Explaining RSS the Oprah way
Just spotted this great post about explaining RSS to your mum, dad, etc 😉
Good stuff!
Category: feeds
How Microsoft could win the portable player game
I think this looks like a great product.
I hope it can read an RSS feed directly over that WiFi (like a PSP can)! So I can download podcasts too, over the connection (like PSP can).
As well as wifi connectivity (for download) the killer app, for me, would be the ability to record AND upload too. This could be based on something like Nokias old uploader api (which was very easy to implement in any scripting language). Or a simple/simplified ftp client.
If they (MS) offered storage too, along with their desktop client/shop/aggregator based on the account, then they would have it all wrapped up.
Location agnostic consuming and publishing – desktop or mobile device – listening, viewing, subscribing etc. All synced up the next time the device links to the desktop. Full of real statistics, linkage and relevance.
Bingo! You’d have it all.
THEN if your reading AND writing/publishing tools support the core content and organisation XML standards for podcasts of RSS and OPML, PLUS additional support for microformats such as FOAF etc AND OTHER community APIS (though this could be done by any developer community or group of widgetwelders)
If Microsoft did this, they would win – imho
By ‘closing the content loop’ (by effectively flipping one end and connecting it to the other) – publish to receive : AND discover/navigate : subscribe , it would be like APple where things ‘seem’ to be locked in, they wuold have the opportunity to turn the whole network inside out, exposing all the data needed – all the ‘neural’ connections – all the paths, all the people and all the content.
This would ‘connect’ the owners of such devices to eachother, creating the community feel, but also prove they are not going to create a ‘walled garden’ of content – for devices that don’t know (much) about anything else.
[given that i am talking about ‘open’ podcasts here – user generated (argh) – as opposed to music/video/protected shopping/purchases with their own DRM.]
You don’t have to be able to read the ZUNESTONES to see it. Do you?
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ps: When are Google or Yahoo! going to produce a device? They should! 😉
pps: people who know me personally, will know that I am a huge love love and passionate user of gadgets. I have been on this crusade for a while. 😉
Tech Trends
According to Google Trends (an interesting site I had forgotten about until Dave Winer just linked to it), Podcasting is just as popular as Blogging 😉 (But blogging has been around for longer)
Also, RSS is way more popular than ATOM. (It’s easier imho)
Podcast.com Upgrade
Well, after ages of thinking and and coding, I have managed to do a huge overhaul of the podcast.com code, mainly in the directory / feed folder rendering department.
Ever since I built the first rendition of the renderer. I knew I’d have to rethink it somewhat, to cope with many, many users without losing the very cool functionality that I have put in there (for good reason).
Now you will find that the site loads ALOT faster. A quick peek at the OPML for each folder (see the red opml icons – which may change – when you open a feed folder) will show you that we use inclusion at every level now. This helps the whole system to scale.
Also, this means that one user can now link easily to another user’s folder without breaking the ‘tree’. It works with internally generated and managed ‘feed folders’ (creating OPML) as well as external OPML.
When you view a feed, you will also notice with added a link to show ‘where’ this feed appears in our users’ folder structures. (OK.. not so many users as yet, but we hope to add to them by the end of October) Also, you’ll see a button to show single-click subscription methods will a list of chicklets.
Another cool thing you should see is that EVERY folder has a permalink url – also with some links to add to del.icio.us or digg
We want the data here to work EVERYWHERE. We have an opportunity to work with EVERYONE.
We love you guys. Now I gotta do me a podcast! 🙂
Take Me To The River!
For anyone out there interested in Dave’s River of News concepts, please come and have a read of this, over on my OPML powered blog. I think it’s very important and hopefully will be very, very helpful in giving this simple genius concept more data to play with and feed from.
🙂
PixPix RIAA Secret Agent Honeypot?
Another link from the Scobleizer about a new site called PixPix, which lets you bookmark all sort of things on the web including music mp3s, video and images. All this is wrapped in a digg-like ‘social network’ interface for rating and whatnot.
While I think that sites like this are fun and reveal loads of things out there on the web you might not find otherwise, they have made the job of the RIAA etc very very easy indeed. The urls to the copyrighted files and material are there for all to see.
Some bright spark at the RIAA needs to write a script which monitors their RSS feeds (here’s the one for audio) and notes down the value of the ‘guid’ element. This will harvest a huge list of hosts of potentially infringing content.
It wouldn’t surprise me if one day the folks at the RIAA, MPAA, PRS etc create a site just like this and thus create a huge honeypot for their investigations. It just takes one smart cookie in the bag.
Why don’t 98% of people know about RSS?
Scoble comments on the article on Dead 2.0 which claims that only 2% of people use RSS.
I’d say many people don’t *need* to know what RSS (or a ‘feed’) is. They probably use it in places without knowing it.
As more publishers syndicate their feeds, more applications and clients will develop which read and present them (on all sorts of devices).
Data feeds and formats like RSS (and OPML) create a ‘platform’ to build applications on. Not everyone needs to know the code below. Sure, developers certainly do! (What percentage of those do or don’t know or use RSS?)
How many people out there know what the ‘web’ and a ‘webpage’ is, yet draw a blank when you ask them what HTML or CSS is. A lot, I’d say.
Most of us watch the TV – but what percentage of people know how the picture got onto the screen?
Like the internets – it’s all tubes and magnets and squirrels. Right?
Evan’s Podcasting site roundup feedback
Evan Williams, founder of Pyra – which became Blogger.com and head honcho of Odeo has got some Alexa results of podcasting sites out there and provides some feedback.
Good job. Nice to see Libsyn pumping away at the top. I really like those guys.
So, I’m not surprised to see the results for podcast.com 😉
We opened up the doors of the site back at the end of May, as an ‘alpha’, based on some of the early foundation technology we’re building, simply because we couldn’t bare to look at the old horrible greenish page that used to be there any more 😉 The feedback we’ve had has been positive.
Since then, we been going like the clappers, not sleeping much, slowly but surely bringing together a whole load of features you haven’t seen yet. The list of subscriptions in the directory there are basically *mine*. As in my user account. There’s two actually – a user called kosso curates the canada.podcast.com directory and the secondlife.podcast.com directory (they’re actually folders within koz.podcast.com). Soon you’ll be able to create your own version of the site and have access to a load of tools and info to get you going in podcasting, whether it’s as a listener or a podcaster. We have publishing tools too – and some pretty nifty urls and data for you to play with. Some original content too! (I can’t wait to let you in on all that 😉 )
I often use the analogy of the book industry to describe what we’re up to:
To start, we want to help people find books they want to read and let the author know what they think. Moving along, we want to help people build bookshelves to put all these books on. Then give people the tools to build whole libraries – and connect them together.
Back the other way, we naturally want to help people publish books. And help promote their hard work. Then back, we want to help teach people how to write a book and provide nice and easy tools to do so. Even further back to the core, we also want to help people make paper and ink and even research new types of paper and ink, which might make a book easier to read or understand and hopefully more popular!.
As the people running the generic domain, we intend to DO THE RIGHT THING. What else would you do with the generic domain? I left the BBC to work on this, as I’m incredibly passionate about podcasting having fiddled with building tools and systems since it started. Becoming a podcaster (but not as frequently as I would like – that’s why I’m builfing tools 😉 ). Meeting the likes of Dave Winer and Adam Curry last year was a real motivator. Still is. Respec’.
I really didn’t want the site to end up squatted or parked or simply wasted. I’m on a mission (from pod). ‘With great domains comes great responsibility’. We have some interesting things coming up soon which might perk up your ears 😉
I’ve just got back from Boston after a great time with the rest of the boys – making sure we’re all on the same playlist and getting the new hands on deck up to speed with the system, ethos and roadmap for the whole place. It’s been very reassuring.
We still have alot to do to get the site open as a public beta, where people will be able to join up and have a go at using the tools we’re putting together. It won’t all come at once. We intend to listen to what you think and iterate. We think it’s going to be an exciting resource for anyone interested in podcasting.
It’s going to be a few more weeks, but now we can all see the next checkpoint. There is no finish line 😉
Pajamas Don’t Podcast
I noticed Dave mentioned he was interviewed by Andrew Keen, who I have met through podcast.com activities. I’m glad to see he called it an interview and not a podcast. Why? No RSS feed at all containing the ability for me to subscribe to a series.
To quote Andrew in the interview “RSS is so simple – so elegant”
Andrew’s ‘AfterTV’ did have someone doing a feed for him a while back, but now it looks like Andrew is creating content now for some set up called Pajamas Media. They call themselves the best in global blogging, podcasts and opinion. Blogs? Check. Podcasts. Nope. MP3s to download from the site? Yes. Opinion? No doubt.
They say there are podcasts there – and in their Politics Central section – but I cannot find any at all. Sure, there are some MP3 which have had alot of time and effort put into the them to produce them, but no podcasts.
No feed = Not a podcast (IMHO)
To quote Dave in the interview : “Podcasting is another thing I invented”
I really wish people would do that final last leg of the production effort properly. I also wonder if the hosts etc realise their content is now stuck on a website many people will not have heard of – and not out there being freely aggregated all over the world, while telling anyone who sees it about that website and production team.
This happened few weeks back from Andrew, where he had interviewed Philip Rosedale from Linden Lab (which I now can’t find – no search results for Linden on PM or PC) . I like Andrew’s style and interviews, but he should get someone to sort out his feeds.
He’ll be glad to know the publishing system over at podcast.com is just about ready to roll. 😉
O, Canada Podcasts!
Wow! Those Canadians sure do! Alot! Eh! 🙂
Have a look over at canada.podcast.com and see what I was able to create pretty easily with my test account.
I want to get these tools on your hands and on your screens (and in your pockets) ASAP! 🙂
Hopefully, that won’t take too long.
I was at Gnomedex over Canada Day, and it was great to meet so many of you Canadians there. You sure do know how to celebrate your country! We Brits don’t do much else than wave at the Queen, whenever they wheel her past 😉