all liabilities, doesn’t it? So tomorrow, if their system admin turns out to be a BOFH, I stand to lose all my content?

Silly of me to give them ideas, isn’t it? But what irritates me is this fine print in the legalese. Why should one shirk from responsibilities? If it is an error, it IS an error. Accept it like a man, make amends and move on. Is that so difficult to understand?

Sigh, seems like a classic case of the Friday blues to me…

Sudden disappearances…

December 20th, 2006 § 22 comments § permalink

I read somewhere that the title to a post should always be something that hooks the reader. I dunno whether that quite matches up but what the heck, I couldn’t think of anything else…

The fact is I have begun training as an RJ (That’s a Radio Jockey, folks,) at Radio Mirchi, Pune. And now, I have a new outlet for my silliness and idiocy! Poor Punekars, they don’t even know what hit them…

As a part of my training, I do a lot of things, with the details of which I shall not bore you right now. It might suffice to say that I do not yap as much as I would want to, but I have had a few lucky swipes at unlucky listeners.

I got to do the Cricket updates of the India v/s South Africa test match in Johannesburg, which was quite cool. A lot of Punekars, heard a stupid voice fumble, and fumble again until it got the score right. In my defense (which is pretty much non-existent) I can only say, the wickets were falling so fast…

But it was fun. The thrill of knowing that somewhere out there, there are people who are listening to you, somewhere out there, there’s someone who has switched off their TV set and is waiting eagerly for that sweet aural massage, that somewhere, someone eagerly awaits your voice… yeah, the mere thought of it is fun. And then you get out on the street and hear people saying things like:

“Who’s that idiot fuck who keeps fumbling silly things like a Cricket score?”

“Why the fuck are they announcing Cricket scores on a Radio Station?”

“Aren’t they supposed to, like, play music?”

“Cricket? Radio? Whoever does that these days?”

“Scores on the Radio? That’s so Ell-Ess…”

*Sigh* What can I say?

You should listen to some of the people that call a Radio station. Sometimes, they are plain weird. Other times they are *really* weird. I guess that’s just a part of being an On-Air jock.

This does not mean I’ll be turning into a jock anytime soon. But I think I’d like to do that someday. It’s a cool place and nobody tells me I talk too much, except the listeners of course… But, do I care? Naa-huh! Not me, no sirree!!

Oh well, I actually do…

This is your Jock-on-the-Rocks, Shrikant serving you delicious music on Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, it’s hot!! Stay tuned!

How does that sound? Good, bad, ugly?

We WERE the Champions…

December 11th, 2006 § 0 comments § permalink

Good old days, eh?I had decided not to post any Cricket-related items on this blog. But, this was just too hard to resist for me. Patriotism and all that, or maybe, a flicker of hope.

Does anybody have the email addresses of our heroes abroad? I am seriously thinking of forwarding this… At least it is better than the crappy forwards that people keep sending…

Pop Quiz: What, according to you is the most appropriate song for this clip?

Note:This does NOT mean I will be yelling “Hoo-haa, India” any time soon… Or any time later even.

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