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Category: RSS

Spring cleaning: Keeping up with all that’s happening around the Silicon Forest startup scene

Sometimes, I get so into keeping with all the awesome Portland startup news that I forget some folks are new around here.

Yes, like you, gentle reader. Welcome! It’s nice to have you here. I hope you can stay awhile. And please let me know if there is anything I can do to make your visit a better one.

So for all of the new folks—and for all of you who have been around here for awhile—I thought I’d do a little spring cleaning. And let you know all the ways that you can keep up with what’s happening here on Silicon Florist and in the Silicon Forest. Read More

PositivePress: Iterasi uses Web archiving technology to track traditional and social media coverage

[HTML2]Now, you may not realize this, but during my day job I’m constantly sifting through media reports. Gargantuan PDFs or documents that contain a series of clipped links and snippets about specific clients or subjects. The reports are unwieldy at best. And I can only imagine what kind of workload this effort creates for the agencies that compile them for me—and any number of other clients—on a daily basis.

Long story short, the whole “tracking media coverage” thing—whether for PR firms or otherwise—could use some help. And don’t even get me started on the whole social media angle.

But now, there may be hope. You see, Portland-based Iterasi might have an answer with their latest effort. Introducing PositivePress from Iterasi. Read More

Get out your RSS wrench: Portland Data Plumbing User Group

Want to share the ways you consolidate different data streams to make your life better? Interested in learning more about RSS wizardry? Are your Yahoo! Pipes clogged?

Well, you’ll be glad to hear that there’s a new (or at least, resurrected) user group in Portland that will allow you to compare notes with other plumbers of your ilk: Portland Data Plumbing User Group.

Dawn Foster writes:

I’ve decided to resurrect the Portland Data Plumbing Group to give us a time and place to talk about RSS feed hacking, Yahoo Pipes, Dapper, and other related technologies.

I know! What a way to start 2009. It sounds interesting, doesn’t it?

Well, what are you waiting for? A dangling preposition? (Sorry. Grammar humor.)

Get involved by joining the Portland Data Plumbing User Group discussion and RSVP for the first event, Tuesday, January 13.

Iterasi gets more social with RSS feeds, widgets, and public pages

[Editor: Full disclosure, Iterasi is a client of mine, but I was not involved in this announcement.]

http://www.iterasi.net/user/siliconflorist?format=widgetN1Vancouver-based Iterasi, the service that allows you to create your own personal Wayback Machine, took a huge step forward in making its network of users more social, today, when they announced three major additions to their offering: public pages, RSS feeds, and widgets.

Josh Lowensohn at Webware broke the news:

Web page archiving tool Iterasi is getting a small but important update Tuesday morning. Users can now share their stream of archived pages with others as an RSS feed, letting anyone view their saved items either directly in their browser or in a feed-capturing tool like Google Reader or desktop e-mail clients.

In my opinion, these seemingly innocuous changes actually mark a decided change in Iterasi’s stance. With these features, Iterasi moves from being an interesting personal service toward becoming a valuable social service. And by embracing features that allow me to distribute my saved pages to a much, much wider audience, they gain the benefit of more people encountering their service.

I have found a great deal of value in being able to save pages for myself. But now that I have the option of sharing pages with folks? It opens a whole new realm of use for me. Like a more typical social bookmarking service.

Fringe benefits abound. With RSS feeds and widgets, Iterasi just increased its exposure exponentially. I’ve added the widget to this post and I’ll likely add it to the blog (once the Mac version is out and I can use the service regularly.) And, I’m adding the RSS feed to my lifestreaming services, like FriendFeed and Strands.

What’s more, by launching public pages, Iterasi has the potential to rapidly increase its online footprint for search engines and the like—like any other public-facing social network service.

Now, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. As with any new feature on a BETA product, there are some rough spots and some nice-to-haves that didn’t make the cut. There are some areas over which I would like to have control, like skinning the widget and dealing with the publishing function.

But as I’ve mentioned, I see this release as less about “features” and more about “vision.” It’s clear to me that Iterasi is taking a much more social stance. And that’s a very good thing.

To test drive the product, visit Iterasi. To see the public page in action or to get the widget code, please visit the Silicon Florist page on Iterasi.

Vocal Nation takes political news in slide

Vocal NationI was recently introduced to Portland-based Vocal Nation, a service that is part feed reader, part social political-news system.

Okay, I hear you. Any time the term “social news” is bandied about, the phrase “Digg clone” immediately jumps to mind.

But, let’s not jump there so quickly. I think Vocal Nation has a specific application and some interesting functionality that make it worthy of a second look, and potentially a strong niche showing.

And I’m not alone in that thinking. Kristen Nicole at Mashable, who has reviewed the tool previously, described Vocal Nation this way:

In an effort to differentiate itself from Digg, Digg clones and the Digg voting system all together, Vocal Nation’s new feature helps set it apart in two primary ways: an automated submission process and a sliding scale used for voting.

The “automated submission process” is Vocal Nation’s feed-slurping feature. Point Vocal Nation at an RSS feed and it will consume the details, automatically feeding articles into the voting system. Not only does it make the current set of articles available to the Vocal Nation community for voting, it keeps track of the feed and continues to update Vocal Nation as the feed updates.

As an example, here’s the Silicon Florist on Vocal Nation.

While Vocal Nation can handle any site’s RSS feed, it becomes truly useful when it’s handling news on politics. And, that’s where Vocal Nation’s second voting slider comes into play. With that slider, the service encourages users to provide feedback on each article’s political disposition. Is it conservative? Liberal? Neutral?

And that news arena is where Vocal Nation could really shine. With the number of political blogs in Oregon, alone, Vocal Nation could prove to be a key to navigating the girth of coverage that is sure to overwhelm us until November. And likely after.

When you combine those submission and voting features with its pleasant UI and some subtle AJAX transitions, the Vocal Nation site merits a second look.

For more information or to try the service yourself, visit Vocal Nation.

Reminder: Marshall Kirkpatrick on RSS, February 19

Just a reminder that Marshall Kirkpatrick, lead blogger for Read/Write Web and RSS guru, will be presenting a “Lunch and Learn” session on RSS at the OTBC on Tuesday, February 19.

I like to think of myself as fairly RSS savvy. And I can say, without a doubt, that no one has taught me more about how to make RSS jump through hoops than Marshall.

To RSVP, visit the OTBC Meetup page on the event. The cost is $15 at the door. But you were going to spend that money on lunch, anway. And this way, you actually get to learn something.

Pretend you were there: Attensa “RSS and attention” from Portland Web Innovators

Do (Apparently, my brain has already started its Friday.) Did you miss the latest Portland Web Innovators gathering with Attensa?

Fear not, gentle reader. Thanks to Dawn Foster, who was kind enough to capture video of the event, you’ll soon be espousing on RSS and attention with the best of them.

It’s Friday. Kick back and catch up by watching “RSS and Attention.” (Kindly hosted by Jive Software which, coincidentally, kindly hosted the event, as well.)

Meet: Portland Web Innovators discuss RSS and attention

On November 7, Portland Web Innovators will hold its monthly gathering, hosted by a pizza-bearing Jive Software. This time, they will be focusing on RSS and attention:

Charlie Davidson and Eric Hayes from Attensa joining us to discuss the world of RSS, Feeds, and Attention, a concept becoming more important to many of us as we attempt to filter out the information overload so prevalent for web innovators.

For more information or to RSVP, visit Upcoming.

Attensa Feed Server now free for five

There’s a been something gnawing at you. I can see it. And everyone else can see it, too.

You’ve been consumed with the curiosity about how Attensa Feed Server actually works, but you don’t want to pony up the cash to buy it.

Well, count your blessings, my friend, because today is your lucky day.

Portland-based Attensa, the company focused on helping organizations manage and make better use of RSS feeds, has released a trial version of Attensa Feed Server. It’s free. And it’s available for download, right now.

The trial version is fully functional for up to five (5) users, allowing unlimited feeds and unlimited groups. All you need is the hardware, and you’re off and running.

The Attensa Feed Server is a virtual appliance that provides enterprise customers with centralized administration, routing, security, search, synchronization, analytics and reporting for enterprise-wide RSS coordination. It brings together all of the tools IT administrators, team leaders and users need to manage and streamline the delivery of critical business information using web feeds behind the firewall.

Download your copy of Attensa Feed Server.

For more information, see the Attensa blog, read additional Attensa coverage on NW Innovation, or gain some insight from Brooks Jordan.

Attensa releases new RSS readers, cleans up blog lint

Attensa, the Portland-based You Software spin off that focuses on tools surrounding RSS technology, has released new versions of their RSS readers.

You can download the new enterprise-quality RSS feed readers for Windows, Mac and Microsoft Outlook at no charge immediately from the Attensa Web site. The three new Attensa feed readers are built using consistent AttentionStream™ technologies, architecture and user experience to provide business users with a complete set of tools for receiving, managing and reading critical business information delivered through RSS, Atom and XML web feeds.

Attensa also appears to have recently refreshed its blog design to focus on its main content, clearing off links to areas that have been relatively stagnant. (I didn’t want them to think that had gone unnoticed. It’s a welcome change.)

For more information on Attensa technologies and its AttentionStream concept, visit Attensa.