“You might wonder why you subscribe to all of this information with no immediate context.” - Aaron Mentele

The whole reason for the Feedseeder Project is that current feed readers aren’t cutting it and I don’t see them set up to change. I’ve talked about this is a number of posts. In fact, I actually think the models behind NetNewsWire, NewsFire, Google Reader, (not to mention much less useful readers like PageFlakes, My Yahoo, and Google Homepage) are stagnant. And, as much as I of a Dave Winer fanboy as I am - the OPML and Userland Radio haven’t clicked with me either.

I’m actually thiiiiis close to ignoring the entire current crop of feed readers. Yes, I’m threatening to uninstall NetNewsWire, just so I can focus on a more appropriate model without being sucked into the current email-based models. As a colleague pointed out this afternoon, it’s even worse than email - at least in email, it’s easy to forward items. For me, feed reading, like podcasts are rarely about immediacy - much more about long term. Constantly gather everything I’m interested in….and make it easy to find relevant things over the long term. Something between the River of News and Google models. (It’s not a far jump to connect this thinking with my interest in hyperlocal journalism).

“Adding someone to your feed list is a relatively big decision.” - Chris Saad

I disagree with Chris here. Adding someone to my feed list is a very small decision. The actual question I ask is: ‘does this writer have the potential to provide me with something interesting?’

Since most of the new feeds I add are referrers from the people I already read, the answer is almost always: Yes.

Related:

“Now imagine walking into your local grocery store, and you notice all of the traditional taxonomies have been removed because product classifications are a form of metadata. The aisle signage has been removed.” - Chris Saad

Based on my customer research experience - this is how people shop. Signs are only read when there’s a problem with the organization of the products.

Update:
Over the weekend, I left NetNewsWire.

“I want to see evidence of video and audio skills. I want to see evidence of familiarity with CSS, RSS, HTML and every other acronym of new media. I want people who live online, consume content on mobile devices, use social-bookmarking tools and participate in Web communities. I want people who don’t think they need some gray-haired, middle-aged man like me to give them permission to create — I want bloggers and page designers and database builders who have made things even when they weren’t getting paid.” - Paul Conley

Definitely. Always glad to see someone with the reach of Costco is promoting podcast as an “indirect direct marketing” tool and “silent sales force”.

Later:

“I think the problem with browser-based RSS software is that the people who write the apps aren’t news junkies. If they were, they could, with much less effort, create something far more powerful and far more usable.” - Dave Winer

“My entire field of news and information is flattened by my feed reader. Topic, author, credibility, popularity, context, and relevancy are all stripped.” - Aaron Mentele

“None of these sites are created for the people. These are, to the last picture, file, and pixel solely created as businesses to make money for the plantation owners….People flock to these things like the little kid in the room shoveling horseshit, and exclaiming, “There HAS to be a PONY Here!!”

Sorry boys and girls, No Pony.
It is just another room filled with shit. They place ads around your stuff, and deliver eyeballs to advertisers in the electronic version of valpack coupons and junk mail.” - The Head Lemur

I don’t think it’s a fair trade either - it assumes that my stuff isn’t valuable in it’s own right unless it’s wrapped in AdSense. I wonder what one of these “social networks” would look like that places a higher value on their members’ stuff than on monetization.

Initial thoughts:

• Members pay a non-trivial amount for access
• Members can import, remove, and export all of their stuff easily
• Members can kill their account easily - say, by not paying
• The network considers members’ stuff private and won’t use it for self-promotion

From that list, I’m thinking BaseCamp or Joyent Connector are the closest things we’ve got.

ELSEWHERE:
Mike @ TechDirt says:

“Peer production only works when it creates value for the ‘peers’ involved. When you increase value in one place, there will always be somewhere else where that value can be captured monetarily….The mistake is thinking that just because peer production doesn’t involve direct payments that the overall value isn’t increased and that there isn’t a way to later capture that value monetarily.”

Yes, but, AdSense (and advertising in general) is an admission that the value is misunderstood.

Now bounce all that off your taste and everything else you know about me. Do you think you’ll like the movie? Do you even have enough information to say?

The problem is single-attribute rating/ranking/tagging systems. They provide only the most basic value - and always with a caveat. Case in point - searching the web for any single keyword rarely provides anything useful.

Tim’s rethinking his wine rating system - maybe something more detailed albeit less glance-able.

Over the weekend, I found the ‘Origins’ wine label on store shelves - Temparnillo, Malbec, (2 of my favorites) and other varietals from around the world - all under the same label. On the back, 3 scales indicate where a specific varietal falls on the flavor scale. Three-times the information than a single score.

While even 3 scales can’t replace the wealth of information found in personal recommendations, it’s more than an arbitrary number or letter. But, what were the biases and preferences of the person that declared where a specific wine fell on each scale?

In nearly each episode of Winecast, Tim discloses his preference for “fruit-forward” wines. If Tim and I share the same definition of “fruit-forward”, I have some context for determining if a ranking of ‘83′ is something I’ll like or dislike. If I don’t know if we share the same definition - I pick up that specific wine and see if my tasting matches his. And repeat.

All this metadata is why recommendations from someone you know really well is far more valuable and those from Amazon, Netflix, etc just aren’t.

Yes, this is word-of-mouth, and yes, we are all doing this today when we IM a YouTube link. There’s got to be a better place to sneeze.

Yahoo (list of Yahoo acquisitions) has always been about building a directory. ‘Tags’ are just another way to create a directory. From that perspective, purchasing HotJobs (directory of jobs), Flickr (directory of photos), Upcoming (directory of events), del.icio.us (directory of web pages), even WebJay (directory of music) makes total sense.

Google (list of Google acquisitions) has always been about measuring social gestures. Thinking about the purchase of Urchin & Measure Map (gestues within a site), Dodgeball (gestures within a place), Adscape (gestures within a video game), YouTube (gestures within video) from that perspective also makes total sense.

My recommendation for cable companies to fulfill their community requirement: “offer bandwidth [to the community]. Lots and lots of it, with BitTorrent thrown in.”

Here’s some choice excerpts from Dan:

“In five years, cable systems will be free to abandon public access programming in every way. They won’t have to provide production facilities or channels.”

“In the meantime…help members of the community learn modern media production techniques.”

ELSEWHERE:

“I believe that the important part of Cable Access Television is access. Access to:
media production tools, media distribution systems, training to use them, media literacy education to understand them. And all of this should be within the context of the needs of the local community….Cable Access should not become Internet Access, it must become Media Access.” - Ben Sheldon

“Youtube is what it is. A very, very popular, traditional media outlet that provides its content on the net. It is video on the demand that is absolutely no different than the video on demand that comcast or any other cable company or telco offers, except that its user uploaded, limited to 10 minutes and the quality is awful” - Mark Cuban

Sorta. Both merge multiple feeds and allow a level of filtering on the results within a browser-based interface. Though, that description includes quite a few other projects as well. So, I thought a Q&A would be a better way to compare and contrast [P]ipes and [F]eedSeeder.

Does it create really cool diagrams?
P: Yes
F: No

Is it useful to Garrick?
P: No
F: Yes

Is it free?
P: Yes
F: No

Is it live?
P: Yes
F: No

“Placemaking takes time and sometimes just plain dumb luck. No planner envisioned it all, first laying out the grid of streets and creating a zoning code for Dinkytown, then deciding precisely that an alley was to be converted to become the location of a breakfast counter and a legendary, delicious business.” - Sam Newberg

A nice reminder that things like MySpace, CraigsList - while not ‘designed’ - are more valuable places than some of the more ‘planned’ places.