Google Reader Stats II
I love Google Reader and like to check out my trends every so often to see how many items I’ve been reading & sharing. My guess was that the number of read, shared and starred items would have decreased over the last 5 months. I spend more time getting my information from sources like Twitter & FriendFeed and just assumed that I was stealing it from Google Reader. Apparently, that isn’t the case.
It would have been fruitful to have installed a monitoring app on my system to determine what I have given up over the last 5 months. I suspect now that Wikipedia, Snopes, and Facebook have taken the brunt of the loss.
The last time I posted my stats (June 18th) I had read 4,672 items from 110 subscriptions, starring 22, sharing 217 and emailing 4 over the previous 30 days.
In the last 30 days, I have read 6,053 items (29.5% increase) from 116 subscriptions (5% increase), starring 56 (154% increase), sharing 209 (3.6% decrease), and emailing 34 (675% increase).
I have also noticed that what I am sharing has changed a bit over time. Initially I was focused on GTD and lifehacks, now I don’t really have a strategy other than sharing what I find interesting.
Recommendations weren’t in my top 10 last time, now scobleizer.com’s recommendations & chrisbrogan.com’s recommendations are high on the list. Probably one of the reasons I find FriendFeed & Twitter so interesting.
I am not sharing items more frequently than I used too, but I am starring & emailing them more often. I typically star items to reread and/or research and email those that someone else will find interesting. While I add feeds on a regular basis, I also prune them frequently too and have resulted in only a net gain of 6 feeds during the last 5 months.
There is a tech focus to what I am reading & sharing right now, it might be time to expand my RSS subscriptions. However, most of the non-tech info (politics, sports, news, general interest) I read comes from FriendFeed and Twitter, so maybe I don’t need to broaden my RSS horizons just yet.
If you are a Google Reader fan, it’s worth taking a look at your trends, if only to get to know yourself a little better.
Firefox 3 grabs Guinness World Record
According to spreadfirefox.com
Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.
You can even create your own download day certificate.
tip to lifehacker.com
A great marketing startegy for Mozilla that generated quite a bit of buzz and 8m+ downloads in one day. It's not all puppies and rainbows as Drew @ Downloadsquad points out in his post, "Mozilla Firefox breaks non-existent world record - nobody cares", but as marketing campaign it was spot on.
ScribeFire & Firefox
I've already written before about how much I like Windows Live Writer and I am still using Flock, but I've found yet another blogging tool that I find both easy & convenient to use. ScribeFire is a Firefox extension that adds a blog editor right into the browser.
Firefox is my portable app browser of choice, but I think I will test out whether or not I can add this to Flock when I get back home. Flock already has a built in blog editor -- so it might not work. I will give an update after I attempt it.
Other news of note: Today is Firefox 3 Download Day and Flock has released Flock 2 Beta 1 using the same technology that powers Firefox 3.
Still Tinkering: YouTube, Ustream, Mogulus, Stickam, Skype
I screwed around with the webcam a little more yesterday. So far I've managed to test out YouTube, Ustream, Mogulus, Stickam, Skype & Yahoo Messenger with varied results. I am definitely a greenhorn, but if you are so inclined you can watch an 8 minute video of my experiences to date. I haven't tested out Kyte.TV yet, but plan on doing that tonight.
List of services mentioned in the video:
YouTube
Ustream
Mogulus
Stickam
Skype
Pamela for Skype
Yahoo Messnger
Testing out video sites
The excitement of having a new webcam hasn't worn off yet. I decided to try out two more video services, Ustream.tv & Mogulus. I took some pretty crappy video, mispronounced a few names, but all-in-all, enjoyed test driving both of these services. Ustream is definitely the easier of the two to use, but Mogulus has some really cool features. Ustream was also the winner in the live streaming quality department, but as for recording they seem about the same. If you watch the video you'll see my excitement at finding some new feature midway through the recording.
Ustream also supports embedding your videos on another site, something that I couldn't figure out how to do with Mogulus. I could embed my Mogulus channel, but if you are not live and don't have loops setup, it isn't very useful. If you want to see my video there, you'll need to head over to my Mogulus page and click "On-Demand" and select the clip to play.
I like Ustream better, but you be the judge. In addition, I've posted the blip.tv upload from my AT&T Tilt that I mentioned on the Ustream vid. Oh, and remember, I am a newbie - so be kind if you comment.
Ustream
Live Streaming by Ustream.TV
Blip.TV
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