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FriendFeed: Increased Activity Streams Boost Social Median's Chances http://tinyurl.com/smstreamsboost @socialmedian (via Twitter)

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:01:01 GMT

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“New Blog Post by @robdiana: Increased Activity Streams Boost Social Median's Chances http://tinyurl.com/smstreamsbo... @socialmedian”

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louisgray.com: Increased Activity Streams Boost Social Median's Chances

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:57:07 GMT

By Rob Diana of Regular Geek (Twitter/FriendFeed)

The one problem I had been having with SocialMedian has been the need to manually "clip" stories that I find interesting on the internet. Many social news sites, i.e. Digg, Mixx, etc., use this model with great results. SocialMedian has been trying to focus on getting relevant information in front of their users, while maintaining the voting and commenting mainstays of social news. By allowing users to create news networks, and making the follower/submitter model a little more influential, they tried to create automated content filters. With the early addition of user-configurable "volume for noise levels", they also tried to avoid the spamming of stories to several networks.

These were fantastic additions, but as anyone who has used social news sites, adding stories manually to a site is a lot of work. In this past week, SocialMedian dropped more barriers to using their service. They had a big week implementing blog and Google Reader automated integration into a user's clipped stories. This makes the service significantly easier for many people to use. The Google Reader integration will also take your shared notes and include them as a comment on a clipped story.

See Also:
Social Median Integrates With Google Reader for News Discovery
Social Median Revamps and Introduces "News Streaming"

To give you an idea of what this means for user adoption, I will give you an example. I used to visit the site every few days and browse around. When the announcements were made this past week, I again browsed around but my activity had not been imported yet. On the second day, I visited a few times to reply to comments and review new subscribers. The third day, I again visited a few times for comments and I started looking at the stories that other people had clipped in my news networks. I am now trying to work the site into my daily routine because the Google Reader shares and the blog importing has added to the quality and timeliness of the stories clipped on the site. These fairly simple ideas could be a major boon to SocialMedian.

This also got me thinking. SocialMedian allows you to link several services to your profile, like Twitter and FriendFeed. I believe more is coming as well in the form of FriendFeed and Digg integration. By doing this type of integration, they are not really just a social news site. It is a combination of social news and aggregation or lifestreaming. So, is SocialMedian trying to compete with FriendFeed? I do not think so as they are mostly complementary services at this point. However, by dabbling in lifestreaming and aggregation, the number of their competitors easily doubles.

This brings me to another point. John McCrea of Plaxo had a really interesting point on the lifestreaming and aggregation applications:

"Can the pure-play Social Web Aggregators grow fast and long enough to achieve escape velocity before the big former walled garden services, like Facebook and MySpace, re-invent themselves into true Social Web Aggregators?"

Facebook has their news feeds, but they seem minimally useful right now. FriendFeed has a very good lead on Facebook, but they are still an aggregration service. They really need to start adding functionality to stay ahead. The beta is excellent so far, but is it enough to keep Facebook far behind?

With SocialMedian adding various activity streams, they become a very interesting property. Social news sites do not import activity streams in any way. FriendFeed does not have the voting that social news sites use. SocialMedian has both and they have interesting filtering. I do not see Facebook overtaking FriendFeed any time soon, but there is that possibility. There is no chance that Facebook can move fast enough to catch SocialMedian within the next year.

In the past week, SocialMedian has changed the core of what they are and it is a good thing. Are they a prime target for a buyout, or will they be the next Web darling? I think they would be an interesting purchase for someone looking to get into the news and aggregation space, Google perhaps? I have no power to make them a Web darling, but they are making it hard for people to not notice them.

Read more by Rob Diana at RegularGeek.com.

FriendFeed: Increased Activity Streams Boost Social Median's Chances (via Blog)

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:57:07 GMT

posted an entry on louisgray.com

Increased Activity Streams Boost Social Median's Chances

5:57 pm - Comment

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MyBlogLog: Louis Gray liked

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:03:41 GMT

Message posted by Trish R

Today's philosophy from my son while helping him with his math homework: Mom, you're a nerd, but I guess that's better you going out drinking every night and bringing home a new daddy.

submitted by Louis Gray

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Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:55:16 GMT

Tweet posted by Gabe Rivera

@jasoncalacanis And here's a special Techmeme page designed to cover TechCrunch50. http://bit.ly/tc50tms

- Corvida, that's Techmeme's search engine at work, so you're seeing a subset of all news.

submitted by Louis Gray

MyBlogLog: Louis Gray commented

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:54:22 GMT

Tweet posted by Sarah Perez

i'm here at #demo! where's the free wi-fi? you have to pay for internet? thank goodness for aircards

- Now that's pretty bad. Maybe you have to pay $18k to get access.

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Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:26:52 GMT

Should iPhone apps have a try before you buy feature? - Apple - Cell Phones.Org
submitted by Louis Gray

del.icio.us: Should iPhone apps have a try before you buy feature? - Apple - Cell Phones.Org

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:26:52 GMT

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Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:25:56 GMT

TechBlog: Linkpost | 9.7.2008
submitted by Louis Gray

del.icio.us: TechBlog: Linkpost | 9.7.2008

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:25:56 GMT

twitter: With 13 of 14 precincts reporting, we can now project that @drewolanoff has won week one in fantasy football against his opponent.

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:22:54 GMT

louisgray: With 13 of 14 precincts reporting, we can now project that @drewolanoff has won week one in fantasy football against his opponent.

MyBlogLog: Louis Gray posted a tweet

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:22:54 GMT

With 13 of 14 precincts reporting, we can now project that @drewolanoff has won week one in fantasy football against his opponent.
submitted by Louis Gray

FriendFeed: With 13 of 14 precincts reporting, we can now project that @drewolanoff has won week one in fantasy football against his opponent. (via Twitter)

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:22:54 GMT

posted a message on Twitter

“With 13 of 14 precincts reporting, we can now project that @drewolanoff has won week one in fantasy football against his opponent.”

4:22 pm - Comment

MyBlogLog: Louis Gray liked

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:45:59 GMT

Tweet posted by Anthony Farrior

@adamostrow hate it when the bench out scores the starters :)

submitted by Louis Gray

MyBlogLog: Louis Gray commented

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:43:08 GMT

Tweet posted by drew olanoff

just decided I'm going to learn how to fly

- I believe the fine print in your ReadBurner and Strands contracts prohibit this.

submitted by Louis Gray

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Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:39:40 GMT

Message posted by Mark Dykeman

FriendFeed is like Facebook with a bunch of the fluff removed. Agree or disagree?

submitted by Louis Gray

FriendFeed: Is Google’s Chrome All about Advertising? (via Google Reader)

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:36:24 GMT

shared an item on Google Reader

Is Google’s Chrome All about Advertising?

3:36 pm - Comment

FriendFeed: The Easiest Backlinks You’ll Ever Get (via Google Reader)

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:36:24 GMT

shared an item on Google Reader

The Easiest Backlinks You’ll Ever Get

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FriendFeed: The different factors of forming realtionships offline (via Google Reader)

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:36:24 GMT

shared an item on Google Reader

The different factors of forming realtionships offline

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Far, Kyle Lacy and Mike Fruchter liked this

Thanks for the share Louis. I corrected a typo, the above link is currently not working at the moment. This link works. http://michaelfruchter.com/blo... - Mike Fruchter

FriendFeed: The “gold standard” of recent startups (via Google Reader)

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:36:24 GMT

shared an item on Google Reader

The “gold standard” of recent startups

3:36 pm - Comment