Capture Twitter URLs with Yahoo Pipes, then track via RSS

Mike Sansone wrote of a nifty way to capture Twitter URLs in one place -- and that solves a big problem for those of us who follow a hundred or so especially helpful people.

The trick -- and it literally takes 2 minutes -- is to use Yahoo Pipes to sort out tweets containing a URL -- and then using Pipes to make an RSS feed of same. Elegant, fast and it works.

Mike has the tutorial over at Converstations. Mike, by the way, got it from @ryananderson, and he got it from @kaziel: proof, if more is needed, that this social media stuff spreads good stuff as quickly and as efficiently as it spreads manure.

Technorati : hacks, mike sansone, pipes, rss, twitter

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:25pm in RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

Bitacle: thieves now open for business in the 8th circle of hell

Update: I see Shel Israel posted on the Bitacle Scam, yesterday, with support and advice from Amy Gahran.

Dante reserved the 8th circle of hell for thieves and falsifiers. Since he was pre-Internet, I've taken the liberty of assigning spammers and feed scrapers to the 8th circle, too. Seems a fitting place.

They're going to need more room down on the 8th, though, now that Bitacle has joined the feed-scraping cohort of rip-off artists.

Yesterday, I noticed an odd trackback request for my last post. Following it, I discovered that Bitacle has been stealing my feed -- along with the feeds of thousands of others.

What's making me so angry?

• They never asked.
• They are violating my Creative Commons deed by using my material as a way to spawn Google Adsense ads (commercial use) and by slapping a different CC license on my content.
• Their own Creative Commons deed, by allowing commercial use of any content found on the site, invites other scammers to extend and expand the rip-off downstream.
• They encourage readers to leave comments on their site, not mine.
• Email to them is simply ignored.

Other bloggers have noticed. Der Schockwellenreiter Weblog calls Bitacle a traffic thief. Jogy is seriously pissed off. Plain Jane Mom asks "Why is Bitacle Stealing All Our Blogs?" (and tags her post "thieving bastards," a nice touch I am copying). I can't describe the rage of the Spoken For blogger.... go see for yourself (Valerie also passes on some advice for foiling the evil ones).

The vermin behind Bitacle is apparently a guy named Jesus Angelo Glez. I haven't decided, yet, whether to send him a bill, or just chortle over the misery that awaits him in the 8th circle. Hey, Jesus! Save your soul... stop ripping off other folk's coffee.

Read more "Bitacle: thieves now open for business in the 8th circle of hell"

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:59pm in RSS, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (14)

Feedburner’s new stats. I like!

Friend Shel Holtz gives us the heads up on Feedburner's new stats:

Those holding Feedburner accounts for their RSS feeds can take a look at the renovated stats page, unveiled yesterday. Included is the ability to track podcast downloads along with a new feature called "Uncommon Users," which lets you find places where "your feed content is referenced or clicked that FeedBurner does not recognize as a common feed service," according to the official Feedburner blog.

What I like is the breakdown on popular feed items -- while I am not a stats junkie, my fast analysis shows that articles popular with subscribers are not the same articles that are popular with people who wander in through a link. There's overlap, but discrepancies, too. Not sure what that means, and I am pretty sure it's irrelevant. But fun to know.

Technorati: feedburner

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:34pm in RSS, Taxonomy of Cyberspace | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)

Feedburner Launches PingShot

FeedBurner, the RSS-feed manager used by many blogs, including this one, has added a pinging service: PingShot. That's a nice feature, because now I don't have to trot over to Ping-o-Matic to ping everyone.

FeedBurner seems to be doing little to promote the new service, though. So it's a good thing Josh Hallett at hyku spotted it and let the rest of the world know.

By the way... are you subscribed to Desirable Roasted Coffee? If not, here's my FeedBurner link.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:32am in Blog Management, Blogging, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

Cover Your Ass: Who Owns Blog Comments?

Through Amy Gahran's OPML file, I ran across this gem by Charles M. Smith, an attorney and board member of Pheedo (and, no, I am not in any way endorsing Pheedo)..

"Who owns blog comments?

"The question of who owns comments has recently come up several times in conversation. This is a fairly straight-forward copyright issue.... Under copyright law, the blog comment author is the owner of the comment and his/her copyrights are triggered at the moment the comment is added to the blog."

Then, and you have to love Smith's understatement:

"The consequences of this simple analysis could be painful for blog operators."

"Why on Earth", I hear you all asking... Well, Smith lays it out (I've added snide emphasis):

"First, the author of a blog comment could request that his/her comment be removed from a blog. While it is an easy process to remove a comment, the harm to a blog could be substantial. Especially if the comment removed is central to the community discussion/dialogue around a given topic. This could severely impact the value of a blog and reduce its following/readership.

"Second, many blog operators make money by running contextual display ads on the same page as comments. The author of a comment could claim that a portion of the blog’s advertising dollars belongs to him because his comment is helping to generate the ad revenue.

"Third, in the course of performing maintenance on a blog or when a blog is moved to a new server - there is likely an additional copy of blog comments made in the transition. While this can be viewed as a trivial matter, it could technically constitute a copyright violation. This issue becomes the more problematic for companies with deep pockets. Keep in mind that authors may seek compensation from those who make unauthorized copies or reproductions of their works."

Not only do I find this instructive, I find it highly amusing. Now the Blogging for Benjamins crowd needs to worry about whether their revenue will be sucked off by some litigious commenter.

Unfortunately, (and isn't always just so?) Smith gives an out to the B4B folks by posting a Terms of Service clause for bloggers. And it's a piece of work. I can see all sorts of advantages, and I am considering its merits. Is it time for bloggers to Cover Your Ass?

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 11:59am in Blog Management, Blogging, Blogging for Benjamins, Law, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

What Does an Invitation to Make Money Look Like?

I suppose it's just my day to encounter scams. Larry Borsato brings dreadful news of an outfit that encourages home-based ecommerce aspirants to rip off RSS feeds, then sells them the software to do it....

"When you see little buttons like these ...

  (This is what an invitation to make money looks like!)

...  it means that the owners of the content are inviting you to use what they've written."

Yes, it's an invitation. But subject to this Creative Commons license. You lose, scammer. (This way to the Egress!).

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:07am in Advertising, Marketing, RSS, Scams | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

GreatNews Might Be Good News

Since I'm really fed up with RSSBandit, and not yet satisfied with the FeedDemon/NewsGator integration, I've been looking around for a better way to read RSS feeds.

I may have found it in GreatNews, a desktop aggregator. It integrates well with Bloglines, remembers your folder structure when importing and exporting OPML files (something sadly missing in FeedDemon & NewsGator), runs at warp speed, and looks nice. Here's a screenshot of the newspaper verision:

And for those of you who don't like full RSS feeds -- and you know who you are -- GreatNews also offers a truncated feed view:

I've been using it only since this morning, but so far I like it... a lot!

Tip of the porkpie to Steve Rubel.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 02:42pm in RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

Pirillo and Ochman Declare Full-Text RSS Dead; Wake Me Up for the Funeral

Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome comes down hard on full-text RSS feeds, ostensibly because ... well, it's never apparent why he doesn't like them. Just that he's not going to have them anymore.

I'd bet, though, it's because he'd like to drive his site ad revenues up.

B. L Ochman comes down with four feet against full feeds. Why? It helps click-through on ads.

Maybe... maybe not. I'm skeptical of the "I need the AdSense revenue" people. At least one tech blogger claims 1 million hits a month, and he has AdSense, yet he's reduced to selling his burnt-out laptop. I don't believe for a minute that 99% of AdSense ad carriers are covering more than their hosting fees.

Here in Copenhagen, I decided to abandon all interest in AdSense and truncated feeds the minute I was asked to help set up a commercial blog. As Esther Dyson wrote in Wired in the mid-90s: consultants and advisors should give away 90% of their thinking for free, since the 10% they sell would have accounted for 90% of their revenues anyway. And since the giveaway is just advertising, the revenue snowballs.

Works for me.

Update: In what can charitably be described as a spleen-venting, Pirillo accepts reality and reinstates full feed: "I love how everybody whines when they don't get their way... . So, for all of you who unsubscribed from my RSS feed because it wasn't the way you wanted it (even though you're not the one providing it or paying for it), then you won't ever know [that I have reinstated full feeds]. ... Did you know that, or were you one who cut off his/her nose to spite your face? [sic];)

Tip of the firewarden's helmet to Shel Holtz for discovering that.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:14pm in Blog Management, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (7) | TrackBack (3)

Gahran Says Bag Blog Stereotypes; Hobson Tells How to Make the Most of RSS

Friend Shel Holtz often points out blogs are nothing but websites supported by an easy and lightweight CMS program that lets authors post easily and readers comment and trackback easily. I've been using that explanation with clients and, if they have a website or use the web often, they immediately understand. And we can go from there.

Going from there is made easier by Contentious Amy Gahran's article What's a Blog? Bag the Stereotypes:

"Over the past year weblogs have become a popular topic of conversation – both in private discussion and at conferences and other events. Understandably, a lot of people who are talking about blogs have little or no experience with weblogs. For a variety of reasons, these weblog neophytes often are the ones who start or lead high-profile discussions about blogging, especially within organizations and at conferences.

"While it’s good that weblog neophytes are considering and talking about blogs at all, they often fall prey to, and perpetuate, a fair amount of misinformation – especially stereotypes. Here are some clarifications on how to understand and discuss weblogs, in order to avoid those pitfalls…"

And in inimitable Amy style, she goes on to clarify what's a blog, what isn't a blog, and weblog myths to avoid.

One of the myths Amy advises to avoid is "There are too many blogs to follow." Friend Neville Hobson positively skewers that myth in his post Getting More From Your RSS Feed:

"Whether web-based or installed on your own computer, [RSS readers] enable you to receive information from many different websites and blogs all in one place.

"What this means is that it's increasingly likely that more people will read what you write via subscribing to your RSS feed than through visiting your blog. This is especially true if people like what you write on your blog and so want to read more of it, and read it regularly.

"Look at it this way. If you want to read what 20 different bloggers or websites write about, you could go and visit each of those blogs or websites. So that's 20 different places to visit. Or, you could sign up to get each of these RSS feeds and automatically receive what they write, every time they publish something, in your RSS reader."

Neville goes on to quote Robert Scoble:

"If you don't have an RSS feed, your site is lame because you've told the connectors (er, superusers, er influentials) that they don't matter. When I see a site that doesn't have an RSS feed I see a site that says "Mr. Scoble you aren't welcome here and we don't ever want you to come back again."

I heartily agree. No RSS feed is the kiss of death if you want me to be a reader.

But truncated, or summary feeds (a post on feed that reads: "As I noted yesterday... (read on)") also send me around the bend. As Neville points out, bloggers issue truncated feeds in an attempt to force me to come to their blog (usually because of the Google ads, I believe).

I've simply dropped some blogs entirely because I cannot be bothered to figure out what the cryptic headlines and opening lines mean. Others, such as Amy Gahran and B.L. Ochman, get a look in from time to time because they know how to write an informative headline and lead.

Hobson goes on to explain how to make the most of FeedBurner.

Good reads from Amy Gahran and Neville Hobson; a tip of the boater to them both.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:16am in Blog Management, Blogging, Communication, Online Media, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (0)

Walt Mossberg Gives the Skinny on RSS

Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, has written a concise and cogent overview of RSS and how to use it.

With The Economist mentioning podcasting, BusinessWeek raving about blogs, and the WSJ explaining to the hapless how to manage their blog reading, the business world may not get it but they can't claim not to have heard about it.

Update: Speaking of not getting it... Indiana University Dean Blaise Cronin does not get it, notes Andy Lark.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:40pm in Communication, RSS | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)