Fw: Black Web 2.0 - Finding Relevant News: Streamy Out of Private Beta

Finding Relevant News: Streamy Out of Private Beta Posted: 25 Mar 2009 01:58 PM PDT It's a content aggregator. It's a feed reader. It's a way to discover, share and discuss news. It connects to your Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook. It's called Streamy and, after about 2yrs in private beta, it's finally available to the public. Whether it's ready for prime-time remains to be seen. Following Blogs Clicking Blogs will get you a list of all your RSS feeds. You can add your blogs or feeds by choosing from a list or importing from Blog Lines, Google Reader or OPML. The interface is pretty basic, but gets the job done. If you're used to something more advanced like Google Reader or Feedly, you may possibly find this interface a bit tedious. In addition to adding and importing blogs you like, Streamy will recommend news for you based on your interests. The recommendations improve over time as your interact with the service. This alone is a very powerful feature for finding things relevant to you. Following People Clicking People will take you to your friends' activity on Streamy. You'll be able to see who you follow and what they're doing on Streamy. This early on, I'm seeing people importing a lot of feeds, just getting onto the service, so this feature isn't all that useful yet. One thing that Streamy could do is provide a grouping feature so that your activity stream isn't dominated by one person importing 300 feeds (what? doesn't everyone follow that many blogs?). In addition to searching for and following other users on Streamy, you can also easily find your friends from other services. Simply hit Setup and connect to Flickr, FriendFeed, Facebook, Digg or Twitter. Then, on the People page, click Add People and the options to add from other networks appear on the left. Follow Groups If you're looking to find people with more specific interests, you can find or create a group. These seem to work just like following people. You'll be able to share items with the group and see what items have been shared the group by others. You can also join a live group chat just as you can chat live with your friends. I haven't actually been able to get either chat to work at this point. I'm assuming this feature is still getting worked out. Combining Your Social Services Once you've connected Streamy to your other services, you will see an icon for each in the top-left corner. On these pages, you'll find your activity has been imported right into Streamy. The implementation here is incomplete (for pretty good reason, discussed later), but the idea that I could interact with a bunch of different social media sites from one place is intriguing. FriendFeed - You can comment on stuff in your feed, but you can't "Like" anything. Any FriendFeed user would see how this is a huge disadvantage as Liking stuff is one of the best features of FriendFeed. Since other established services have been duplicating this feature (Facebook, 12seconds.tv, etc.), one would think this would have been ready from jump. Twitter - At this point, the Twitter implementation is completely one way. You can view your timeline, replies and direct messages. You can also add custom searches and view trends. You can't reply, retweet or favorite anything. Facebook - Again, you can look, but you can't touch anything. You'll get a list of your friends' statuses. You can't comment or like anything. Flickr - The Flickr page allows you to add custom searches and view your Flickr Photo Activity. Sharing Stuff At first glance, it seems a huge oversight that you can't post things to your other services from their individual pages. What I failed to realize is that you can drag any link in Streamy and easily share it with your friends/groups on Streamy, FriendFeed, Twitter, and Facebook. So, while reading your blogs on Streamy, you can share them everywhere with a simple drag-and-drop. You can also set your status on Streamy and have it posted to all your other services. Still Checking Things Out Streamy is definitely one of those services where you have to try it before you can figure out if you'll like it or not. The interface is clean and very customizable, allowing you to drag things around, add/remove columns, and add/re-size widgets. I try to stay active on entirely too many services, so I'd need them to support something like Ping.fm to satisfy my sharing needs. There are still some bugs and things that don't work, but it's definitely worth a look if you need a better way to handle your information overload. Still not convinced? Check out the Streamy demo video.

Fw: Book Trade ebook News Digest for Wed, March 25, 2009

S&S Follows Random In Reduction Of E-book Royalties ---------------------------------------------------------------------- All Simon & Schuster contracts worldwide will offer a royalty of 25% of net receipts http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/20389     Apple Sued For Marketing iPhone As Book Reader ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Earlier this month Apple got hit with a lawsuit over an "exploding" iPod Touch. Now it appears to be getting hit with a suit over the exploding e-book market. http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/20386 Fictionwise Launches Free Ereader E-book App For Blackberry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fictionwise, the e-book etailor recently acquired by Barnes & Noble, has launched a beta version of its popular eReader app for the Blackberry smartphone http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/20378

ARticle: BlogCoach: 8 Ways to Encourage Your Readers to Talk Back

What would blogging be without the interaction between writer and reader? Old school media, that's what. And not "old school" in a good way. Commenting allows your blog to become more than just an information source. It allows it to become a community. It also just plain feels good to know that someone cares enough about what you're writing to respond to it. Here are eight tried-and-true tips for making your readers comfortable enough to talk back: Turn off comment moderation. Really. Go ahead. Turning off comment moderation allows for a more natural give-and-take between readers, since you won't be putting several comments through at the same time. Readers can better respond to each other if the comments appear one by one. Wary of comment spam? Enable email comment notification that lets you make sure all your comments are relevant. You can easily delete any comments that need it. If you've got some serious trolls or spammers and absolutely need to moderate, then do so as promptly and as often as you can.   Read More:   http://www.blogcoach.org/2009/03/8-ways-to-encourage-your-readers-to_872.html

1-own your own e-commerce business 2-and market it like a professional! FREE EVENT

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here BIG EVENT THIS SATURDAY! BRING A GUEST! Victorious Men and Women's Event Join us this Saturday, March 28, 2009 1pm - 3pm WESTIN HOTEL 1500 Town Center Southfield, Michigan Special Guest Speaker Pam Perry One of the nation's foremost public relations and marketing professionals- learned at an early age about the necessity and power of networking in fulfilling a dream. She is known as the PR GURU, AND THE PR COACH. Come and learn how to 1-own your own e-commerce business 2-and market it like a professional! FREE- Guests    $5.00 - Members "Get Out There" Kit & PR BOOT CAMP Tool Box Learn how to Master Online Branding and Social Media Other guest speakers include YTB All Star Business owners: Kimberly Perry - National Director and President Club Ring Wearer Deborah Taylor - Coaches Corner and $10,000. Bonus Earner And Powerteam Leaders - Jackie Lewis, Marsha Carreker, Nilda Thomas, Dianne Swanson, Patricia Chunn and many more! YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE YOUR FINANCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES. WE WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE IN AN ECONOMIC MELTDOWN. Visit www.PamPerryPR.com for the "Get Out There" Digital Product and go to Amazon.com to get the "Synergy Energy" book by Pam Perry and Anthony/Crystal Obey. Copies will also be available at the meeting along with the NEW "Who's Who In Black Detroit" Guide.   Forward email / Digital Evangelism! Sylvia Hubbard Author, Blogger and Founder of Motown Writers Network http://sylviahubbard.com http://loveablackwoman.com http://motownwriters.com http://michiganliterarynetwork.com http://aaeln.com (African American Electronic Literary Network) http://hubbooks.biz   Author of Romance & Suspense and Internet Marketing for Writers & Business   NOW AVAILABLE: Secrets, Lies and Family Ties order your copy now Coming Soon: Tanner's Devil www.redrosepublishing.com