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Tucked away in Walter Mossberg's glowing review of web widgets and Netvibes was a little line that - to me at least - indicates that My Yahoo will soon house these. In the piece Mossberg says: "And Yahoo is in the process of revamping My Yahoo to update its look and features. The details of the new design aren't public yet."
Hmmm. Given Yahoo's investment in desktop widgets (and their overall interest in the space) one wonders if they will create a web-based platform where these can all now live. Seems like a no brainer since they like to match or exceed Google and Windows Live. (Microsoft is an Edelman client and we work on Live outside the US)
Amen. The Wall Street Journal has added a bunch more RSS feeds. This includes feeds for each section of the print edition of the paper. This is a great start, although I would like to see a gigantaur feed for the entire paper, similar to what the Economist has. Again, I don't get why every newspaper and magazine hasn't started to offer this. Props to the Journal.
It's a little known fact, but did you realize you can easily break LinkedIn connections? Boy I wish I knew that a long time ago. LinkedIn is a fabulous business social networking tool, especially for people in a line of work like mine who are interested in talking partnerships. However, if you add contacts just for the sake of doing so, its value diminishes.
I have been reading Jason Calacanis' and Guy Kawasaki's posts on how to use the service but haven't invested the time to use it since I had a lot of dead wood in there. (I made the mistake two years ago of letting lots of people into my network who I don't know.) Now that I can eliminate people I don't know well, I am looking forward to exploring.
Oh and if I know you (as in we've traded more than a few emails) and we're not connected, please go ahead and invite me to connect.
If there's ever an image that sums up the Web 2.0 revolution, it's this one. What a shot! I love how it's from China too.
Technorati has launched a new feature called Technorati WTF. No, it doesn't stand for "what the..." It's short for "Where's the Fire?"
Basically, Where's the Fire appears to be a digg clone. It allows users to share what's hot. Then visitors can come a long and vote for the most interesting items.
Here are some screenshots from Technorati WTF. I am not sure I really get it. Why not index digg instead of trying to re-create it? (Disclosure: Technorati and Edelman have a partnership that is wrapping up, but I spotted this with my own two eyes and didn't get advance notice)
LATER:: As of 11 pm eastern the site is down.
EVEN LATER:: According to a comment on TechCrunch, T'Rati announced this on Twitter yesterday and Dorion Caroll blogged it.
Got a blog? Then you're probably lonely. This according to new research out of the University of Calgary.
Professor Michael Keren, author of Blogosphere: The New Political Arena, says we're a lonely bunch. "Bloggers think of themselves as rebels against mainstream society, but that rebellion is mostly confined to cyberspace, which makes blogging as melancholic and illusionary as Don Quixote tilting at windmills," he told Canoe.
Personally, I don't buy it. The bloggers I read go to a lot of conferences and they sure send a lot of email. What's your view? Are you lonesome tonight?
Stephen Davies, my counterpart in London, has had his custom blog design ripped off not once, but twice. Both times the theft appeared to originate in Asia. Others have had the same issue. And one blogger had success using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to get justice.
Blog designs, like any code, are really easy to steal. Just look at the source code and you have what you're looking for. Further, if you publish the full text of your blog in your feed, it's conceivable that someone can steal all your goods. Now might be a good time to do something about this before it really becomes rampant.
It seems to me like we can solve this problem with Open ID. The major blog publishing platforms should encourage their members to also sign up for OpenID (more information is on Wikipedia). Then they can have a mechanism in place that plants a special watermark on your blog once you've confirmed your ID. Basically, every time your blog is loaded it sends data to Open ID that then generate a special coded watermark on your blog confirming you're you. If it doesn't see the code then your content won't load. LiveJournal, Vox, Technorati and others do so but not in this manner.
Now I am not a web developer so perhaps this is naive of me. Maybe people can see the data flowing back and forth and still hack this. Thoughts?
Google has quietly added a new OneBox feature that highlights articles from Wikipedia. All you need to do to is tack on the word "info" or "information" at the end of your query and Google will put a large Wikipedia link at the top of the results page. Your search keywords and the Wikipedia article title need to match up exactly, otherwise the Onebox links don't show up.
As Wikipedia's power and brand rise, Google is going to dig deeper into the citizen-edited encyclopedia. Google loves frequently updated information so the fit is perfect. This will occur even as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales readies a Google competitor. While this OneBox is not a search engine for Wikipedia, it sure comes close. There's nothing to stop Google from going further and building a Wikipedia search engine and I suspect they will.
Google Onebox spotlights special results such as news, stock quotes, weather, music and maps when certain trigger keywords are used. Blogs were added last week.
Everyone sticks their foot in it from time to time. If you do this on your own blog, you can edit the post and take it back. You could delete the post too, but it's not looked on very positively. Still, if you leave a comment on some other site, you very often need to live with it. So you better think twice before lambasting your friend for slamming Jethro Tull on his blog.
There's really no reason why community sites shouldn't offer this option. It's good for everyone involved. Three sites, at least that I know of, allow you to edit or even delete your comments. They're the social saints.
On Blogger you can delete comments left on Blogspot blogs, provided that you are logged into their system.
Flickr, Yahoo's photo sharing site, lets you both edit comments left on photos or delete them entirely. Note the small links in next to my comment in the photo below.
Facebook gives you the option to delete comments you leave on Facebook walls, but you can't edit and re-save them.
Most other community sites don't have this capability. YouTube warns of this in their help pages. Yahoo Answers goes half way. You can delete an answer to an open question, not a closed one, but you'll be penalized.
Anyone know of other sites that let people delete their comments? It seems so silly not to enable this.
CNET is mandating that its blogging journalists respond to all reader comments and questions, according to a report in The Guardian. Further, they are also expected to get involved in every debate that "has legs." (Hat tip to Cyberjournalist)
This model is incredibly noble and indicative of where journalism needs to evolve. However, at the same time, it presents a conundrum for public relations professionals and the journalists as well.
For every three or four stories that the PR community "generates" there's often one that the client is not happy with the turnout. Sometimes it's a misquote. Other times it's a negative tone. Now not all of these gripes are rational of course. However, often they are.
When the offending story and/or error rises to a certain level of concern, the natural next step is to contact the reporter or even his/her editor. This happens hundreds of times a day in newsrooms across the country. The editorial team then makes a decision to amend a story and/or print a correction if it's a print publication - or not. This all takes place in the backchannel, not out on the ice.
Now the game has changed, at least on CNET's web site. If there's an error in a blog a PR professional can post comments and questions. That's not new. However, what is new is that the reporters must respond. Also, why stop at blog posts? CNET allows readers to comment on news stories too. They should go all the way here.
Unfortunately, I also worry that this will be used unethically. It's possible that less than scrupulous PR people will solicit "friendlies" to post questions and concerns in an effort to stir up a debate. This is basically astroturfing.
Again, it's great that CNET will respond to its readers. However, they would be advised to make this process more transparent so we know what they will and won't respond to. Further, some clarity on how PR professionals and corporations should interact with journalists in comments would be helpful too.
