Month: September 2007

Google Reader Has Impressive Numbers

GoogleReader LogoThe hot news item of the day seems to center around a leaked GoogleVideo which was supposed to be a training video for ‘Noogles’ or new Google employees. The video contained quite a few interesting tidbits of information.

* Google Reader has two kinds of feeds:
– feeds that have one subscriber (two thirds from the number of feeds, they’re updated every 3 hours)
– feeds that have more than one subscriber (these feeds are updated every hour)

* Google Reader uses 10 TB for storing all the raw data

* Google Reader crawls 8 million feeds

* Google Reader is the only major feed reader that keeps the entire history for all the feeds.

* many Google applications use Google Reader’s infrastructure for feeds: iGoogle, orkut, Gmail’s web clips, Blogger widgets, Google Spreadsheets, Ajax API. Google Reader is the place for any kind of user-driven activities that involve feeds and it’s independent from Google Blog Search.

* the rate of user growth = the rate of growth for the number of feeds

* the index size grows 4% every week

* 70% of the Google Reader traffic comes from Firefox (a lot of geeky users)

* Gmail and orkut are the only Google applications that have a bigger number of pageviews/user than Google Reader

* search requires a lot of computational resources. Google Reader uses two indexes for search:
– a big tree updated twice a day (150machines, 600 million documents)
– 40 small trees for recent posts, updated every 5 minutes (40 machines, 40million documents)

* future features:
– very soon: internationalization, feed recommendations, accepting pings sent to Google Blog Search
– in the near future: simple clustering based on links (posts that link to the same page), adding comments to the shared items
– idea for monetization: adding AdSense ads and sharing the revenue with publishers, assuming they use AdSense

Most of the information from this post comes from a leaked, confidential video in which Google’s Ben Darnell explained to some Nooglers how Google Reader works. The video was hosted by Google Video, but it’s no longer available. More about the video here.

You can hear the audio portion of the video by using the player shown below.

NetWebApp Web 2.0 Directory

NetWebApp.com LogoFrom the guys who brought you WebScriptLabs comes NetWebApp. NetWebApp is a web 2.0 sites and services directory with style.

NetWebApp features a clean, crisp design which makes browsing around the directory a breeze.  Entries are organized by category, with each category being accessed via the top of the page. Each entry in the directory contains a link to the site or service in question, tags, a user based rating system, date the entry was posted, and a small description. Entry pages also contain a comment form for users to discuss the site or service mentioned on that page.

This is what the site looks like

One of the cool things about directories such as this one is that, if they are updated on a regular basis, their Latest Apps RSS Feed becomes a valuable source of keeping you up to date with what’s new. If your keeping tabs on the bleeding edge, make sure you subscribe to feeds that contain information such as the latest entries into the directory.

FileZilla 3.0 Released

FileZilla Client Logo

FileZilla version 3.0 has been released. FileZilla is now available across multiple platforms. That means you can use it on Windows/Mac/Linux however, the Mac version has been delayed. If you decide to move from the Windows version to the Linux version, you’ll be able to import your old FileZilla settings into the new client by following these directions.

  • Select “Edit” from the menu
  • Click “Import”
  • Browse to your Filezilla 2 folder
  • Select the file titled FileZilla.xml.

You can download the latest release from the FileZilla Project Page.

Full Feed Or Partial Feed That Is The Question

Problogger.net LogoAn interesting debate is taking place on Problogger.net That debate centers around the question of whether or not your RSS feeds should be partial or full. Gina from Lifehacker argues for Partial feeds while Rick from Feedburner argues for Full feeds.

The argument I hear most often when it comes to partial feeds is that, the partial content serves as a teaser and is used to get the user to click on the article link to visit the actual page where ads are waiting to be clicked. Most content authors think that by providing a Full RSS Feed is the same as giving away their content for free which then, can not be monetized because users will never visit their site.

After reading the argument presented for both sides, I am going to have to side with Rick Klau from Feedburner.com He presents a number of points that are really worth considering. Some of the points Rick mentions include:

If you just include a sentence or two of a post in a feed, you’re asking the reader to click through to read the rest of the post – when the actual substance of the post is not at all obvious from those first few sentences.

It should be noted that in feeds who’ve compared full and partial feeds, we’ve seen no hard evidence suggesting that partial feeds alone increase the clickthrough rate.

full posts also contain far richer information within the posts – hyperlinks – that can be exploited by services like TechMeme, Technorati, and other RSS-aware services. Partial posts rob readers (and automated services) of that context, as the hyperlinks themselves aren’t included in the partial posts.

While it’s easy to see which side of the fence I’m on in regards to this issue, it has to be noted that partial feeds make sense for specific situations. For example, some publishers do not have the proper licensing rights to publish the full text of an article.

Most feed readers now a days give users the ability to choose how they want to view their subscriptions. The options are typically Full Text, Partial Text, or headlines only. I’ve always told other users of Feedburner to set their Feed to display the full post which would cater to everyone. Let the user decide if they want to see only a partial post or not.

To read the debate and decide for yourself, be sure to read Full Or Partial RSS FEEDS – The Great Debate

Talkshoe Client Receives A Major Face Lift

talkshoe.com logoThis weekend was a big weekend for Talkshoe as they completely redesigned their client. The new client contains quite a few new features as well as ShoePhone integration.

The new client now has an area on the right which showcases information related to the talkcast. Underneath that box, is a mini user profile that users can see at a glance. The overall design is a bit more streamlined than before and in my opinion is a welcome change. Other enhancements include:

  • Text Wrapping When Chatting
  • Integrated ShoePhone
  • Anonymous Calling

The new client did introduce at least one new bug. When users copy a link from the chat window and paste it into their browser, instead of a link, a random number is pasted. Talkshoe is aware of the issue and will be releasing a hotfix within the near future.

Below are two different screen shots. The first one, is the Talkshoe client before the upgrade. The second, is the Talkshoe client as it is today. Click on the images to see a larger version.

Before:

After:

45 RSS Feed Directories Worth Submitting To

jasonbartholme.com logo

Jason Bartholme has published a list of 45 sites that he has hand picked that allow you to quickly submit your RSS feed to. This is great for blog owners who want to gain more feed subscribers or for those who want to gain even more back links. I spent over 2 hours last night manually submitting my feed to each service. It will be interesting to see what my Feedburner stats say in the coming days.

Check out Jasons List – 45 Working Sites to Quickly Submit Your RSS Feeds

TwitterAdder 20 Random Friends

TwitterAdder.com Logo
For those of you having trouble finding so called ‘friends‘ on twitter, your in luck. Using TwitterAdder, you can now have 20 random people added as friends to your account.

TwitterAdder is the newest guy in the bunch to use the Twitter API. After you login to their site using your username and password, TwitterAdder then takes 20 random people and adds them to your friends list. I’m not going to give this service a try since I recently figured out how I want to use Twitter effectively. However, if you end up giving the service a try, let me know how the results turned out.

This Site Undergoes Design Tweaks

This weekend, I decided to get a different perspective on my blog by sitting other people down in front of my website to observe how they browse around and which areas of the site they click. Upon initial feedback, I was told that the top part of my site seemed a bit busy. I was told that it would be nice if a reader had the ability to click on a button that would either maximize or minimize the three content blocks near the top of the site.

The three content blocks in question are the Recent Articles, Recent Comments and the Most Popular Posts. After browsing around the WordPress.org site looking for solutions, I came across a post that mentioned the following plugin, JS Toggle Boxes Js Toggle Boxes provided a means for me to add a plus symbol or a minus symbol to a div element that contained an unordered list. Using a combination of Javascript, CSS and cookies, readers of this site can now show or hide at least 6 different content blocks. Show Or Hide Content By Clicking On This Icon

I’ve also rearranged my sidebar menus so that site specific content is in the left sidebar while, 3rd party widgets and misc stuff is in the right sidebar. I’ve also replaced the default technorati favorite image and added a custom one within the same box which contains my subscription images. I’ve also changed the entire background site to represent one solid color, as the gradient background image combined with a background color just never seemed to work in Internet Explorer. Surrounding the entire site is now a white 3 pixel border. The black one was not viewable with the darker background color.

Although the div elements never bothered me, you now have a choice as to whether or not you want to view those specific content areas or not. They work whether you have Javascript enabled or disabled. Also, because of the use of cookies, your viewing settings will be remembered unless the cookie is deleted, in which case all of the content boxes will be open again.

Please let me know what you think of the design changes.

Which Internet Celebrity Are You?

Technosailor has put together a self importance test that will analyze how important you think you are. After completing the test, I found out that I am most like Darren Rowse of Problogger.com Imagine that! Here is what the result actually states:

I am most like Darren Rowse

Well, I’ll agree with the fact that I like to help other bloggers when I can. Just the other day, I was participating in the end of a podcast and ended up talking to two other bloggers for an hour, giving them some tips and tricks. I honestly don’t participate in many social networking services and I don’t turn everyone in the world into my friend. So it’s nice that I apparently have some of the same qualities as Darren, but will I ever make as much income as Darren? That’s the question I want to know.

Let me know which internet celebrity you turn out to be.