Jan 22, 2009 | blog
This was a frustrating experience, but in the end worked out like it should. I have to admit that the actual migration by FeedBurner to using my Google account went well, and the existing feeds redirected to the new FeedBurner/Google domain that handles them.
The biggest issues for me were the longer-than-expected reader-count anomaly, and the not-so-exact steps involved to redirect the “MyBrand†URLs to the new feed domain.
Finally, nearly a week after move the feeds over, the reader count is approaching where it used to be. One or two days eh? HA!
Also, it took a bit of digging to find out the real trick to re-enabling the “MyBrand†configuration for my FeedBurner account. It after getting DNS changes made, and validating the FeedBurner MyBrand configuration, it turns out that you should also disable the service, then re-enable it. What’s with that?
Anyway, the feeds are finally redirected correctly, both existing ones that folks were using and the links here on the blog. Sorry for any strange feed behavior in the last week – I totally didn’t expect it to happen.
Jan 19, 2009 | blog
Well, I finally got around to moving my FeedBurner account to my Google account. Not sure if I did something wrong, or if I just need to wait a few days. It seems that I can’t see any items in my feed now, as I monitor it in Google Reader.
Has anyone else done this and found the same issue? I know I’ve probably missed something somewhere. I’ve got the “MyBrand†personal domain settings enabled, and updated the DNS CNAME records for my domain last night as directly by the MyBrand settings page on FeedBurner.
So far, it’s no go, but I wonder if the CNAME is pointing to the right URL. In the email I got after the FeedBurner –> Google migration was done, it showed a different URL for the feed. Namely, http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Rickmahncom – which is different than the rickmahn.feedproxy.ghs.google.com that is listed on the MyBrand page.
Suggestions welcome, but I’ll probably be testing different settings this evening. Sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause.
May 6, 2008 | blog, happiness
Hi all! One of my friends from SOBCon08 suggested that it would be nice to have a feed just dedicated to my Happiness posts. So that’s what I did. You can subscribe to this feed and get just those posts you’re looking for and nothing more.
Since I can’t remember who made that suggestion, please let me know so I can set the record straight and let everyone know.
Well I do remember! In a discussion with writing/blogging friend Joanna Young at the conference, we had talked about the mixed social media, personal branding, and other content. While we talked about possibly moving it to another site, it occurred to me to try a separate feed for the happiness posts. I think it works. Thanks Joanna!
Feb 28, 2008 | blog
FriendFeed just made it on my browser’s link toolbar. Why is this important? Because, it delivers on the promise that Facebook seemed to offer to me, but was not able to deliver (like many social networks). Easy interaction with friends with the ability to simply share relevant information.
I can give you a laundry list of what’s wrong with Facebook from my point of view, but I’ll instead share the big secret of FriendFeed for me. Feeds. There’s more – it’s the way you use the feeds. It’s not another feed aggregator, it’s a tool that lets you bring feeds from your various online profiles and share them with friends. Yeah, sure, sounds like a “lifestream” right, and yes, you can do that with Plaxo Plus.
However, FriendFeed is different in that, like Twitter, you can view a combined stream of your feeds and your friend’s feeds. Within this feed, you can comment on anything – it’s fantastic as a conversation starter. You can see what other people have said about a post, a link, a picture, a news item, etc… whatever someone has happened to share in a feed.
I can’t describe it much better, like Twitter, FriendFeed rocks. Kudos to Louis Gray for really bringing attention to it. You can find my FriendFeed here.
Anyway, it’s made it’s way to my toolbar – which means it’s just one click away and not buried in a bookmark menu (like others). It’s that addicting useful.
Jan 20, 2008 | blog
Ok, that title is a pretty poor attempt of comparing shared RSS Feeds to fast food, but it does bare some truth if we follow through a little bit. Starting with Google Reader’s Share feature, people were able to share content of their choosing with anyone who wanted to visit their Shared Items site. Here’s mine if your curious what the resulting pre-fabricated link blog looks like.
The really interesting twist to this Google Reader feature, is the RSS feed that goes with it. A custom feed made up of select posts from possibly dozens or hundreds of sources, aggregated by your favorite person or blogger. This opened up a huge potential for pre-selected, filtered, quality feeds that mirror the genre of the blogger of your choice.
Now there are a couple of shared feed aggregators, kind of like Techmeme, that allow you to add your shared feed to the list. My favorite at the moment is ReadBurner, which recently added a stats page. Another tool is SharedReader, which, unfortunately, looks to be down as of this writing. Tools like these rank posts from individual shared feeds by popularity. Now I can compare what is on Techmeme, or Tailrank, or Newsvine with what is being shared by everyday people via Google Reader and choose what’s important to me. It also allows me to see who is sharing these posts, and be able to gauge how relevant they are to my interests.
I guess the point I’m trying to get around to is the availability of pre-filtered feeds, that a busy person can simply read instead of hunting for. We don’t have to sort through the duplicate posts from 15 news sources, or non-relevant posts that distract us from the task at hand. You can find shared feeds from people you trust, and know that they’ve done the sorting for you, so you can save time.
Along with this, however, is the fact that someone else is suggesting your reading list. Just like fast food, it’s not always 100% of what you want (heck does it even come close to 75% of what you want?) but it fills the void. Fast food saves time, but doesn’t necessarily taste that great – or is it that good for you. The same can be said of shared feeds. Don’t get me wrong, I follow several too.
While I think shared feeds are a great way of saving time, using some aggregation tools that rank these shared feeds into more relevant lists help you find the content that you may be looking for. Some bloggers are even being very diligent to share only the most interesting, relevant posts that aren’t likely to be found in the “mass media” of technology, political, or social meme aggregators.
Still, there is nothing like keeping track of your favorite bloggers and sorting through your own feed list. It takes more time, but it’s a better way to connect with your favorite writers, and take more in context from each blog. At least that’s the way I look at it. 🙂
Tips? Suggestions? Other meme aggregators? Suggested feeds? Think I’m off base on this? Share ’em all below in the comments.
