What Google Reader Should Implement
Google Reader has quickly become the internets RSS Reader of choice, it’s keyboard shortcuts and ease of use have made it easy to adopt and continue to use. The ability to share your feeds with your friends and comment on them is a definite shift towards a more social experience but it’s with this I feel there needs to be a few extra innovations to make it a more complete experience.
I am aware these functions might already be available via GreaseMonkey scripts but in my view they need to be hardcoded into the Reader itself.
Subscription to Friends Shared Items
Currently, Google Reader will only add the feeds of friends that you converse with over GTalk (or at least that is what I have found). If you were to find a link to someone’s shared items, you would click the “Subscribe” button (as shown to the right). Oddly though, this will only add that persons feed to your normal subscriptions, which of course you can arrange and group.
What Google need to do is add this persons feed into the “Friends Shared Items” area, grouping all of your friends subscriptions together. To not do this in the first place seems a bit backwards.
Add Google Talk To The Navigation Pane
Just as there is a chat applet inside Google Mail, Google should allow the option to embed a chat widget into their feed reader too. This could be tied in with a way to share feeds between friends, continuing the social aspect of the service.
The ability to find people who have the same feeds as you and connect with them could pave a way to personalised recommendations, something that Google does already offer but could make some more inroads into.
Add Social Buttons To Feed Toolbar
This is a hit or miss idea but would aid the adoption towards a more social web. Adding buttons to the bottom of posts would allow readers to help syndicate content, therefore increasing the desire for publishers to offer RSS feeds in the first place.
TrailGuru: Track Where You Go
There are a million devices for sale these days that allow you to track where you go and report stats on it. These devices, however, tend to be unsightly wristwatches or are embeddable features of your satellite navigation gadget. TrailGuru steps in and takes away the need for the extra gadgetry and gives you all the same features but from your iPhone.
Getting it is easy. Download the app from the iTunes store, install it to your menu and run it.
Using it is even easier. You click the start button when you start your walk/run/bike and then click stop when you arrive. The application works out your elevation, speed, location and distances.
So you have all this information, now what? Now, you simply click “Post” and it uploads your track to the TrailGuru website. Here you can view your averages and even a map of your outing. Here is mine from my trip to the pet shop on my lunch break:
Click here to see all the statistics related to this route.
If your iPhone is jailbroken or not, this app is a very useful addition to your iPhone program menu.
How To Run A Social Media Site
Everybody remembers the last time they experienced some truly awesome customer service, whether it be in your local supermarket, dining in a restaurant or when a popular website rolls out one of your suggestions.
The latter is what Mixx did.
Mixx has a fantastic reputation for delivering on user requests as I have posted before but let me show you how a request I put to the Mixx team was rolled out in a matter of days.
The Story (sit down children).
I had requested that Mixx place a “Google” category in the Tech section of their website (as shown below) via Twitter. I didn’t receive a response right away but assumed it would be added to the list of site improvements.
Fast forward four days and I receive a Twitter message notification in my email telling me a Google category has been added.
I log in and low and behold, the section is there in all it’s glory!
It really shows that when users come up with a good idea, the Mixx team will do whatever it takes to get the feature implemented. With all the problems at Digg, I really can’t see people putting up with inadequacy there for too long before they end up coming to the “Red Side” where there is a proper community.
You can view the new category here.
SEO: Enough Already!
I’ll be honest, I have written a few posts that may have fallen into the wide category of Search Engine Optimization, but the current trend is just baffling to say the least; a hundred articles on how to check your backlinks? C’mon give me a break.
I am all for the tips and so called “secrets” that these white hat search engine hackers employ, as a webmaster myself I am interested in making my website as visible as it can be with the minimum of fuss. It’s just that SEO posts are fastly becoming the equivalent to Spam, all the sites using the same products and ideas to market something that has no tried or tested method.
What is the main reason Askimet has blocked 20,000 spam comments? SEO. By bombarding peoples servers with linked comments advertising Phentermine and Viagra, they are attempting to build backlinks whilst obviously trying to drive sales from that particular website. The more backinks a website has, the more “credible” it appears to search engines as a useful place for information. I may fall into this trap because I employ the “You Comment, I Follow” rule, which basically strips the nofollow tag from the comment authors website link and allows them to receive a backlink from my website. This maybe why I get a lot comment Spam, or maybe because this blog rocks (hehe).
Head over to a prominent Social Media website such as Mixx or Digg, you will find hundreds of submissions from “self made” internet entrepreneurs who make their living employing SEO tactics or teaching others to do the same. Their posts are linkbait, re-hashing the same content from their own blogs, let alone the thousands of other SEO websites that reside on the web.
Perhaps I don’t understand it, my attempts at making money on the web have resulted in a £100 cheque from Google Adsense, and a few pounds here and there. I don’t write many posts that are baited for visitors because I like to write about things personal to me or showcase something that I found useful.
The sites that make money from SEO, fair play to you. There is no rulebook on how to rank highly on Google (notice I say Google and no other search engine) and you plug and plug away to get that extra figure in your pagerank. In my eyes, a well coded website and relevant content are all you need to do well in your rankings, but then again I don’t rely on Google for my income.
Agree with this post? Leave a trackback or a comment (I follow!), alternatively vote in the poll!
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Gmail Spam
Usually Gmail’s spam filter is exemplary and I never even receive a whiff of Spam in my Inbox. Over the last two days however, one type of Spam has been circumventing the filter and very annoyingly making it’s way into the sacred zone of my Inbox.
The screenshot below shows what the message contains:
It is quite unremarkable and doesn’t really offer much (which is probably why it slipped through). I haven’t bothered to open the .zip file for fear of infection (haha, infection).
Anyone else been getting this? It seems to be one every hour or so. Being a diligent user, I have used the Report Spam button repeatedly but they still keep slipping through.
I have now added this button to put a spanner in the spammers works (love the aliteration?)
Google Pagerank
It seems that after Google’s recent update of their pagerank algorithm, Matt’s Journal has risen one point to the dizzy heights of “3″!
What can I do to boost my Pagerank?
Quite simply, get other sites to link to your website. By producing relevant content, engaging the user with new and unique ideas, you could increase the probability of someone linking to you, making you a trusted source for information, Google smiles apon this
.
When you create content, if it references another source then link it. Pagerank doesn’t necessarily boost your site because you do this, it will help drive content to the sources you reference therefore giving them “Google PR”. Google will know that content they produce is worth listing. By linking, you open up the idea that the referenced site may want to return the link love and link you back.
Make sure you have a Google Sitemap and make sure your tags promote Google to crawl your website. Keep your design simple.
Im not popular but I’m a personal blogger, a pagerank of three can’t be too bad!