Writing on feeds, search, widgets, and the social web.

Niall Kennedy's weblog, newest first. Page 14 of 72.

SF Tech Sessions: Timely conversations

The next SF Tech Sessions event will take place this Thursday, April 27, from 7-9 p.m. in San Francisco. I selected a group of presenters covering online personal communication in various forms including text messaging, audio/video, and entire virtual worlds. Read more details and RSVP for this free event on the SF Tech Sessions blog. Participants will have a chance to chat with other local techies and hear 15-minute presentations from Meebo, Userplane, and Linden Lab. Each company has taken a unique approach to online messaging and you should come away with new ideas and perspectives on the technology industry….

Live Drive and online storage

Fortune magazine mentioned an upcoming product from Microsoft named Live Drive in its story on Ray Ozzie this week. It’s compared to Google’s ambitions in online storage and other large Internet companies are starting to think of different ways to search more content online. I think Google’s potential offering (GDrive) is totally different from what a company such as Yahoo, Microsoft, or even Apple might offer in terms of online storage because these large companies sell and help users create large media files. I’ll use Microsoft and its Live products, both announced and speculated, as an example but similar ideas…

Application-specific WiFi for free

I’ve read some chatter lately about free WiFi offerings by Yahoo! and others tied to a specific application. Connecting a product to an established network of connection points makes a lot of sense for companies with established branding power, and I think there will be many new partnerships to help users of specific applications stay connected on the road. While there is a lot of talk about companies building their own WiFi networks for specific purposes I think we will instead see partnerships with existing restricted access networks with some advertising and branding swap to offset costs. Yahoo! Messenger On-the-Road…

Google GData

Google’s GData format is a” new protocol based on Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0.” It also includes OpenSearch elements. It’s too late in the day for me to dig into the format right now, but you might enjoy having a look….

Back from vacation

I spent the last week in Maui visiting a friend and having some rest and relaxation before I start at Microsoft on Monday. I spent my time scuba diving, hiking, eating BBQ, climbing volcanos, and watching movies and a few European soccer matches. It was a relaxing trip and a fun adventure but it’s good to be back in the Bay area and around familiar people and places. I was impressed my the number of enterprising small businesses in Maui made possible by tourism. Individuals would set up a photo area with a few tropical birds and charge for postcards…

FeedBurner adds e-mail subscriptions

FeedBurner just announced FeedBurner Email, allowing readers to subscribe to your feed via e-mail. Most Internet users are familiar with e-mail but a feed reader is a completely foreign concept. They live within Outlook and have an efficient work flow governed by rules-based sorting and alerts. This new feature provided by FeedBurner helps a feed publisher reach more readers in their favorite method of delivery. E-mail subscriptions to a feed is nothing new, even for FeedBurner customers. The company has partnered with FeedBlitz and more recently Squeet to provide e-mail subscriptions in the past, and both companies remain an option…

Recruiters in the late 90s

In the summer of 2000 I became fed up enough with clueless recruiters calling me I decided to create a fake résumé to test how bad the industry had become. The résumé was not just slightly fake, it was over-the-top and obvious to anyone in the industry. I put the résumé up on Monster.com with my real name and phone number and a completely altered work history. I had calls within 20 minutes, including recruiters claiming to work for KPCB and Benchmark encouraging me to come work at companies such as BroadBand Office or Catapulse. I had so many calls…

Think Partership acquires IceRocket

Think Partnership is acquiring IceRocket, a search engine focused on emerging media such as feeds, cell phone pictures, and the latest news. Think Partnership is a group of companies based out of Chicago in the dating, real estate, and SEO industries. Think Partnership raised $26.5 million last week in a private placement of preferred stock and they are redefining the company through acquisitions. No word yet on the purchase price of IceRocket. The deal is in the due diligence stage. Tags: icerocket…

Start pages do have revenue

A few blogs — Richard MacManus and others — have pointed to my post from Monday as “confirmation” that Live.com is the new homepage, and it must be true because a future employee of Microsoft said it. There could be a little more research from the publishers, but this is the wild west known as the blogosphere after all. My information about Live.com came from the Windows Live launch last November when Bill Gates mentioned it on stage. The news is not new, and the products discussed such as Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista haven’t even launched yet. As…

Yahoo! My Headlines widget

Yahoo! released version 3.1 of its Widget Engine today including a new widget that displays the latest headlines from your My Yahoo! feeds. The new widget, Yahoo! My Headlines, allows you to see the latest headlines, source feed, and publish time of your My Yahoo! feed subscriptions….

Creating a feed syndication platform at Microsoft

Starting next week I will join Microsoft’s Windows Live division to create a new product team around syndication technologies such as RSS and Atom. I will help build a feed syndication platform leveraged by Microsoft products and developers all around the world. I am excited to construct a team and product from scratch focused on scalability and connecting syndication clients and their users wherever they may exist: desktop, mobile, media center, gaming console, widget, gadget, and more. Live.com is the new default home page for users of the Internet Explorer 7 and the Windows Vista operating system. Live.com will be…

PodSession: You’re being watched, and Macs now do Windows

Om and I received a variety of feedback last week as podcast listeners stood up against research reports about podcasts and their audiences. Some people thought a 20-minute discussion of hot tech news was just right and others wanted even shorter, more digestible chunks. This week Om and I recorded two 10-minute podcasts to try something new and introduce a little variety. It was also tough to pick just one topic this week since both Apple and Google had big announcements last Wednesday. You’re being watched Your cellular carrier knows where you are at all times. Pinpointing your location helps…

Blogging surveys tend to ask the wrong questions

The latest numbers about blogging terms reaching the mainstream masses have little interest to me based on the questions that have been asked. Asking people on the street if they can define RSS or podcasting is like asking about a PSTN or 802.11g wireless networks. It makes much more sense to focus on current uses of the technology to determine the pervasiveness of new ideas. I’ll use my mom as an example because she is afraid of her computer crashing if she changes anything, even plugging in a new keyboard. Some of the news she cares about the most is…

Google Toolbar adds feed subscriptions

The latest version of Google’s Firefox toolbar adds support for feed subscriptions to online aggregators with just one click. Users are able to choose from a list of five popular online aggregators as well as Firefox’s own Live Bookmarks option. The icon was located right below the address bar feed icon in my Firefox window and seems like the least confusing place for the button even though it’s odd to see two options. I was able to choose between Bloglines, Google Personalized homepage, My Yahoo!, NewsGator Online, and Pluck. It would be nice to provide advanced users with the…

PodSession: wireless broadband

I want high speed Internet everywhere. Forget the WiFi hotspot locator attached to your keychain or the questionable reliability of a local cafe, I want a reliable and fast connection everywhere I go, even if it’s on a train or car moving 60 mph. Thankfully the cellular phone industry is up to the task and rolling out wireless data connections with up to 3 Mb/s in the San Francisco Bay area and other large metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. These new mobile technologies are known as EV-DO or HSDPA depending on the carrier and are delivering high enough speed…

Google and Clear Channel partner for web search

Google just signed an exclusive deal with Clear Channel to provide its search services across all of the radio conglomerate’s web sites. Clear Channel is the dominant radio network in the United States. The partnership is for text-only ads at the moment but Google has been interested in extending its advertising reach to radio and print media. Google currently advertises its jobs site on NPR stations….

Technorati Director Richard Ault leaves, joins Metroblogging

Richard Ault just announced he has left Technorati to join Metroblogging, a network of blog sites focused on local content from over 45 cities throughout the world. Richard was Director of Product Marketing at Technorati since January 2004, and one of the first company hires. Metroblogging was co-founded by Jason DeFillippo, who left Technorati in February to focus on the blog network full-time. Richard enjoys skiing and it wouldn’t surprise me if he and his family is working from Lake Tahoe until the snow melts and their house is remodeled. Tags: metroblogging…

March SF Tech Sessions summary

Over 100 people participated in the second meeting of SF Tech Sessions last night at the Westin St. Francis. The crowd was a mix of bloggers, journalists, developers, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs all interested in learning about new products, people and ideas. Each presenter had about 15 minutes to engage the audience with a product demonstration. The first three presenters had launched within the last two weeks and Songbird launched about six weeks ago. Below are my brief summaries of each presenter. Skobee Noam Lovinsky of Skobee was the first presenter of the evening. Skobee helps plan meetups with firm…

The cost of commuting to Silicon Valley

Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft employ tens thousands of people in the San Francisco Bay area including many talented people driving close to 100 miles round-trip every day to work for these big companies. AAA released today their 2006 driving costs report and I decided to run the numbers to associate a conservative cost with a commute to these companies. How much would it cost to drive a Toyota Camry to work every day from the city centers of San Francisco, Berkeley, or Alameda? Prices below include conservative costs from AAA for average fuel consumption, maintenance, tires, insurance, license and registration,…

SF Tech Sessions tonight!

The next SF TechSession is tonight from 7-9 p.m. at The Westin St. Francis hotel next to San Francisco’s Union Square. We’ll be on the 32nd floor with free food, drinks, WiFi, and a nice view of the city through some 15-foot floor-to-ceiling windows (might be a deck too). Thanks to Blish.com for providing an amazing venue for this month’s meeting. Presenters Skobee, online event planning and local search through your social network. Noam Lovinsky, product guy, will present.Vast.com, an online classified search engine. Founder and CEO Naval Ravikant will present. Noam is a serial entrepreneur and you may want…

PodSession: online storage

In this week’s PodSession Om and I talk about online storage and the increased need to backup your digital lifestyle. The launch of Amazon’s Simple Storage Service was just the beginning of online storage utilities. Companies such as Amazon help people feel their data is safe with a company that already manages large amounts of data and will be in business for a long while. We are starting to see some enterprise-level backup and storage technologies applied to the consumer space. Home computer users are consuming more and more storage space by ripping CD collections, downloading music and movies, and…

Google and Verizon partner to bring yellow pages online

Verizon’s SuperPages.com has partnered with Google to turn the phone company’s yellow page advertisers into sponsored listings within Google Local. It’s a huge development in a fragmented local search advertising space. Verizon will act as an authorized Google AdWords reseller using its 3,000 local sales people and existing small business portal to connect merchants to a larger audience….

Cablevision tests remote storage DVR

Cablevision plans to give its more than 2 million digital cable customers access to 80 GB of remote storage for less than $10 a month. Digital cable boxes would receive a software upgrade allowing a subscriber to select favorite programs for recording on Cablevision’s servers. You can record two programs simultaneously while watching a previously recorded show. These types of services are only the beginning of what broadband providers are able to offer their customers on-demand over a high speed network. In the future there may be a channel produced by the cable company on a specialty subject such as…

FeedDemon 2.0 raises the bar

Congratulations to Nick Bradbury on the release of FeedDemon 2.0. Nick calls FeedDemon 2.0 “the best work I’ve ever done” and as someone who has been following the product since its first beta I have to agree. The new version of FeedDemon tracks the feeds you pay the most and least attention to over time, helping you realize who might be most worthy of your 5 minutes of reading time. Stylesheets have received a total overhaul. You can select a default feed reading stylesheet for the entire app as well as custom stylesheets on a per-feed including a photo-specific view…

Flickr on the cover of Newsweek

Stewart and Caterina from Flickr are on the cover of the April 3 issue of Newsweek for “putting the ‘We’ in Web.” The article introduces readers to the idea of a participatory web where small teams can enable millions of users to create their own site, community, and data interactions. My favorite quote is at the end of the article: The Living Web means that there may be plenty of opportunities to become the next Flickr, and hundreds of start-ups are trying to do just that. At Tim O’Reilly’s recent Emerging Technology Conference, it seemed that 1,200 people had…