Posts Tagged rss
Is Google Buzz the Twitter Killer?
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on February 16, 2010
Will Buzz Kill Twitter?
Some have compared it to FriendFeed, some have called it Google’s answer to Facebook, and some are just annoyed and can’t wait to turn it off (in GMail, you can scroll to the bottom and click on “turn off buzz”, by the way).
Others have predicted Google Buzz will annihilate Twitter! They make a compelling argument.
- It’s a sophisticated broadcast notification system, much like Twitter.
- It’s public.
- You can send images (and you don’t need third party applications like TwitPic).
- You can automatically feed Buzz from other services (Blog RSS Feeds, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, etc.).
- Your Google profile is now your Google Buzz profile, and has much more information than a Twitter profile (yet, uglier).
It’s overwhelming like FriendFeed, but this is offset in part by neatly integrating right into GMail (which is certainly the most open tab on my browser). This means you can have a peak, or you can completely ignore it – but it will always be at your fingertips, beckoning you…
And does anyone have any doubt that “Buzz” will very soon be searchable (and from Google, no less)?
Will Buzz kill Twitter? Maybe. Maybe not.
What do you think?
Facebook Pages and RSS – A Step-By-Step Guide
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on June 16, 2009
The most annoying thing about a Facebook Page is that it is called Facebook Page. A page is not the same as your Facebook Profile, it is a separate feature that allows you to build a fan base to promote your website, brand, or company within the Facebook community.
But do any search for “Facebook Page”, and I guarantee 85% of the results will relate to the Facebook profile.
Overview
This entry is how to get your blog to feed on your Facebook Page, and is a step-by-step guide. I wish I had this a month ago, but here it is for the rest of the world.
If you do not know what a blog is, or an RSS feed is, you need to go research this, then come back here later.
Process
- Create a page in Facebook, or load your existing one (this is the easy part).
- In your page, under your image, click on “Edit Page” (sometimes Facebook forgets what page you are on, so make sure your page image and name are correct after you click – restart your browser if it doesn’t work – this is a major source of frustration in some browsers).
- Scroll down to the “Notes” application, click on the little pen icon on the right side of the screen, then select “Edit”. (Note: if “Notes” is not in the list, use “More Applications” to find it, then add it to the page.)
- To the right side of the screen (left of the ads), you will see a link titled “Import a blog”. Click this. (Note: If you have an existing feed, you can delete it by clicking on “Edit import settings”, then click on the “Stop Importing” button.)
- Enter your RSS feed URL in the “Web URL” box, click the consent checkbox, then click on “Start Importing”. (Note: Your RSS feed URL is different then your website address. In WordPress, for example, you typically add “/feed” to the end of your website address.)
- Assuming all was done correctly, a “Preview” screen appears. You must scroll to the bottom of this, then click on “Confirm Import”.
- As per item 2, go back to the “Edit Page” screen. This time, click on the pen icon next to the “Notes” application, and select “Application Settings”.
- Make sure the “Box” and “Tab” are showing as “Added” (you can configure this part of the page as you wish later). Click on the “Additional Permissions” tab, and check the “Publish to streams” item, so your blog entries will appear in your fan’s streams. Click OK.
- Wipe your brow, you’re done! Wasn’t that easy, and don’t you wish you had found this article a week ago?
Twitter RSS Feed
Twitter, technically speaking, has RSS feeds. Given Twitter’s highly volatile state, they are not terribly reliable, and often get rejected. (Perhaps they are also not technically correct RSS feeds, I’m not entirely sure – they don’t import into Facebook or Feedburner, so that’d be my guess.)
So, how the heck do you get your Tweets to import into your Facebook page easily?
I’m glad you asked, because we recently did this with our CanWire.ca Facebook Page, using FriendFeed.
- Set up a new FriendFeed Profile (I recommend using something other than your main account, as you may want to add other stuff to your personal one.)
- Import your Twitter account into FriendFeed.
- Scroll to the bottom of your FriendFeed profile page, and click on the RSS icon next to “Other ways to read this feed”.
- Copy the URL, and paste it in for item 5 above.
Media Overload
If you want to overwhelm your friends on Facebook, set up a FriendFeed account for yourself, and add all your social media sources, then use it’s RSS feed in Notes for your Facebook profile.
You could take this feed, too, and fire it into Feedburner, and allow people to subscribe to your social media as an RSS feed from your personal site.
Egad!
WordPress Plugins, Widgets and Must-Dos
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on April 27, 2009
Now that I have so many websites running on WordPress (I count 27, but I might be missing some), and have played around with so many plug-ins, widgets and features, I figured I’d write a little article all about my experience. Maybe it will save you a headache or two in your development.
This article does not tell you how to install WordPress, the basic setup, or how to choose a template. Maybe I’ll cover these topics another day.
WordPress is a good platform for both blogs, and “traditional” websites. Many of our websites just happen to run on WordPress so people may post comments and so forth. I only have a few “blogs”, per se. Just keep in mind that different uses require different options.
Akismet
This is a comment spam filter, and it is amazing (I recently discovered 1,009 spam messages on this blog that I was completely unaware of). The only reason not to install this is if you plan on always turning off user comments. It is standard, and well worth the “hassle” of signing up for an account at WordPress.com to make it work properly.
All in One SEO Pack
If you are a hardcore SEO guru, maybe this isn’t your bag. But if you are a novice at such matters like myself, then this little SEO tool makes the process tolerable. Hopefully 1,452,822 downloaders weren’t all wrong.
Google XML Sitemaps
Another bit of gospel from the search engines is that standard sitemaps are important. Who has the time to build these stupid things? Thankfully, this sitemap building plugin does it for you!
Submit Your Blog
I guess this is also something you should do for a bit of SEO juice, or just to be found better. Here’s a list of places you could submit to: Technorati, LoadedWeb, BlogCatalog, and, well … forget the list, there are a zillion other blog directories and aggregators out there!
WP-Polls
Want to add a poll to your WordPress post? Too easy with this little tool.
WordPress iPhone Application
If you have an iPhone and a WordPress blog, this tool is not to be missed. I could not imagine writing long blog entries on my phone, but certainly updates and short entries while on the go. This application requires XML-RPC to be enabled in Settings, Writing.
RSS and Social Bookmarking
There are many different ways to add this to your site. A link directly to your feed page with an RSS image, perhaps? Hook it up to FeedBurner so you can track subscriptions? One cool utility is AddThis.
Twitter Integration
I fell in love with Tweetmeme Button because it very cleanly adds a little Tweet Counter and Retweet option to every one of your posts. One drawback is that it doesn’t promote YOUR twitter account in it, it promotes theirs. But for the novelty and convenience factor, this is A1.
I use the nifty, simple TwitterCounter Badge in a few places.
Of course, you can insert your Twitter posts nicely into your blog with a little snippet of code on the sidebar.
A good old-fashioned graphic linked to your Twitter page is still a nice touch.
PHP Code Integration
Want to run PHP code from within WordPress? You could spend 6 hours trying out a bunch of plug-ins or work-arounds (like I did), or you could download Exec-PHP which works flawlessly, and with little effort.
Make Your Blog Talk
Completely non-essential, but hours of fun. The Odiogo Listen Button plugin brings your blog to life!
Adding Community Features like Google Friend Connect
WordPress has it’s own built-in community of sorts – through comments. Is this good enough? The jury is out. Then there is Google Friend Connect, Yahoo!’s MyBlogLog, and even Twitter Remote.
I’m kind of impressed with MyBlogLog, though I cannot seem to get it working perfectly yet. Imagine that: Yahoo doing something right!
There are actually dozens of these widgets and people aggregators out there, so be sure not to put too many on, and slow your website down to a crawl!
Note: if you use the Google Friend Connect bar along the bottom of your blog, be sure to have enough space in your footer so that content doesn’t get cut off (behind the bar).
Feedback
I’m keen to keep this article updated. Did you find anything useful? Do you have anything useful that should be added? Please comment!
One Month of Twitter
Posted by Paul Holmes in advertising, business, personal, politics, social media on February 20, 2009
It’s been one month since I skeptically started using Twitter.
Wow.
I’m convinced that every marketing person, Internet geek, computer programmer, opportunistic, or egomaniac should be using Twitter!
Here’s what I’ve done in 28 days (in addition to my regular job managing the company):
- I’ve created profiles for all 3 of my business divisions and assigned somebody to maintain each one.
- For my eBrands division, I am syndicating the eBrands Twitter feed onto the website, and have plans to syndicate the other 2 to the company blogs (which are being prepared right now).
- I launched a profile for our popular news aggregator website, CanWire.ca (we are building the RSS interface for CanWire right now, then will syndicate this back to the CanWire.ca twitter profile).
- I’ve written an experimental (beta) website based entirely on Twitter feeds. See tweeteries.com (or tweateries.com).
- On my personal twitter profile I have 84 followers, and I’m following 89 (this still sounds like a cult to me).
- I’ve posted 77 updates on my personal profile alone (about 2.5 a day).
- I integrated my personal feed into my personal blog (look down the right side of the page).
- My personal tweets update my FaceBook status automatically.
- I’ve written 5 articles that mention Twitter in one way or another.
- I’ve been included on a political twitter aggregator.
- I’ve written a proposal to integrate a twitter RSS feed into an online campaign. I’m fairly certain they are going forward, and they already have a Twitter profile ready to go.
My brain continues to spin on the possibilities. I have been a computer programmer for 18 years. Twitter is by far the most exciting thing to happen on a computer in human history.
WARNING: This tool can be both an enormous waste of time AND an amazingly powerful tool. Make sure your result is (mostly) the latter.
Social Networking Primer
Posted by Paul Holmes in advertising, business, internet, social media on February 4, 2009
I spend a great deal of time going to conferences on Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Marketing, Webmastering and so forth. Not as much as some of my crazy friends, but often enough.
For the last few years, the buzz has been “social networking”. For the first few years it was “building your own social networks”. Now it’s shifted to “taking advantage of existing social networks”.
You have your FaceBook and LinkedIn for your “basic” profile.
Then you have your blogs.
Then you have Twitter for micro-blogging (or, as I explain it to new people – like “broadcast instant messaging, only less likely to be read”).
Then you have your social bookmarking (like delicious).
Of course you can tie them all together using fun RSS tools.
As a tech geek who prided himself on NOT being on FaceBook (up until about a year ago), I have had a major conversion. Of course, I always knew I’d eventually have to take the plunge (and I did).
I’m going to blog over the next few weeks about all the different social networking tools:
- How to take advantage of them.
- How NOT to use them (i.e. seriously forget about FaceBook applications, unless they are truly must-have).
- How to use them to market your business and yourself more effectively.
- Search Engine implications.
- Using your precious time effectively.
As somebody who is a geek, but who is also fairly new to social networking, I am going to be learning and sharing. If you are a social networking “power user” already, don’t bore yourself with what I have to say.
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