Google Reader – Page 2 – A Blog by Franklin Pettit

Google Reader Gets Notes

Image by VoIPman via Flickr

Google Reader gets notes. The ability to annotate a note to a post is very cool. The ability to share anything from the web feed or not is cool. But…

I typed a quick note as I shared a Louis Gray post. But I misspelled a word. How do I correct it? This is just an example of many questions I have with these new enhancements.

Sidebar – Who else thinks this is too little too late? I am using FriendFeed so much this is almost irrelevant. FriendFeed allows more than a note. It is a real social network with conversation. I can comment and then edit the comment. – End Sidebar

I still love Google Reader it just seems like the enhancements are so reactionary. What happened to Reader being on the cutting innovative edge? It seems Reader is back on their heels.

Profy.com a new hosted blog/feed reader Google Reader competitor is giving much more flexibility for noting. Profy‘s free form way of letting you share a whole post and blog it in any way you want is much better. [For more on Profy see David Knight’s interview with Svetlana Gladkova, Profy Vice President.]

The Google Reader note is good idea. I just think buggy enhancements need to be thought out more. Do not put it in play and then fix it.

But now my first ever note has a freaking TYPO! How do I fix it? Geez. I wanted Google Reader to update already but the enhancements need to be clear and valuable. Get rid of the bugs and complete the enhancements. So here is my bug/completion list…

Combine Notes to remove duplicates – If one entry has a note and the other doesn’t I do not need to read both.
Show/Link original linker – If you read alot of shared feeds or just Scobles’ you will see notes and have no idea whom they came from. I suggest linking to that person’s shared feed.
Edit my notes – you can not edit a note once it has been posted.
Fix the double share process. If you note something and check shared it shares it once. When the note box goes away the share button is not selected. Make the check box on the note window flag an entry as shared.
Friendfeed can read comments separate from the entry. Question only: Can the notes be read in XML independently from the post?

Comments Floating in the Blogosphere

Comments here,
Comments there,
Comments posted everywhere.

Comments here,
Comments there,
Comments floating in the blogosphere.

The blogosphere is a buzz. The conversation is about comments. I wrote the other day about “the FriendFeed disjointed comments problem.” My post was pointing out how FriendFeed could help move the conversation back to the original blog.

Conversation is taking place outside of the originating blog and the problem is far bigger than just FriendFeed. The buzz began over the weekend when Louis Gray’s post “Should Fractured Feed Reader Comments Raise Blog Owners’ Ire?” hit Techmeme.

I watched as Louis Gray’s post hit and the problem was clearly demonstrated. Conversation took place on the blog post, on plaxo, and on friendfeed. Certainly that was not all of the stir. I am sure other conversation took place on many other sites as people on del.icio.us commented as they bookmarked it, commented on the digg submission, etc.

The FriendFeed conversation was certainly spirited. The whole issue revolved around Shyftr and whether they should allow commenting with full text RSS. Some compared it to simple content scraping. It led one user to state, “they (Shyftr) can expect to get hit with a DMCA take-down notice” if his content was used.

My take on the whole issue. Shyftr is great to allow comments. Almost every Google Reader user would love the ability to comment in the app. However let’s create a system to allow posting back to the original post.

I posted the following on the FriendFeed conversation:

I wonder if CommentsPortability.org or OpenComments.Org are available? A system must be devised to send the comments back to the blogs. An open standard will come out of this. I can see Disqus being one of the early players. As for the offenders they are too numerous to name. Disqus, Digg, Del.icio.us, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Shyftr, Mixx, etc. Anywhere you post a link and comment not on the original blog would be included. I think this applies to linkers as much as the sites that pull the full text RSS.

The issue is protecting content creators. I have seen numerous posts lately about the changing landscape of the blogosphere and the lack of original content. Content creators simply feel threatened by someone else getting the page views and never even knowing about it.

So I was kidding about CommentsPortability and OpenComments but we simply need a system to let the Shyftrs, the FriendFeeds, or wherever else the conversation is taking place send comments back to the original post.

As my comment stated I do think Disqus could be a major early player in this.

Dave Winer says that RSS has elements in place that can be used. Can’t we allow just get along?

Toluu Invites

Toluu the new beta RSS sharing site is currently in private beta. Never heard of it? Check out this ReadWriteWeb article. I have some invites if interested. Leave a comment with your email if you want one.

Update 06/13/2008: Toluu is gaining alot of momentum. The latest enhancements are great. For more about the founder Caleb Elston go here. I have 25 invites. Leave a comment if you want one.

The FriendFeed Disjointed Comments Problem

FriendFeed is great. I like the service but let me describe the Disjointed Comments problem. The aggregation needs to group based upon link. For example, Louis Gray wrote a nice post titled “TechMeme Leaderboard’s Top Ten: Six Months In.” On his FriendFeed alone there are 3 seperate entries to this post. Three places to like or hide and three places to comment. An entry directly submitted to FriendFeed, an entry to Google Reader sharing his post feed, and the post feed itself.

The key to me to satisfy the blogosphere is easily displays all of this activity (liking and commenting) back on the original post. I have already seen an early wordpress plugin displaying inline the FriendFeed comments of the post.

The next step for FriendFeed is to combine/group entries that link to the destination URL. Positioned in the FriendFeed by the last reference. So in other words if Louis bookmarked his post a fourth time on del.icio.us then the whole group would bubble to the top of his FriendFeed.

So once they are grouped together the convesation at least on the Louis Gray FriendFeed is not disjointed.

However, the next problem is me. I liked the post. So Louis had it shared in 3 or 4 places. What if I share it / link it in a couple of places. Google Reader and Del.icio.us. What if people comment on my FriendFeed?

This is conversation Louis might want to know about. So now FriendFeed groups my conversations with Louis’s FriendFeed. This is probably not a big deal if just I share it. But what about when it is shared 500 times?

Ok So FriendFeed does all of that. Great, Huh? Well now the bloggers want more. That wordpress plugin now needs to embed the conversation on the original post. Then maybe just maybe the blogosphere is happy. Well probably not. It doesn’t happen very often. 🙂

FriendFeed is Awesome but….

FriendFeed is all the rage. I am trying it of course. I am not so interested in Lifestreaming as having many sites information all in one place. It is an aggregator. Aggregation is a time saver. Really that is what Google Reader is all about. A feed reader is just aggregating content. The inline commenting in FriendFeed is very cool. The new conversation aspect is cool. The post back to twitter is cool too. FriendFeed is a cool site and must for now. I like FriendFeed.

But everyday I read another article about how to deal with information glut. Today I read an article about the lack of new content. Scoble mentioned how blogging had changed since last year. The point is that new content is hard to find.

What’s next? I dunno but it will be called by some catch phrase buzz word. Not sure what it will be called and I know it does not matter. What’s next for feed reading and for information processing? Not sure who has the answer. One would think it would be Google. Not a bunch of former Googlers. In any case I am tired of the baby steps but such is life.

I am confident that 5 years from now progress will win out and we will read and disseminate what is important to us and leave the rest.

This directly has to do with what I call 10 minute time. I have a half written post about 10 minute time saved as a draft. In a nutshell I want to spend 10 minutes and read what is important and interesting to me. I only want to spend 10 minutes. My life is not the web. The web is great and I hope the future will hold the answer to this information overload.

By the way this post is not new content either just an observation to be recorded on this day.