I love my new iGoogle Theme! I absolutely makes me happy to see it :)
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Google Dashboard oder: Jetzt hoffe ich zu wissen, was Google von mir weiß
Google gewährt ab heute unter https://www.google.com/dashboard/ einen Einblick auf die Daten, die der "Suchmaschinenanbieter" von einem hat.
Ich selber zähle mich zu den Menschen, die recht viele Dienste von Google nutzen, angefangen vom Emaildienst ( http://mail.google.com), über die iGoogle-Seite (http://google.de/ig), die Übersetzungen (http://translate.google.com), usw. usf.
Ach ja, das "Hauptprodukt", die Suchmaschine, brauche ich ja glaube ich nicht erwähnen, immerhin steht es im Duden auch drin (http://www.duden.de/produkte/popups/duden01/aussprache/googeln.html ).
Aber trotzdem fand ich den Blick auf das Dashboard sehr interessant, da man hier einmal auf einen Blick sieht, was Google alles von einem weiß. Und das ist nicht wenig ...
Mehr Leser für den eigenen RSS-Feed: Spezieller Link für Nutzer von "iGoogle", "Google Reader" und "My Yahoo!"
Wer einen RSS-Feed betreibt, bietet seinen Besuchern in der Regel auch ein entsprechendes, meist orangenes Symbol und / oder einen Textlink zum einfachen Abonnieren des Feeds an. So weit, so gut. In Gesprächen oder auch in meinen Seminaren stelle ich aber immer wieder fest, dass Begriffe wie "RSS" oder "RSS-Feed" einer großen Mehrheit der Internetnutzer gar nicht geläufig ist.
Um mehr Leser für den eigenen RSS-Feed zu gewinnen, können spezielle Links für Nutzer von "iGoogle" (bzw. Google Reader) und "My Yahoo!" sinnvoll sein: denn viele, die vielleicht nicht genau wissen, was ein RSS-Feed ist, nutzen bereits welche - z. B. auf ihren personalisierten Startseiten wie iGoogle oder "My Yahoo!".
Nutzungsbeispiel: Die Links zum Abonnieren meines RSS-Feeds (von diesem posterous-Blog):Screenshot: Nach Klick auf den iGoogle-Link kann der User den Feed zu iGoogle oder Google Reader hinzufügen:
Der HTML-Code für die beiden oben abgebildeten Links sieht so aus (ich musste den Code leider als Screenshot einfügen, da posterous das HTML sonst interpretiert ...):
Das Kernstück nochmal zum Mitschreiben:
Ich selbst lasse das Ganze noch in einem neuen Fenster stattfinden, aber das ist natürlich Geschmacksache.
The Battle For Your Attention: Google And Facebook
As much as people talk about Twitter, we must realize that Twitter is only a tool (or infrastructure as I have argued). It is not a destination that people will focus their attention on for hours of the day. Destinations have been the goal for many startups, but to be a true, complete destination you need to supply a wealth of functionality. The battle for your attention, and which destination you focus on, is ramping up quickly. There seem to be two major players in this battle, Google and Facebook. However, they are taking different routes on their way to the destination.
The Facebook Route
Facebook started as this cool little social networking site for college students. Now, non-technical people like my wife use Facebook for hours at a time. Why did this happen? Basically, Facebook took your “real life” social graph and asked to store it for you so you might be able to find some long lost friends. People love nostalgia, and this really pulled people into the site. Add in some cute games and quizzes, and you have effectively rendered half of the internet obsolete.
So far, this does not sound like much more than a playground. However, look at all of the recent redesign and feature work. The redesigns have all been focused around real time information and making it more pleasing to the mainstream user. They have made sharing information much easier than before, and provided hooks into Twitter as well. People have started to spread rumors regarding the “news feed” features again, so it is very possible that they will start including RSS feed reading in some way soon. In one of the more interesting changes, they cleaned up the Facebook Inbox. The “messaging” features of many applications are typically “bolted on” as an after thought. Facebook’s inbox looked no different. The new design changes this and almost makes it look like a simple email program. If you then add in all of the work with Facebook Connect and the mobile applications, Facebook is trying to ensure that you either never leave Facebook, or you take your Facebook identity with you everywhere.
The Google Route
Google may be headed for the same destination, but their route is definitely starting from a different direction. Google started as a search company and has been adding new applications for years. One of the earliest applications they built was GMail. Everyone uses email in some way, so Google decided to create an email service that worked a little different than normal, using tags not folders, and provide it for free. In addition to email, we now have a wealth of “office” functionality from Google. GMail is slowly moving into the “Outlook” space by integrating Google Calendar, Contacts and Tasks. We also have Google Docs, which can be bundled with GMail to create Google Apps, an application suite offering for people and businesses trying to get away from the traditional Microsoft offerings.
Like Facebook, this was all nice functionality, but it has been the more recent developments that make this interesting. About a year ago, Google released Chrome, initially thought to be just a new browser, but now being seen as the basis for a Google operating system, ChromeOS. So, we can start to see the grand plan from Google, where all of your applications are cloud based and conveniently run best when using their operating system. Another company took this direction a long time ago and is still making boatloads of money from it.
However, Google realized that it did not have much of a handle on the social media space. So, we get a redesigned contact management application, iGoogle (their personalized homepage) gets social-enabled gadgets, Google Reader gets a bunch of new social features, and Google Docs adds some simpler sharing features. Lastly, we have Google Wave which is meant as a totally disruptive communications tool. It is taking email, Twitter, threaded conversations from sites like FriendFeed, and mashing it all together to create something completely different. In addition to combining all of the communications features, it takes your original social graph, your email contacts, basically converts them into a social network like Facebook.
The Battlefield
So, Facebook is trying to get closer to a real email client and generally be the only site you visit on any given day. Google already has your email, but wants to provide all of the functionality you could possibly need and make it all social for you. Both companies know that communication is the key to winning. If they provide the easiest and best communications tools, they will likely become the destination of choice.
The real question is whether there is something missing. Is there some key piece of functionality that we do not have yet that could make either of them the clear winner? Is there some other player in this game that could overtake them? Can a small startup find some way to compete? Personally, I think there is enough functionality in both sites that raises the barrier to entry far too high for a small startup. I also do not think Twitter can compete as they are not focused on adding a bunch of features, and really just trying to stabilize. Yahoo is probably one of the few companies with the manpower and the traffic to compete, but they are trying to find their focus. Is there anyone else?
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Social media starters:Part 3: Using iGoogle
via youtube.com
A very simple, slow-paced, basic beginners guide to using social media in 4 parts that I have just produced. More to follow in the series as time permits. Feel free to put in requests :-)
iGoogle Garfield with Coffee - Good Timing
We're both having coffee :-)
INFOSTREAM STRATEGY #2: Tweetdeck - Putting a Dashboard Around Twitter
[I have several main info streams that I pay attention to these days and they are probably not what you would think. Here is part 2 of 10.]
INFOSTREAM STRATEGY #2: Tweetdeck - Putting a Dashboard Around Twitter
Twitter is the new email. It's not so much micro-blogging as mass Instant Messaging. The great part about an application like Tweetdeck, is you don't miss anything. I am not tied to my computer watching Tweets and Hours go by. I log into my Tweetdeck several times a day and here is how I play it.
There are other grouping and organizing tools for Twitter, Seesmic Desktop and PeopleBrowsr being two notable competitors, but for my money the simplicity of Tweetdeck, and some say the ugliness, is what makes it work for me. So when I am looking for outside info or stimulation from the web, I go to iGoogle and Tweetdeck.
Above you can see how my Tweetdeck Dashboard is laid out. My attention (deficit) flows from left-to-right, being a right-hander. Far left I have my "close" group. These are folks that I have shared some face time or extended conversations. These are my "trusted advisers." Rarely do I miss A SINGLE TWEET from my "close" group. And the reason is, Tweetdeck threads and keeps the tweets organized for me.
So when I have been away all day, say Easter Sunday, I merely open Tha Deck and in the "close" column is all the tweets that have occurred while I was offline.
My next Tweetdeck columns are
2. "pro" for Social Media or Business professionals
3. "all friends." for the 2,000+ people I am "following" (you can see how this is a loose term, as I am not likely to scroll back through my "all friends" column unless I am digging deep for inspiration)
4. search "jmacofearth" this allows me to see any time my Twitter name is used, incase I don't follow someone, I will still see their message
5. "facebook status updates" this is NEW to Tweetdeck and how awesome to put FB in the same tool as Twitter
6. "direct messages" this column run off the page, but I can see when the avatar icons change and thus I need to scroll over and see what someone DM-d to me.
So with my Tweetdeck Dashboard, my attention flows from Left (full-attention) to Right in ever decreasing levels of attention for me. While Facebook updates are important, they don't move or change as quickly so I can browse them with less frequency. I know a number of people who don't like Twitter because the information seems overwhelming. And they say the Facebook updates feel just about manageable. Well, now, it's just another stream in my Tweetdeck Dashboard. It fits into the format perfectly. And with Tweetdeck I can post to Twitter and Facebook with a single message.
Twitter Rule #2 Get a Twitter Management Strategy and a Twitter App Works for You
The information on Twitter is amazing. You can slice it, dice it, search it, track it, measure it and graph it, but if you can't control it what it will do is blow your head off. I cannot imagine a process for using Twitter via twitter.com that would allow me to make any sense of the vast amount of valuable (and value-less) data coming through Twitter.
I have given an example of how my strategy has evolved using Tweetdeck. My advice is to pick something and the work it. See how it fits and how you can organize the stream-runneth-over of Twitter follows.
@jmacofearth
permalink to original post on uber.la: http://bit.ly/infostream-2
[NEXT] INFOSTREAM STRATEGY #3: FriendFeed
INFOSTREAM STRATEGY #1: The iGoogle Dashboard - Getting Your RSS Under Control
[I have several main info streams that I pay attention to these days and they are probably not what you would think. Here is part 1 of 10.]
INFOSTREAM STRATEGY #1: iGoogle Page and multi-tabbed groups of feeds
Oh how the RSS feed has changed in the last 3 years for me. It was interesting describing what RSS was to a friend who is getting up to speed on the web. My final explanation went something like this. "When I find a site I am interested in reading, I look for the RSS button and add their content to my iGoogle page."
This was informative to ME for several reasons. 1.) If the site is not about DESIGN or VISUAL MEDIA I pay very little attention to the site itself. I subscribe to the RSS feed, and then when the widget pops up on my iGoogle page I scan the latest posts for interesting topics. Occasionally I will immediately delete the widget if the user does not have Informative Post Titles. When the feed titles are "Link Summary 4-16-09" and "Link Summary 4-15-09" etc. then I am not likely to glean much interest in the future when I visit my iGoogle SocialMedia and SEO News dashboard. If I can't scan the headline/title and understand in 1 second or less, "is this of interest to me NOW?" then I won't ever spend the time to dig into the information further. There is just too much coming at me.
RSS RULE #1 Make the Title of your post relevant, clear and meaningful. If you are going to be cute, make sure you get the clear message across as well. Otherwise, why bother posting it. Unless you are Guy Kawasaki or Steve Jobs, I am not likely to browse your "Link Summary" posts. EVER.
What you can see from here are the widgets on my "WordPress" tab. Also you can see my other TABS.
- Home (my initial, general purpose TAB)
- Darn Funny (Colbert Report etc.)
- Dell and Competitors (cause I still care about'm)
- AAPL (Apple and all things iPod, iPhone and Mac related)
- Webmaster Tools (Google's Webmasters Tools widgets)
- Social Media (RSS feeds from around the SM planet)
- JMac Data (most of my various feed varieties)
- SEO SEM (search and search engine marketing)
And here's an interesting kicker: I can email you any of these TABS and you can have them just as I have the ADDED to YOUR iGoogle page. I'm not promoting that here, but I have made several TABS for friends and clients and then sent them the email containing all of the data, widgets and settings that I created for them. Then, if it's not a TAB I am directly interested in, I delete it from my dashboard. But that is a pretty powerful feature when you think about it. [And if you are interested in any of my TABS let me know.]
@jmacofearth
permalink on uber.la: http://bit.ly/infostream-1
[NEXT on uber.la] INFOFEED #2 Tweetdeck
