140Char

It occurred to me the other day that i tend to read the blog posts from those i follow on twitter - who ‘tweet’ new articles via twitterfeed or suchlike - more often than the others in my google reader (which i check once or twice a week at the most).

Wouldn’t be good if there was a twitterfeed - that i can control - that tweets me selected blogs - from my reader - as they happen?
This would save a lot of dicking about between twitter desktop client and browser/feed widget.
Yeah, this kinda happens with friendfeed but I don’t control that - I’m not necessarily friends with most of the authors in my rss reader , whereas with a custom google reader feed into twitter, spec’d by me… is that bit more personal.

Or maybe this functionality already exists? Any thoughts?

UPDATE: I also posted this over at never get out of the boat theres been a couple of comments if you prefer to chime in over there.

There’s a new service, Twitblogs, which allows you to post without being limited to 140 characters, include image tags, embed videos, and include urls of images and audio files - and it also updates Twitter for you.  (There’s a write-up on Mashable with some very interesting comments around the legalities of the appearance etc).

But the flipside is that the founder Sam Sethi, has some previous noteriety, after previous startup Blognation closed.  Michael Arrington writes about both Twitblogs, and links to his own experience with Sethi, who is a former editor of Techcrunch UK.

While I wouldn’t take anyone’s view on what happened as unbiased, and don’t know the details to comment, Arrington does make a couple of very good points about Twitblogs:

• You need to disclose your Twitter username - and importantly your password (something that’s been raised as an issue with other applications)
• Although a privacy policy page has been added, the site still hasn’t got any Terms and Conditions listed - the Terms at the bottom of the page isn’t linked. And although most of us may be less than thorough when looking at the Ts and Cs, there are times when they become vitally important.

Personally I’ll wait and see what other responses there are, until I get a chance to use the 140char test account - but in the meantime, you can always see the latest thoughts, as ever, via Twitter Search.

New site Twingr offers the chance to set up your own microblogging community on a hosted platform - unlike previous options like Laconi.ca, which required you to install the service on your own server.

It seems like a no brainer, but I think there’s one major flaw in the service - critical mass.

One of the successful implentations of Laconica, is Leo Laporte’s TWiT Army, fed from the TWiT Netcast Network, and therefore having enough of a community and interaction to ensure a reasonably constant flow of updates. Meanwhile, there are several options for corporate enterprise solutions, notably Yammer, as a hosted microblogging platform.

But Twingr is external facing, and relies on people wanting to create a group fo sufficient interactivity to seperate itself from the crowd - yet not wanting to host the service, and therefore removing any options to monetise it.

For those small groups, a more general service like Ning would probably offer more scope for interaction, allowing you to upload images and files etc, as well as messaging and forums, meaning a stronger community from a smaller number of participants.

And there’s also no scope to check out and join existing groups, meaning that duplication and confusion may lead to ever smaller splinter groups - is there a need for microblogging for a group of 5 friends who already communicate via IM, Twitter, Facebook etc?

Having said that, if you’re interested, here’s the introductory video - and if you do use it, I’d be really interested in hearing how you get on:

I’ve been watching the developments in online video from the sidelines, as somone who is still embarrassed by his time hosting a semi-professional daily webcast, and who has managed to avoid owning a webcam.

I can see why there’s an initial curiosity around lifecasting, but the reality is generally somewhat duller. I do get the idea of Seesmic, but I think to get the most out of it requires a commitment similar to starting out on Twitter, and I haven’t quite yet convinced myself it’s an additional output I need to find time for. I occasionally enjoy 12seconds.tv, but although the short clips are quite punchy and to the point, it always feels like I’m skimming over people’s ideas. (Although I do think @Documentally has really transcended the medium)

But I’m being totally honest when I say Mobatalk has convinced me that video has now arrived for microblogging - and for quick, easy broadcasting to friends and contacts.

Put simply, you go to the site, record a video clip (which plays back at a reall high quality in comparison to other services), and type a Twitter message into the site, along with a hashtag, which then posts it to Twitter with a link to the video.

Not only is it stunningly simple, but the navigation is really nice to use, with a really simple, intuitive and attractive display.

And then you discover you can subscribe via iTunes and Google Reader to an individual - or a hashtag - perfect for videos of live events etc. And did I mention you can also access videos via your iPhone?

I’m not the only one impressed by Mobatalk , but considering my natural cynicism, and the fact I’m in the middle of quitting cigarettes after 13 years, and I’m pretty surprised I can’t find any obvious faults.

It’ll be interesting to see how Michael Bailey - @mobasoft - develops the site, but there are advertising options already available, the video upload is quick and amazingly good quality, and it integrates well with Twitter.

It might even be enough to get me in front of a camera again - 140char weekly vidcast, anyone?

Not the catchiest title for a genre of sites, but it works! I’ve posted before on my other blog about why I’m not a huge fan of Digg, (and alternatives to it) but it’s silly to deny the fact it’s a hugely popular site and format, and that some of the issues I have are Digg specific.

And there are two sites offering microblogging aggregation. I found Microblogging.com via founder @ShaunMorton on Twitter.  It’s essentially a niche social news gathering site for microblogging, and there’s nothing wrong with that! One of my remarks about Digg was that it increasingly faces a challenge from niche focussed rivals. It’ll be interesting to see if microblogging has enough interest to build a critical mass.

Dwigger has been covered elsewhere, but in the spirit of retweeting it’s an aggregator of tweets themselves, and it also creates threaded conversations with images and even video. Which is an interesting idea, but I suspect slightly flawed. The reasoning behind Twitter is that my contacts will be the filter of relevancy and interest, so it seems counterintuitive to go and seek out what complete strangers are judging to be relevant or important except as an object of curiousity. And Twitter Search allows me to see if terms are popular by volume across the whole of Twitter, rather than the microcosm of Twitterati who also use Dwigger.

Dwigger is by Sift Partners, so I’ll try and drop them a line shortly and get a detailed explanation of what I might be missing, and I’ll keep the jurt out until then, but I’m not sure there’s enough of a mass of microbloggers for these types of service quite yet. Considering Digg runs on around 20 million+ users a month, Stumbleupon is hitting around 6 million registered, and Twitter is around the 2-3 million mark, Microblogging.com and Dwigger might need a fair bit of patience to capitalise on the new communication medium.