Written on May 1, 2008 – 11:46 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
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For those people who DO know what RSS is and use it it is hard to imagine that most people don’t. According to some research (Pew Internet & Yahoo) only 12% of all people are aware of RSS and less than 4% have knowingly used it.
Although I can imagine that most of our readers (with an interest in The Next Web) do know about RSS I still wanted to tell you about the phenomena since today is official RSS Awareness day.
According to WikiPedia “RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a “feed” or “web feed” or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.”
But maybe this video (titled “RSS in Plain English”) is more interesting to watch:
As you can see in the video, before you start subscribing to the RSS feeds of your favorite sites you will sign-up for (or download) a RSS reader. Try Google Reader, Bloglines or Netvibes.
Once you have your RSS reader working you can subscribe to RSS feeds by clicking the RSS icon on a website or in your browser url field. Most modern web browsers already identify RSS feeds, so you will be able to see the RSS icon. Don’t forget to subscribe to our feed!
Written on April 23, 2008 – 8:02 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
We love scoops and we know you do as well. So here’s one: Swiss RSS service Dixero is going to launch tomorrow. Yet another RSS service, you ask. Yes! But this one is doing something new. It allows you to aggregate your favorite feeds and moreover, it transforms posts into audio by using different computer-generated voices. That means you can put the latest post of this blog on your iPod and listen to the audio version while traveling or working out. How time-saving and efficient is that?
Luca Mascaro (ceo Dixero.com) & Dafne Gobbi
One little doubt here though: will the technology behind Dixero manage to recognize names, especially the weird 2.0 ones like blurb? I mean, the idea of the service sounds good, yet if I only get non-understandable audio files I won’t use Dixero.
So according to chief strategy officer Lucas Mascaro and Dafne Gobbi we can test that out tomorrow. They’ve traveled all the way from Lugano, Switzerland to launch the service under the eyes of the Web 2.0 attendants. For now, watch this informative video featuring Luca:
Update: Frederic Martin left a comment saying this kind of service already exists. Check it out.
Written on March 31, 2008 – 1:27 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
UPDATE: Caleb Elston from Toluu supplied us with 100 invites. Thanks Caleb! Leave a comment if you’d like to receive one.
Ok, it’s not like Friendfeed, but RSS service Toluu is getting a fair amount of attention in the blogosphere. After receiving a beta invite from founder Caleb Elston, I figured it was about time to test the service myself.
So, you could use Toluu as a RSS reader, but it’s not the main purpose of the service. On Toluu it’s all about importing, sharing and discovering. Or like they say themselves: “Feeds locked away in a solitary feedreader? Set them free!” The idea is that you should share your RSS feeds with friends, because the best way to discover new talented bloggers is through the recommendations of your pals. Toluu makes this whole sharing part pretty easy by just asking for an OPML file. Moreover, they offer OpenId support so signing up shouldn’t be all too hard either.
The fun part starts after uploading your feeds. Toluu matches you with people who have the same taste in blogs and recommends feeds ‘you might like’. In my case, the recommended blogs turn out to be Copyblogger and the personal writings of Jason Calacanis and Steve Rubel. Oh well, why not following some more web celebs? However, the recommendations do make sense, since I’m really into blogging and Web 2.0.
Another interesting feature is the Activity page. You’ll get a neat overview of what feeds your friends are adding (with the easy-to-use bookmarklet) and who they’ve added as a contact.
The RSS service is still in beta so I will forgive them some mishaps in the interface. For example, the amount of clicks can be drastically reduced by showing the recommend feeds on the ‘Matches’ page.
ReadWriteWeb really digs this service and even gives you 10 Reasons Why You’re Going to Love Toluu, and they’re not the only one. Yet I have a major concern why Toluu might have some trouble attracting a larger crowd.
The thing is, I’m not sure whether Toluu can survive the community-creating efforts of Google. In case you haven’t noticed yet, Google is adding more and more social features.
One of the latest examples of this strategy happened to be Google Reader-related. Last December, the Internet giant linked Gtalk with Reader so that you can see what your contacts like. This move is based on the same philosophy of Toluu: nobody can make better recommendations than your friends. You trust them, probably have some similar interests and moreover, they’re important to you. Before I was introduced to Toluu, this was THE way for me to discover new blogs and interesting articles.
Another Google Reader feature that might be a threat to Toluu is the recommendations box. It’s right in your face when open Reader and it often comes up with some good blogs.
Despite these overlapping functions, I did decide to use Toluu. Yet I guess this has more to do with my natural interest for new services rather than that I had the feeling I missed something. Moreover, I think Toluu is a very sympathetic service as they promote sharing and have also joined the open data movement.
However, I’m afraid that a lot of Google Readers will just think: “Well, I already know what my Gtalk contacts read, why would I join this new service where none of my friends are?”.
Well, I can just hope that the invite-function and badges like the one the left will do their viral job.
Written on March 7, 2008 – 12:01 am
Martin Kloos, Business consultant
As we all know feeds are driving the social web revolution. And services that make your feed reading life easier are plenty. I for instance used to be a big fan of Rojo, but since Google Reader came along I’m all in the j - k - s - alt-s thing. And with competitors like Bloglines, Feedlounge and Newsgator, competition is rough.
The more I appreciate the efforts of Ukrainian based NewsAlloy.com, who wants to offer “zero refresh features” and Gmail style navigation. Techcrunch covered NewsAlloy in January 2006 so they are around for quite some time, but it seems they just recently relaunched with version 2 of their reader.
The latest version has a pretty slick interface with a useful navigation bar on the right of your feeds. It offers default features like sharing, pinning, tags, key shortcuts, OPML import and mobile support. The interface feels a lot like Google reader and is indeed lighting fast. But due to some tiny usability issues (for instance, the title of a post is pretty small and the interface is pretty overwhelming at first) I have a bit of a hard time getting used to it. Fortunately, the interface is pretty much customizable so much of the features can be altered or concealed totally.
It seems that NewsAlloy focuses on the feed reading experts with a complete and future rich ajax interface. Small trivia: It appears that NewsAlloy was for sale in late 2007, but couldn’t make a deal so they focused on developing version 2 of their service. But perhaps you can make them an offer they can’t refuse…
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
