Better Rocketboom in Google Reader

For those of you not familiar with Rocketboom – it’s worth checking out.

One source of annoyance is that none of the RSS feeds consistently present the content embedded in Google Reader. Clicking “Open in New Tab” in your browser of choice is so 2006.

However, help is at hand as the folks at Rocketboom use YouTube as one of their distribution channels. YouTube allows you to create custom RSS feeds by user or tag. The feed http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/rocketboom/videos.rss presents a superior Google Reader experience.

The same trick can be applied to other videoblogs, however you’re mileage might vary as not every show updates their YouTube feed on a regular basis. For example Ask A Ninja are a few shows behind on YouTube.

Google Rocks

Google have released a Mobile product called “Sync” to allow users to “Synchronize your BlackBerry® calendar with your Google calendar.” It’s Over-The-Air (OTA) too, which is the only way to go with syncing now. Reading on the forums, some users are having a few issues but it works for me.  I’m going to give Google Calendar with “Sync” a spin and we’ll see how it plays out.

I’ve written before about the pain of being a mobile user when I investigated Plaxo. Google seem to be committed to making an effort in this area, just look at all the applications they have and their efforts with android.

Just like Facebook; it is too easy to forget just how good a job Google is doing because the expectations are so high. Bravo Google!

A Frame Changer?

I remember being introduced to the concept of framing by a friend a couple of years ago when discussing the US presidential elections of 2004.

The New York Times depicted similar intensity among Republicans:

In one recent memo, titled ‘The 14 Words Never to Use,’ [Frank] Luntz urged conservatives to restrict themselves to phrases from what he calls … the ‘New American Lexicon.’ Thus, a smart Republican, in Luntz’s view, never advocates ‘drilling for oil’; he prefers ‘exploring for energy.’ He should never criticize the ‘government,’ which cleans our streets and pays our firemen; he should attack ‘Washington,’ with its ceaseless thirst for taxes and regulations. ‘We should never use the word outsourcing,’ Luntz wrote, ‘because we will then be asked to defend or end the practice of allowing companies to ship American jobs overseas.’

I hadn’t been planning to write anything about OpenSocial and facebook. But as fate would have it, two of my regular podcast listens touched on the subject of developing for facebook. Having the concepts explained again in a manner that assumed no prior knowledge was refreshing and after a period of reflection, I thought I’d give my johnny come lately views.

It is easy to forget just how far social networking has come in the past year, it’s easy to forget that MySpace were tired of companies piggybacking off them, it’s easy to forget that no one had a platform that developers could use to integrate their applications into a network less than a year ago.

It was facebook that changed the game, but it is OpenSocial that is changing  the frame.

In the blogosphere, it’s been argued that OpenSocial is a facebook killer, that facebook will be forced to join OpenSocial, that developers will desert facebook based on numbers.
I think users might need a bit more convincing. In social networking, users are king and their network is facebook’s castle.

If you book them, they will come…

– Who are you?
– I’m Jim Morrison.
(Wayne’s World 2)

I was going to write a long post about my thoughts on Google’s Open Social anouncement. But I thought this article by Anne Zelenka from GigaOM hit the spot.

Mobile Users = Second Class Citizen

I’ve came to the conclusion that the reason I don’t blog more than a couple of times a month is because of wordpress. Now while I’m infinitely more impressed with WordPress than GoDaddy’s QuickBlog. I think I’d blog more if WordPress’ mobile interface didn’t suck – please will you let me edit existing drafts on my mobile?

While I was pleased that Google Reader finally allowed us to share items on our Mobile’s why do we still not have search? Get on with it already!

PS. Plaxo, if you want me to try your product why don’t you offer proper syncing to my Blackberry 8800 too?

Google Reader Adds Share to Mobile Version

The problem with taking three weeks holiday is that you might miss some announcements. Google have improved the mobile version of Google Reader by adding the ability to share articles a la the full site.

I had been planning on commenting on this in a post about how Google could improve their mobile products. Anyway, bravo Google it might be a small improvement but it is one with a high utility value for me.