Category Archives: Tools

Yahoo!Pipes and its dating problem… (and a failure of RSS standardization)

In its short existence, I’ve become a great fan of Yahoo!Pipes, but until very recently it did have a fundamental problem… dates.  If you took a bunch of RSS feeds and combined them together and then tried to sort by date… well, you had a problem.    When I was out at ETel last week in San Francisco, I actually met someone from the Yahoo!Pipes team there at ETel, and we had a chat about the challenge of sorting out the dates, when all the data to work with is very different.

Now, it seems that Yahoo!Pipes has fixed the problem!  As I went to write this post today, it now looks like they have figured out how to sort the dates out.  (My contact out at ETel indicated that they were working hard to try to fix this issue.)

So for those interested in the problem and why it existed, take a look at my pipe combining my various RSS feeds. If you dig down into the actual RSS feed, you’ll see the fundamental problem faced by Yahoo (or anyone else trying to mash up different RSS feeds).  Here is the date associated with an entry from Disruptive Telephony, a TypePad blog:

pubDate 2007-03-05T14:37:34-05:00

Here’s the date from an entry from Voice of VOIPSA, a WordPress blog:

pubDate Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:14:52 +0000

Here’s the date from an entry from my LiveJournal account:

pubDate 2007-03-01T00:00:00-06:00

Here’s the date from a RSS feed item from Twitter:

pubDate Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:48:48 +0000

Here’s the date from a RSS feed entry from Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast, also a TypePad blog:

pubDate Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:39:48 -0600

Are we seeing the problem yet?  Note that different feeds are using different formats for the date.  Indeed even two of my blogs from the same host, TypePad, appear to be using different date formats!  Also note that some are using GMT/UTC (the ones with +0000) and some are using the timezone (although why some are -5 and some are -6 is a bit confusing).   I had another feed somewhere that used yet another time format as well.  Since RSS is entirely text, Yahoo!Pipes has to parse the text and try to make sense out of it… and then presumably convert it to some neutral format that it can use for the actual sorting.  Not exactly a fun task.

When I first noticed this shortly after the launch of Yahoo!Pipes, there also was a problem that each feed seemed to have a different date field.  In some RSS feeds, it was “pubDate”.  In others, it was “dc:date”.  I think one was “publication date”.  This created a royal headache when you were trying to create a filter or sort in Yahoo!Pipes. 

Again, though, this seems to have gone away or at least been normalized by the Yahoo!Pipes team.  All my feeds now seem to have “pubDate”, albeit in differing formats.  So kudos to the Yahoo! team for figuring out how to make it all make sense.

Interestingly, though, this really appears to be a failure in RSS standardization.  Perhaps not in the specification, but in the adherance to the specification.  Near the top of the RSS 2.0 Specification, in talking about channel elements, it states:

All date-times in RSS conform to the Date and Time Specification of RFC 822, with the exception that the year may be expressed with two characters or four characters (four preferred).

This would argue for the “Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:48:48 +0000” format which is also shown in the example for individual item entries in RSS.  So it would appear that some vendors have not exactly implemented RSS feeds per the spec (is anyone surprised?).

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Skype launches "SkypeFind" to go after Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc for local business listings… with social networking reviews and rankings

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Today Skype launched a new “3.1 beta” release for Windows that does something rather dramatic… it rolls out a new “SkypeFind” service that lets Skype users search a directory for businesses – and then call them, of course. This goes head-to-head with what Google is doing with GoogleMaps (and its “click-to-call” in North America) and what Yahoo!Local and Microsoft’s Windows Live Local are all doing.

I’ve written up a longer review including screenshots over at my VoIP-focused blog, Disruptive Telephony, but I thought I’d mention it here because: a) I know many folks in social media are also Skype users; and b) there’s an interesting social networking element to it.

Specifically, the SkypeFind directory started out close to empty and is there for users to add listings and fill up.  For each listing, other Skype users can also add their ratings and reviews, allowing the directory to be searched by highest ranking reviews (as well as, interestingly, by “most called”).  You also see recommendations from your contacts – and have an ability to “ask” you contacts about recommendations.

The directory also turns out to be pretty much like a wiki, in that any Skype user can edit the listings that are in the directory.  While there is a way to view the edit history, I have to wonder about the capability for abuse given the fact that Skype accounts are free… we’ll see.

Anyway, more info and links can be found over at my other blog and if you are a Windows user (sorry Mac and Linux users), you can download it and check it out yourself.

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An interesting way to announce that Odeo is up for sale

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I was fascinated to see in an email newsletter today that the owners of Odeo are looking to sell it off to focus on Twitter.  My fascination was just with such a blatant and direct pitch offering up a fairly high profile site.  For those not tracking the world of podcasting, Odeo was one of the entrants in the battle for being the premier podcast host, directory, etc.  I never used them myself, but I knew of other podcasters who did.  But if you look at the stats, they do seem to be getting a good bit of traffic… I mean, 1.5 milion plays of MP3s and 76,000 logins in the last 30 days is nothing to sneeze at.  Still, if they are a small company, I can understand their desire to focus, and if Twitter is where their energy is going, it’s understandable.  I wish them well with the sale and transition, and have to say kudos to them for being very open about wanting to sell off the property.

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Calendaring: Upcoming.org versus Google – any opinions? (and the FeedBurner Event feed hack)

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Question for anyone reading – do you use calendars from either Upcoming.org or Google Calendar?  And if so, which one do you like better and why?

Here’s the situation – over on my Blue Box podcast, you’ll note that in any of the show notes we list “Upcoming Shows”.  These are primarily conferences or tradeshows relating either to VoIP or security where the topic of “VoIP security” might be discussed.  You will also note that over in a box on the sidebar of the blog there is a list of upcoming shows… that is woefully out-of-date.

I want to automate this.

Nicely, at their latest Hackathon, the Feedburner folks created an “Event Feed” – see the details here.  So my thought is to use one of those services and then create an RSS feed… which then simply gets loaded into the sidebar of the blog.

However, I have to choose a service.  Google Calendar is easy on the one hand because I already use Gmail and some of the other Google services… but some of what I see at Upcoming.org is also quite interesting.

Any opinions?  (Thanks)

Why bloggers should learn about OpenID…

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Over on my Disruptive Telephony blog, I have been devoting some time to exploring the world of OpenID, but I thought I also should mention it here because we in the social media space are probably the ones who can benefit the most, at least initially.  OpenID aims to solve one very basic issue:

  • How many times do you have to enter the same personal information into web sites?  
  • How many different login accounts do you have to create? 
  • What if you could have one identity that you used to login everywhere? 
  • Or just a couple of identities that you could use in different personas? (i.e. a work ID and a personal ID?) 

That’s the idea behind OpenID.  There’s a whole lot of buzz going on these days given that Microsoft announced they would support OpenID and AOL is now supporting it as well.  Here’s some great introductory info:

You also can see my post about my research thus far… and my del.icio.us trail on the topic.  If you’re not tuned it to what is happening with OpenID, I’d definitely encourage you to check it out.

P.S. I’m pretty sure OpenID will NOT address Steve Rubel’s concerns… but it’s something interesting to think about.

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New "Podcast Google Gadget Widget Kit" will let users easily put your podcasts on their Google Desktop pages

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The ever-amazing Christopher Penn over at the Financial Aid Podcast has put out the word that next weekend at Podcamp Toronto he will be releasing the Google Gadget Widget Kit. I have to say that his example with his own podcast is very cool (picture on the right of it installed on my own Google Desktop).  I’ll look forward to trying it out for Blue Box once he releases the kit.  Chris indicates that it can be added to any web page, so I’ll be intrigued to play with it a bit more once it’s out.

Thanks, Chris, for sharing these tools… and for all the other little projects you are doing. 🙂

Multi-touch, the "next" computer user interface… and why can’t we have "Minority Report" now… why am I stuck using a mouse?

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Why are we stuck using a keyboard and a mouse?  Why is the dominant paradigm for our computing?  Why can’t we do things another way… perhaps like Tom Cruise’s character did in the movie “Minority Report?”

Well, for some time now I’ve wanted to post about the demonstration done at TED 2006 by Jeff Han of a NY university.. the video is just far too interesting.  But then along comes Jeff Pulver yesterday pointing to this video:

It seems that this new company, Perception Pixel, is founded by none other than Jeff Han of the TED demo! Pretty cool stuff. (Do check out the video of the TED demo as well.)  Now it’s just a question of when we might ever see this type of thing actually available…   I’d like one.  I’d far rather just be using my fingers to point then using the mouse.  And for typing… well, why not have the keyboard popup where you want it to be on the screen?  With large enough screens, you could have several keyboards. I don’t know… maybe the ergonomics aren’t good enough.

Anyway, it’s good to see this kind of R&D going on… and hopefully we can see it out in the commercial world some year soon.

Owning the #1 Technorati search result through using the new WTF feature!

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How would you like your text and a link to your blog(s) to show up at the very top of a Technorati search as the #1 result? As shown in the picture to the right, I just did that.  If you do a Technorati search on “Michael Keren”, with or without quotes around his name, you wind up with a screen like the one I’ve shown, and right up on top is a peach-ish/tan-ish box with a flame next to it that has a headline, some text and a link to my Technorati profile.  I just put that up there a few minutes ago.

It turns out that two days ago, Technorati released a new feature called “WTF”, which they are defining as the more “work-safe” acronym of “Where’s The Fire?” [1]  Essentially, you can create a “blurb” explaining why there’s a “fire” around a certain search term and post it. Other Technorati users can then vote on the blurb and the blurb with the most votes is the one that lands on top of the list.  As explained on Technorati:

Ever wonder why something is sooooo popular? Why are the hot topics hot? WTFs explain the buzz around people, things, and events. Who writes these WTFs? You do! Anyone can write one on any topic, and everyone can vote for the best explanations. The ones with the most votes rise up and the dreck sinks. Let millions of other people benefit from your genius… no blog required!

Dave Sifry writes more about the new feature and says this:

Here at Technorati HQ, we know that we’re taking a pretty risky step – we’re putting our highest-value real estate – the topmost search result – in the hands of our community. This is a big social experiment to see if people will work together to help create something great and useful, and will use the voting system to push up the best explanations to the top.

Indeed they are taking a risk… and the experimentation is great to see.  Now let’s see how successful it is.  I can see the power of it… but I can also see the abuse.  Since anyone who is a Technorati user can create WTF blurbs for any search, there is nothing to prevent people from leaving blurbs that are quite negative.  For instance, in light of today’s economic news, I could (but won’t) go leave a blurb on the Exxon Mobil search that says:

Exxon Mobil is a sleazy oil company that announced a quarterly profit of $39.5 billion which works out to a *profit* of $4.5 million dollars *per hour*, while the US Senate is debating whether the minimum wage should be bumped up to $7/hour.

Uh, oh… sounds like yet one more thing that PR and marketing folks need to pay attention to!  I’m guessing the PR folks could put a counter-definition up there as a WTF blurb, but then you’ve got to get the most votes to wind up on the top!  (And in today’s climate, gee, which one is going to get more votes?)   Of course, you could do it for individuals as well.  For instance, because Mitch is just way too easy to pick on, I could (but won’t) add to the “mitch joel” Technorati search:

Bald black-wearing blogger from “beautiful Montreal” with tons of groupies who raves about Second Life and pronounces “image” a funny way.

I don’t know what happens if Mitch then posts a WTF blurb of his own and both have no votes.  Does the latest blurb win?

So the question is – will bloggers in search of links go through and populate Technorati with WTF blurbs that might get people to view their Technorati profile and then their blog?  Will we see “fights” to determine whose blurb gets on top?  How long will it be until unethical people start WTF-spamming to drive links to their profile and blogs?

Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to yet be an overly easy way to monitor if there is a “WTF” blurb written for your company… obviously you can look at the page for your search.  If there is already at least 1 blurb, you can monitor the URL “www.technorati.com/wtf/<name>”, as in  http://www.technorati.com/wtf/michael-keren, but it’s not clear to me that there is yet an automated way to do this (like an RSS feed).

 It will be fascinating to see how people use – and abuse – this system.  So the question, if you are a Technorati user, have you written a WTF blurb for the searches that relate to you?  Will you do so?  Or will you let others…   (and no, Mitch, I won’t be submitting that one for you!)

[1] Non-English readers may not realize that “WTF” is also translated in at least American slang as “What The F___?” with the commonly used profanity that sounds a lot like “duck” (as Dan continues to try to keep his blog work-safe).

Using FeedBurner Networks to build "The One Feed To Rule Them All"…. all Dan York… all the time… :-

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If you have multiple blogs, how do you easily create a single RSS feed that aggregates all of your blogs?  I have faced this issue directly with my migration from a single weblog into a network of blogs.  Some of my readers may, for whatever reason, still want to read all my writing (and to my amazement something like 15 people have subscribed to this feed I’m talking about below).

As I first wrote about over on my personal blog, there is a way now to do this. By using FeedBurner’s relatively new “Networks” feature (FAQ here), I have now created the “Dan York – All Feeds” network. There is now a webpage with recent posts and links to the blogs and then an aggregated RSS feed that combines posts in all blogs.

Now, if you look at FeedBurner’s list of Networks, you’ll see a wide range of uses.  Dave Jones put together one that may be of interest to readers (if you are not already aware) called the Public Relations feed.  It provides a nice list of PR-related feeds and, like mine above, gives you a webpage with sample posts and an aggregated feed.  Each blog included can use a “badge” to promote their inclusion in the network.  For instance, you can look at Dave Jones’ blog to see the PR network badge in the top of his right sidebar.  Note that you can click a link to advertise in the network or you can explore network members.

Which gets to the larger point –  FeedBurner is really targeting its “Networks” as a way to enable advertisers to advertise across a series of feeds, i.e. a bunch of feed publishers can band together and then, if they want, get advertising that goes across all their feeds.  Presumably they will have far greater numbers together and thus be able to attract bigger advertisers.

So obviously by building my own private network, I’m twisting the intent a bit.  And the advertisting focus did impact my efforts a bit because in order to create a FeedBurner Network, you have to have a blog that is a member of the FeedBurner Ad Network (FAN).  With a FAN-activated feed, you can then create a Network.  NOTE: None of the other feeds HAVE to be FAN members, but at least one must.  Once you have created a Network, you can invite other people to add feeds via email, or you can add one of your other FAN-activated feeds.

Given this, my steps to create the network were basically:

1. Login to FeedBurner, go to “My Networks” and click “Create a network”
2. Choose one of my FAN-activated feeds to “anchor” the network.
3. Fill out the form and, under “Privacy”, switch it from the default of “Public” to “Private”.
4. Submit the form and proceed to the page to invite members.
5. Add any of your other FAN-activated feeds to the network using the easy form.
6. Send yourself an email invitation for each of the other feeds to invite them in.
7. For each invitation, accept it on behalf of each different feed.
8. Sit back and enjoy your aggregated feed and site.

Now, if you think about step #6 for a moment… I have 8 feeds I wanted to aggregate, yet only 3 of those are FAN members.  So, yes, indeed, I sent 5 separate invites to my own inbox. I then clicked the link in each separate email and entered FeedBurner to accept membership in my new network for each of the different feeds.  In the end, I did wind up with my “one giant Dan York feed”, but the separate email invites was a bit tedious.

Of course, I do understand perhaps why FeedBurner doesn’t make this overly easy for non-FAN feeds.  FeedBurner is a business and they are experimenting with the whole FAN idea and the concept of getting advertisers to insert ads in feeds.  So it’s in their interest to encourage feeds to be in the FAN so that they have more feeds for advertisers to join into.  So it makes sense in that way.  It may also very well be that the folks at FeedBurner didn’t really think people would do what I did here. 

In any event, I thought I’d post this for those of you who: a) use FeedBurner; and b) have multiple blogs/podcasts/feeds/etc.

Let me know what you think… and if for some reason you really want to see all my writing across all my blogs, the feed is now there (well, actually, that’s the web page… the feed is down in the lower right marked “Network Feed“).

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The Levelator saves the day…

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There’s a very twisted irony in the fact that I don’t use the Levelator very often at all… but after I wrote the post early this morning about the Levelator, it would wind up being a key tool for me to use this day.  I had an interview scheduled in the early afternoon for an prototype of an internal podcast we’re working on.  Just minutes before I was to do the interview, I determined that something was wacky on my laptop and my normal route of using a softphone on the laptop with a mix-minus from my condenser mic was not going to work.   Not having the time to diagnose the problem and not wanting to lose the interview window, I went to Plan B (well, it should be Plan Z, as in “just don’t do it”, but it was B) and grabbed my JK Audio QuickTap from the closet, inserted it inline between the handset and one of my teleworker phones, and ran a cable over to an input on my mixer. As I did this, I was dearly hoping the Levelator could help out… or I was going to be re-recording another day.

You see, the problem with the QuickTap is this – you get both sides of the conversation on a single track, and I’m right there talking into the handset microphone, and the other person is on the other end of a phone connection.  The result is almost always: I’m loud and the other person is soft.  Maybe others have different results, but that’s almost always how it is for me.

However, the Levelator did save the day.  Dumped the recording to a WAV file, dropped it on the Levelator and opened up the levelated file.  Ta da… the levels were at least much nearer to each other.  Not the quality that I’d get out of my regular audio rig (because of the handset microphones and QuickTap), but certainly acceptable and a decent way to recover.

Just very ironic given my post this morning…