Friendfeed sees new competition

Rumored for weeks, an ad-hoc group of A-list bloggers are ready to launch the first RSS de-aggregator later today.

Interviewed late this afternoon at his office in New York's Silicon Alley, the CEO and founder of PleaseDontBeMyFriend.com was absolute and direct in his comments.

"This site is for people that are completely fed up with the whole world knowing everything about them. These websites are exposing their deepest secrets. For every Twitter proposal, there are two aggregator divorces (NomScore). We're here for the 'experts' that keep running, but can't keep up with the latest trends (and probably need new sneakers). Consider us the do-not-call list of the Internet. We defend you and win.".

For just $20 / month, the website claims it will protect your rights, the integrity of your feeds and shared feeds, and have them removed from the barrage of newly-popular so-called lifestreaming sites such as RSSMeMe, LinkRiver, Readburner, and yes, the latest hyper-growing craze, FriendFeed.

Note: Re-checking our sources this morning, there was absolutely nobody answering the phone at the startup's NY headquarters. (In fact, the domain name appears to be available?)...
So, why don't you go buy it and enjoy the buzz, and remember.....

Ugh ... April Fools (Whew).

PopUrls adds cluster view

Thomas Marban's PopUrls has been around for some time.

It's a 'quick take on just about every sector on the web', and continues to grow in popularity.

In recent weeks, Thomas has been turning up the volume a bit, with a new separate IT page, numerous new features, more content, and earlier today, an all-new cluster view.

Unlike Guy Kawasaki's recently-introduced Alltop.com, PopUrls doesn't break down categories to pages, but instead, attempts to give you a quick view of the web, updated dynamically, on one page.

Obviously, that's somewhat impossible, but we find ourselves visiting daily. There's something there for literally everyone .... and probably something that you wanted to know about and didn't.

Check out the latest version of PopUrls here.

The A-list just changed and you're on it

As a few of you know, there were several missions to this blog when I started writing it back in August. Now, I'm truly enjoying it.

No, it's not the occasional mention on TechMeMe or Hacker News that spikes the readership through the roof (although I admit that feels good). It's not (entirely) that I have been able to get through to people that I've been trying to find since 'the old days'.

It is, that the blog is finally realizing one of the missions. A very important one to me personally, and ....

By following the technology closely, and yes, being an early adopter, you can accomplish what you want to, if you follow the 'right vehicle'.

When I closed my export company 7 years ago and quietly moved into SEO and SEM, I was doing what I wanted to, and loving it. It came naturally and the results were tremendously gratifying. I called it 'playing chess with Google' and it was fun.

It was apparent to me 6 months ago that the landscape was changing quickly and in order to continue to do what I wanted to, I'd have to come out of the shadows of travel and tourism and Search Engine Management, and find some of the people I knew many years ago (when you could fit the websites on the Net in a book), and also engage some of the 'newer' so-called A-list players.

What I wanted to do was some more traveling, work on something exciting, maybe a start-up, maybe with Google, but not be in business for myself anymore. Evangelist? Writer? Video? You get the idea.

I had numerous conversations over time via Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, and I began getting a little discouraged. (Getting discouraged never stopped me before ...)

Things weren't moving fast enough.

I picked a few SEM accounts as they came along, knowing it really wasn't what I wanted to do anymore.

Warning, here we go again.....

Then came Friendfeed and the piece that I wrote last week which not only caused the largest two day spike to this blog in it's short history, but also brought a barrage of new Facebook 'friends', Twitter followers, and Friendfeed subscribers.

Last night, I started sifting through the list, following back most on Twitter (no we're not talking thousands but that's the way I like it) and more importantly, engaging a small number of people directly on Friendfeed.

Now this was interesting, productive, AND fun, and I really only spent about a half hour doing it.

I wouldn't admit it to myself, but I was quietly jealous of Scoble, Calacanis and a few others that were obviously loving what they were doing. I had been quiet for too long, and the reality was, for a 51 year old guy that feels 30, the doors were tough to open.

The difference between the social networks, Twitter, and Friendfeed is that with Friendfeed, you can literally engage in a one-way (or 10-way) conversation and make a point. You can hit the people that you want to, and start the discussion or join it, and it just works. It's also self-perpetuating if my Feedburner numbers are right.

The other really cool thing (some don't like this but it works for me), is that I don't have to open and moderate comments on this blog. Have something to say? For now, say it on Friendfeed, unmoderated, and have fun.

Of the 'short list' that I made a while back of people I wanted to engage, the ONLY ONE that hasn't returned an e-mail, Facebook e-mail, Twit, or subscribed to my Friendfeed is Michael Arrington (TechCrunch). That's OK Mike. I still read you...

A-listers (new and old) have been called snobs by some. I realized a long time ago that if I was getting 1000 e-mails, tweets, or whatever a day, I probably wouldn't answer all of them either. It's annoying and impossible. The tech paparazzi is here!

So Scoble's reading my Friendfeed as of yesterday. Sure he's a little noisy on Twitter (and I have to turn him on and off). Same for Calacanis and others. (Memo to Calacanis: You should be speaking to your audience, not twittering that you're in the same bar with Lindsay Lohan at 5 grand a table. It's obvious you get excited, but stuff like that is an outright turn off to a lot of people ... and you're spearheading a start-up!).

The point is, that there are many of you out there, just like me. We can, and should, be doing what excites us, because we not only KNOW that we can be an asset to specific companies and/or ventures .... We should be part of the all-important dialog.

IF the Friendfeed gang continues to innovate, Friendfeed will be 'the connection vehicle that works'.

Scoble is excited that he's going to visit Feedfriend on Monday. So am I. Let's see what he finds out :)

Earth Hour - Google fades to black

In an initiative first noticed in Europe, users that visited Google between 9 and 10 AM on the US east coast were greeted with a black background on Google's home page.

The explanation and links you may be interested in can be found here.

Facebook fatal error ? Hyper Friend Requests.

You may just get 500 or more Facebook friend requests this weekend. Yikes!
Will you check them? Probably not.

Facebook made a few changes this past week.

The published stuff said "We're adding new privacy controls".

Simultaneously, they added "People you may know" right on your log-in page.

Well how cool is this?

It's not.

I admit it. There were actually a few people that showed up that I do know and/or wanted to network with in the next six months. I sent five. They showed me a LOT more.

Bigtime backfire on the way?.

We all know there are a lot of 'friend junkies' out there that want to be associated with you (or maybe someone else :). On this blog I've been a proponent of 'opening the door' to those you don't know because you never know 'what they have to bring to your party'.

This new Facebook feature takes it a little too far.

There's a good chance that this weekend, if you've been around for a while, you're going to be bombarded with Facebook friend requests.

While this feature may be good for college students, or in other circles, it's outright self-defeating in most spaces. 'Invite overload' will turn off users.

So, if you did send a Facebook friend request to someone the past few days, you may have to do it again. In some cases, your request may 'get flushed' with a few hundred others without the user even looking at it.

This is one of those features you want to have to go and look for, and not have show up all of a sudden on your profile page.

Did I just rant? :)

Friendfeed Frenzy - Why it continues

I think we can all comfortably credit Louis Gray with carving out a neat niche and bringing the so-called numerous lifestreaming apps to the 'significant awareness' pool.

Friendfeed was very smart over the past week and they really should be congratulated. Facebook-level stuff (or better).

It makes me wonder why Microsoft, with all their resources, can't move like this (They used to???) and, instead, still be looking at spending a rediculous amount of money on Yahoo.

What did Friendfeed do that was different?. How did they cross-over from the 'tech world' to social networking, and a variety of other niche audiences almost overnight?

They grabbed 'the buzz' and they ran with it.

These guys must have been working day and night?

The 'buzz' is FREE ADVERTISING and you never let it get away if you have the time and/or resources.

Just when almost everyone in the tech sector was talking about Friendfeed (practically to the day), they introduced the open API and developers jumped all over it. At the same time, they introduced numerous new features, like the one for me (He who types too fast). You can edit a comment. (I like this :)

Ever try to edit a Twitter comment? You have to 're-twit' and by that time your audience is probably off doing something else ....
"Well, this guy can't spell ... let's not follow him anymore" Zap!

Then it comes back around. If you happen to be curious what the heck I was talking about at 3 AM (and half asleep) on Twitter, you could look at my FriendFeed and see the follow-up Twitter posts in less than a minute.

It may sound simple but this is beyond very cool stuff, and somehow I think it's just the beginning.

Think about it. Twitter was pretty simple too. How many apps are out there now??

Now, if we don't have any 'FightMeMe' stuff this weekend, that'll make two weekends in a row of stuff I don't want to read anyway....

Maybe I'll be able to catch a good movie :)

Firefox 2 security update from Mozilla

Mozilla issues patch for Firefox 2.0



Mozilla released Firefox version 2.0.0.13 earlier today.

If your browser doesn't automatically update, you can hit the 'help' tab, the 'check for updates'.

The update addresses a number of security issues.

Upcoming Firefox 3.0 is looking better all the time, both from a user standpoint and 'under the hood', as we continue to test the nightly builds of Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 (or Minefield).

Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 RC2

There seems to be a little confusion about Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3.

We've been running the first release candidate of XP SP3 (RC1) since it was first made available, on a few test computers.

Microsoft, thankfully, is one of those companies that differentiates between beta software and release candidates (with release candidates being closer to "OK for you to mess with, but preferably not on a mission-critical or your main computer". Their beta software, as shown by the recent release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, is literally for developers only (and likely will not be stable).

Back to SP3. We have had NO issues with the initial release (RC1). In fact, it has been stable on 3 boxes here. Microsoft has issued extensive documentation on this service pack / roll-up.

Mostly security, but, we are seeing what others have been reporting. A slight improvement in performance and stability. (This is not in the documentation so take it for what it's worth?).

Which brings us to the confusion.

There were a few builds of this service pack, the latest of which is Windows XP SP3 RC2. Note: RC1 users must offload the first version of SP3 before installing this newer build.

Microsoft advises that the latest version user experience shouldn't differ that much from SP3 RC1 ... which is exactly why we're downloading it right now :)

As always, we'll keep you posted :)

MSN and Live.com embedding videos in search results

Microsoft's Live.com search has been seen embedding videos in their main index search results.

The feature has been spotted under numerous keyword searches by several of our readers since the weekend. The videos appear at the top of the page (unlike Google's universal search, which still, in most cases, is putting them lower on page 1 or 2 for many search terms).

Is the feature permanent or are they testing ?

It appears to be the first roll-out of the feature, as next to the videos, it does ask "Is this useful?".

Video IS here.

Video is becoming an integral part of search (and ranking in many cases). Our take is that the top of the page takes up an awful lot of real estate and if Live.com (MSN) plans to implement the feature permanently, they should be further down the page.

Video search results have met with mixed reviews. While some users love them, others still prefer text and audio, while others have commented that they simply don't have time to watch them.