Feed Your Blog To Twits

If you are familiar with Jaiku, Twitters competing micro blogging service, then you’ll know that you can add content into your Jaiku account from RSS feeds across the web. For now, you can’t accomplish this with Twitter but Twitterfeed at least allows you to feed your blog and other RSS feeds to Twitter.

Twitterfeeds site design leaves a lot to be desired, but the concept behind the service is clear. Before you begin using Twitterfeed, make sure you have a registered Twitter account. This Twitter account, or one of your choosing, will be the one that posts your feed entries onto Twitter. Once you create your account, make sure you click on the CREATE NEW TWITTER FEED link. One of the cool things about Twitterfeed is that it has support for OpenID logins. There are too many sites and services on the net that require users to create a username and password. We need more of these sites to support OpenID so that we can use one unified login for multiple sites.

Type in your Twitter username and password, your blogs RSS feed, choose your update frequency which is usually 30 minutes, maximum amount of updates to post each time and if you desire you can type in a description which will be attached as the prefix to each Twitter post. If this option is disabled, only the posts title and link will be posted. The last option you have available to use is whether or not the feed is active.

Once configured, Twitterfeed will check your feeds based on the update frequency you choose during the setup process. If Twitterfeed detects new content, it will automatically post the new content to Twitter via your account.

This service is fairly straightforward to use but I have to question it’s meaningfulness. For instance, if you maintain a blog and you publish a piece of content, you can immediately come up with your own prefix with the associated post link and post it to Twitter and it will show up instantly as compared to waiting 30 minutes from the time it was published. The manual method described above actually offers more flexibility but it is also a little more time consuming. Twitterfeed does allow you to have more than one feed attached to an account, so if you don’t want to be bothered with creating Tweets featuring your new content, then this service should do the trick.

YouTube Remixer Launched/Reviewed

As reported by TechCrunch, YouTube has officially launched YouTube Remixer today, which is a new service that allows users to edit their videos from within YouTube itself. Join me as I take a look at this new service to see what it has to offer.

Powered by Adobe Premiere Express, the new service supports the insertion of graphics, text and audio as well as overlays and in-video transitions. While testing the new service my FireFox browser crashed which proves that this is not the ideal solution to use if you want to create a quality video which may take up quite a bit of your time, only to potentially have it wasted. Remixer should be popular to those who can not afford the Adobe Premiere Express desktop software, however, because you can only use your own media, users will be unable to create entertaining mashups which would have been a big hit.

The Beginning:

Remixer can be used by anyone who has registered a YouTube account. To begin using Remixer, click the following link http://www.youtube.com/ytremixer The first thing you should notice is that the familiar white background color of YouTube is gone. The bright color scheme that YouTube users have come to expect has been exchanged for a depressing grey color scheme. I can’t help but feel depressed while looking at the interface. At any rate, all of the videos that you have uploaded to your YouTube account will appear on the right by default. This area also houses the Graphics And Captions, Borders, Transition and Music features that can be added to the videos.

How To Use Remixer:

To begin using Remixer, drag one of your videos from the list on the right into the first box that appears in the time line. This will be the starting point of your video. It may take some time before the video loads into the time line but once it does, move the triangle located above the top of the red bar to the right to a point in the video where you would like a transition effect to occur. Once you drag the triangle to the appropriate spot, click on the SCISSORS icon to the left of the red bar. The Scissors icon will slice the video into two separate clips allowing you to place a transition in between them.

The transition effect, applied to the video

After the video is sliced into two separate sections, click on Transitions And Effects link. There are five different transitions to choose from, they are, Fade to Black, Fade to White, Fade Out, Circle Wipe, and Blur. Each one of these effects are self explanatory. To use one of the effects, drag the name of the effect into the smaller gray square that sits in between the two video clips. Preview the video with the included effects by clicking on the preview link in the bottom left corner of the Remixer Window. If you don’t like the result, you can either click on the UNDO button, or you can drag the effect from the time line back into the window on the right side of the page.

You can also add borders to your video, although I have yet to figure out how to place a border on one video clip rather than have it appear on every clip. The border feature allows you to add that extra spice to your piece. There are seventeen different borders to choose from including a television border, vintage photo border, and a plasma border which tries to provide the effect that your watching the video on a plasma television. If you manage to figure out how to place different borders on different video clips, let me know in the comments section.

Remixer also provides a way for you to provide different graphics and captions over your videos. The graphics are Vector based which means you can scale them to the size that you need and they will retain their quality. Some of the graphics include a baby bottle, sunglasses and the ever so cute ginger bread man. There are also three different types of captions that you can add to your video clips, stylish, plain and thought bubbles.

As for the ability to add music and photos to your videos, I have yet to figure that out. As far as I know, YouTube is used for videos, not for photos or for music. I tried dragging images from a separate browser window into the Remixer time line and that did not work. If you know how to add music and photos to your movies, please let me know so I can update this post.

Once you are finished remixing your video, click on the publish button. You will be asked to give the video a Title, Description and provide a list of tags for the video. Because of the launch of Remixer, YouTube has now added a new link in your My Videos area called My Remixed Videos. This is where all of the videos you Remix will be located once you publish them.

Conclusion:

The first remix video I published failed to save the transition effects that I applied. The second video did the same thing, so I am unable to provide a demo video showing the different transition effects that are available. I am not sure if this is a bug or not but I would think that the videos you publish from Remixer are suppose to contain the transitions you applied. The video looked exactly the way it was suppose to as I previewed it in the Remixer service, however, what I viewed is not how the actual video was published.

Remixer is no Adobe Desktop Solution, but it does provide a way for average YouTube users to compile their existing videos into something a bit more interesting. A major drawback for Remixer is the non ability to save a piece of work. This means that if your browser crashes during your Remixing session, you will have to start over from scratch and I doubt that very many users will actually start from scratch. As I noted earlier, this would have been truly Remixing if YouTube users had the ability to Remix any videos that are stored in the Remixer repository but I suppose this is asking too much. The service is actually pretty easy to use and I encourage you to look over your videos and see if you can’t improve their presentation using Remixer.

Use 15 Bookmarking Services With 1

Consolidation of web services is the next big thing on the web and OnlyWire is on the bandwagon providing a service that allows one bookmarklet to take the place of 19 others.

Online bookmarking really took off once del.icio.us hit the web. del.icio.us offers a way for users to store all of their bookmarks in one place on line, sharing of bookmarks with friends, and also allowed a way for users to check out what their friends were bookmarking. Since the launch of del.icio.us there have been a countless number of other bookmarking sites to hit the scene such as Blue Dot, Furl, Diigo, Spurl ect. You may have developed a favorite amongst all of these different offerings, but what if you could use nineteen different bookmarking services through only one? That is precisely what OnlyWire allows you to do.

Synopses:

OnlyWire provides users with a bookmarklet which is tied into nineteen different bookmarking services. Once you add something to OnlyWire, that bookmark is then added to each one of the other nineteen bookmarking services you actively have an account on. Note what I just said. You must have an active account on one or more of the nineteen bookmarking services that OnlyWire is tied into if you want your bookmarks to be published on those sites.

Why Bother:

You may be wondering why anyone would ever have nineteen separate accounts on nineteen separate bookmarking sites? Having an account on each of those services and then using OnlyWire to publish to all of them at once allows podcasters, bloggers and content producers to easily expose their content to a wider audience. I’m not saying that you should be exclusively using this service to only bookmark your content because that is a form of abuse, but there is nothing wrong with occasionally tagging your own content every once and awhile. This will generate an increase in traffic on your end and having your content on those nineteen services provides at least nineteen more back links to whatever site it is your promoting.

Creating An Account:

Creating an account is pretty simple. Provide a username, password, type in the associated CAPTCHA image text and off you go. One thing worth noting is that OnlyWire will automatically bookmark OnlyWire.com and the OnlyWire Sponsor site on each of the bookmarking services you are participating with. The good news is that OnlyWire will only bookmark the Sponsor link once.

The Boring Part:

Once your account is created, it will automatically be logged into OnlyWire.com. Near the top of the SERVICES page, you will see an area designated for BOOKMARK TOOLS: These tools are the actual OnlyWire bookmarklets you will need to use to publish items to your account. Unlike Blue Dot, OnlyWire allows you to bookmark pages that contain Frames and ones that don’t. Most sites however, are generally void of frames so you’ll most likely only use the Save Page (NO FRAMES) bookmarklet. On a funny note, OnlyWire uses the acronym (STD) to describe the bookmarklet that saves pages with no frames. The bookmarklet is safe to use, so don’t worry about catching anything!

Also on the SERVICES page their will be two columns of text boxes, one for usernames and the other for passwords. Each set of boxes is for a particular bookmarking site. Be sure to fill out the appropriate details for each service your apart of or the OnlyWire bookmarklet will be unable to post to those sites. This would be a good opportunity for you to create accounts on each site you don’t already have one with by clicking on the link to the left of the text boxes. I managed to create accounts on all but five of the services listed. Those sites I couldn’t register with were apparently having some account registration issues that prevented me from getting an account. If this happens to you, just skip them.

Using The BookMarklet:

Using the bookmarklet couldn’t be any easier. Once you come across a piece of content on the web you would like to bookmark, simply click the Bookmarklet button in your browser. Usually the title and the website link will appear automatically. Always add tags to your items. These tags play an important role as they allow members of each bookmarking site to find your content. Think of tags as keywords and keyword phrases that users would type into a search box to find your content. You can choose whether to keep your tags private or not, but if you want to shoot yourself in the foot be sure to mark them as private. You don’t have to, but it is generally a good idea to put in a snippet about the particular item you are bookmarking. Those who find your content will be grateful for the short description.

Final Thoughts:

OnlyWire is a great service as it allows users to consolidate at least 19 bookmarklets into one. Not only does this save time and energy but it could potentially help you clean up your browser window by allowing you to get rid of the individual bookmarklets you may have from different bookmarking services. As I registered an account to all of those services I didn’t have an account on, I noticed that each one came with it’s own browser plugin/bookmarklet which would of made my FireFox browser a mess.

Using OnlyWire in the proper way should really benefit web masters as it allows them to really push their content to a wider audience. As noted previously, if you use OnlyWire to only bookmark content on your own site, you are generally abusing the service which puts your account at risk of being suspended or banned. Bookmark your own content sparingly. Also try to play an active role in these social bookmarking communities by adding users as friends, sharing bookmarks, bookmarking the same things your friends are bookmarking ect. After all, it wouldn’t be Web 2.0 without having a good bit of social interaction within a community.

Learn More:

If you would like to learn more about OnlyWire, I suggest downloading and taking a listen to Pete Balasch’s episode 15 of the Internet Marketing And SEO Tips Podcast. This episode covers OnlyWire and why web masters should seriously consider jumping on board and using the service.

If you prefer one bookmarking service over another, please tell us why in the commenting section.

Solve Your Web2pt0 Identity Crisis With Onxiam

Creating accounts on new Web 2.0 sites is the easy part as most sites only require an email address and a username however, managing all of those accounts can be tough.

Onxiam pronounced (ON-X-I-AM), a Web 2.0 service aimed at consolidating all of your online identities into one simple page makes managing all of those accounts a breeze by allowing you to promote a single identity which provides links to all of your other online identities. Simply put, this service places your online presence onto one page so that instead of telling friends and family where you are and what your username is on a particular website, you simply send them one link which provides all of the information they need such as your username on a particular service.

Onxiam was created by Kevin Poulsen based out of Chicago, Illinois.

As I joined more and more online communities, I found myself constantly saying to people “On [website] I am [name].” This was getting tiresome, and I thought that there just had to be a better way of promoting myself to my friends, my family and to the online world as a whole.

I looked around but didn’t find anything, so I decided to build it myself. “Kevin Poulsen”

The Account Process:

Setting up a new account is fairly straight forward. As with most Web 2.0 sites you need to provide an email address, username and a password. Once the supplied information is provided you will automatically be logged into the site and will be presented with a page that provides a complimentary greeting. From this page, you can add what Onxiam calls IDENTITIES to your account.

The Social Aspect:

Although Onxiam fails to provide a way for registered users to communicate with each other through the service itself, knowing your friends identities on various services such as AIM or SKYPE allows you to get in contact with those individuals, indirectly because of Onxiam. If you perform a search and discover that one of your friends is not listed as being a registered member, be sure to send them an email invitation through the Onxiam invite service. The invitation will contain some generic text stating that you would like that person to join the service. Registered users can also add websites that are not already listed in the site directory. Once a site is added, it is instantly available for other users to use however, items such as icons and the ability to link directly to user profile pages does take some time to be added to the site.

Identity Crisis:

One thing to keep in mind while creating your identities is that you do have the option of making them PRIVATE which is great considering you may not want people following you around the net EVERYWHERE you go. From your Onxiam home page, click on the ADD link which is underneath the text MY INDENTITIES. The drop-down list contains what seems like a never ending list of all of the different sites and services currently in the Onxiam database. Once you select the site your apart of, type in your username for that site into the box on the right hand side. If you want this entry to be private, be sure to uncheck the box labeled PUBLIC. If you fail to uncheck this box, the account information will be listed in your public profile. Once you have that information typed in, press the ADD button. Your identity for that specific website will now be listed on your Onxiam home page.

My Opinion

This service is incredibly easy to use and although some new competition in this consolidating space has recently arrived (findmeon.com) Onxiam provides a simple, clear way of putting your entire online presence onto one page. So far, I have yet to come across a service that makes this process any easier.

One of the disconcerting things about this service is that the development blog has gone silent. The last post published on the dev blog dates back to October 31, 2006. Although Keven has built a service that in many ways can run on it’s own, it would be nice to see a fairly updated development blog to prevent users from creating a mentality that the service is dead. Another surprising fact is that the service is still free to use and is void of advertising. I’m not sure how much of being ad free will play into Onxiam’s future but it is refreshing to see a simple service that is not plastered with ads.

Conclusion

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Adam Jackson from http://www.adamjacksonlive.com for pointing me to this site. In a recent DailyTechTalk Talkcast I asked Adam if there were any Web 2.0 site/service consolidation services out there and this is the one he pointed me to. Good choice Adam.

On my quest to join all of the Web 2.0 sites and services on the net, Onxiam is like a godsend to me. I think of it as being everywhere on the net from one place. Be sure to bookmark http://www.onxiam.com/people/Jeffro2pt0/ if you have the chance to keep tabs on me. If you have an even better solution be sure to post it in the comments.

Crank Up The TweetVolume

I recently discovered this site by accident and although it’s use is fairly simple, it gives the user a chance to look deep inside in the Twitterverse.

TweetVolume is a service which uses a combination of Twitter and Google to visually show how many times a word or phrase has been used on the Twitter Network. Although the Twitter userbase makes up a small portion of the Internet, it is quite entertaining to figure out what the GENERAL interests are within the Twitter community.

For instance, Coffee appears over 15,000 times while Tea appears only 5,010 times and Water only appears 3,920 times. Therefor, it is safe to assume that the majority of Twitter users are coffee drinkers. It’s also interesting to note that the word Lunch appears over 17,000 times which is the highest amount when compared with other times of the day. So now we know what workers are really doing on their lunch breaks.

If I had one suggestion, it would be to somehow someway include the actual Twitter message or messages that included the searched term. This set of results could also be complimented by the username who created the message and then the username could link to their Twitter page. Think of these as Twitter Referral links which would show the actual post that the word was used in. I think that would be pretty cool.

I’ve already spent an hour dabbling with the service and I’m sure I will probably waste even more time trying to figure out what the buzz is all about within the Twitterverse. Give it a shot and report back with your findings!

New Fan Of Tumblr

After listening to the Net@Nite podcast with Leo Laporte where Leo interviews the founders of Jaiku and Tumblr, I have decided to take the plunge and give the Tumblr service a try. I must say that I am very impressed with how easy it is to publish content. Using the bookmarklet feature that you can use directly from FireFox, you can add content that you discover on the net straight to your Tumblr site to share with the rest of the world. The bookmarklet does an excellent job in creating the link to the source of the content allowing you to just copy the content, and add it to your Tumblr blog. The bookmarklet seamlessly does the rest.

Using Tumblr is also fun. They have a really cool feature which I feel Efx2.com could benefit from called Reblogging. ReBlogging let’s you quickly share content you discover on other tumblelogs, and even add or change the commentary. Imagine coming across a cool post on someones Efx2 blog such as one of those meme types of posts. You could simply click a Reblog link for that post and it would automatically put the same post into your blog, allowing you to change the content of the post and publish it on your own blog.

One of the downsides to Tumblr right now is the ability to discover other Tumblelogs. There is no central repository of Tumblrs nor are their any ways to browse amongst the active Tumblr blogs. However, it does appear as though they will be addressing this issue sometime in the near future.

“More ways to find friends – It seems like a no-brainer to show friends of your friends, but we have some interesting tools for this that aren’t quite ready uncover. More ways to discover tumblelogs are right around the corner. “

The reason I love Tumblr is because I can quickly add content that would otherwise take me quite a bit of time to publish on my very own blog. I also listened very closely to Leo Laporte when he described the three different types of blogging going on across the web. Those are:

Micro Blogging: This is where Twitter and Jaiku come in handy. With just 140 characters to create a post, this is used to quickly share thoughts random ideas. Something short.

MidRange Blogging: This is where Tumblr excels as it allows you to easily share content you deem interesting on the web. There is no need to write an extensive post about the particular piece of content. Simply post and move on. Continue reading →

Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff

The Musings Of Jeff Chandler

Reviews