I'm Not Reading and Engaging With Enough Female Bloggers

One of the more interesting byproducts out of Wednesday's post highlighting some of the more name-brand bloggers using FriendFeed was a number of responses saying that my subjective list of who was "elite" and who wasn't was overly weighted with male bloggers. Of my initial list of 42, I only had 2 women! And no, that doesn't sound right to me either.

Susan Mernit (FriendFeed Link) was the first to point out the discrepancy in her post "Friendfeed and the Stalkerati", where she wrote, "I was irked that Gray's A list of thirty-plus has just two women; on other hands, it's really a list of bloggers he reads, it's really no big deal--even if one if them seems to be a friend he keeps promoting." (I assume the friend is Corvida of SheGeeks, who I have mentioned 3-4 times in the last week.)

And yesterday, Stephanie Booth (FriendFeed Link) took things a big step forward when she wrote, "FriendFeed Appeals to Women, Too!", recognizing the imbalance and posting a list of 16 female bloggers, along with their FriendFeed links. Very cool.

Tamar Weinberg of Techipedia also e-mailed me, voicing similar concerns. (Her FriendFeed is here) Tamar also writes for Lifehacker, and she joined Mashable in February.

I've been thinking quite a bit about this, starting immediately following Susan's first note. And I believe there is no question that those I follow on FriendFeed or follow on Twitter, or those who write the RSS feeds I subscribe to, are predominantly men, even though the author's gender shouldn't impact my content consumption. It could be due to the subjects I follow. It could be chance. I'm not sure.

When putting together the initial list, I knew I couldn't get everybody. I remember looking for a FriendFeed account for Kristen Nicole of Mashable, and didn't find one, after having found accounts for her colleagues, Mark Hopkins, Pete Cashmore and Adam Ostrow, each of whom was included in my post. I couldn't find an account for Kara Swisher or Heather Harde of TechCrunch or Erin Gurney of Ballhype either. I had also considered including Jess Lee (Blog | FriendFeed) and Niniane (Blog | FriendFeed), who I engage with a lot on the site, but I opted not to, feeling their blogs were more weighted to personal blogs instead of tech blogs.

A quick scan of the TechMeme leaderboard doesn't exactly shout out women's names. While there are female reporters at most, if not all, of the major blog networks, those individual blogs that have floated to the top include people like Robert Scoble, Mathew Ingram, Jason Calacanis and Steve Rubel. And it's quite likely my reading list is just as male-dominated.

So, with that said, I'm hoping to get better here. My mom blogs. My wife blogs. Women everywhere are blogging, but it's obvious there's an imbalance in the way I consume tech news, and in the way I reported who's influential. And if you know of some fantastic tech bloggers carrying the "XX" chromosome, whether they are on FriendFeed or not, please post them in the comments so I can add them to my RSS feeds, and get them a little more exposure.

New RSSMeme Widget Embeds Blogs' Shared Item Statistics

Not to be overlooked on the day of ReadBurner's return to the Web, RSSMeme creator Benjamin Golub introduced a new widget for blog owners who would like to display how often their posts have been shared via Google Reader. The new functionality is powered by Golub's RSSMeme service which, like ReadBurner, shows the most popular items shared, but also offers advanced functionality that ReadBurner does not, including enabling blog owners to track their own feed popularity and shows popular tags for shared items.

For blog owners, displaying interactive details on blog posts is nothing new - ranging from FeedBurner's FeedFlare option to Technorati's tabulating external links. But RSSMeme is the first I've seen that harnesses the power of Google Reader to show just what RSS readers have found most valuable.

While RSSMeme is the first to fill this gap, using it here was a no-brainer. When Golub first wrote me about the possibility of developing the new widget back on March 5th by e-mail, I wrote back, "I'd definitely like to see that. I think it's a magic bullet."

So when it arrived today, I was ready. I took 5 minutes and added it to my Blogger interface, as you can see in the below two examples. Now, the RSSMeme data shows alongside the common Digg, Technorati and StumbleUpon details familiar around the blogosphere. And Golub's not done. While this first iteration simply pulls data from RSSMeme, future updates will enable readers to share directly from the site.


You can also see posts from louisgray.com shared on RSSMeme here.
Additional coverage of the new RSSMeme Widget can be found here:
Mashable: RSSMeme Hits Back at ReadBurner with Widgets
SheGeeks: RSSMeme Widget Released Early

You can get the code for the new widget here: http://www.rssmeme.com/widget/

As to whether I would favor a RSSMeme widget over one from ReadBurner, or vice versa, I think there's no doubt that bloggers will want to show the fullest story. Today, RSSMeme has more aggregate link blogs burned than ReadBurner did when it first shut down. This means my total number of shares will be higher on RSSMeme today. If ReadBurner can lap RSSMeme in total population, I would make the switch. It's an arms race for sure, and Golub isn't on the retreat.

Duncan Riley Misses the Point of FriendFeed

Yesterday, it could be said that FriendFeed "tipped", as TechMeme's Gabe Rivera put it. Dozens of visible FriendFeed users reported getting an unprecedented swarm of subscriptions by new friends, and the site gained incredible exposure via comments on a number of high profile blogs, including a highly prominent role on TechMeme for virtually the entire day. In the wake of its dramatic rise, TechCrunch's Duncan Riley checked in with a quasi-analytic comment this morning, saying after a day's use, he doesn't get the service's value versus Spokeo or a host of others who "do exactly the same thing."

And to put it bluntly, he missed the entire point. TechCrunch is right a lot of the time, but not today. FriendFeed is not the exact same thing as any service out there, and there's no way that Duncan could have given the service its full due in his limited exposure to it.

FriendFeed has been described by different folks as a social Web lifestream, by others a Web services aggregator, or as a conversational platform. But it's not just one of these things - it's all of these things. There are a definitely a wide number of sites out there that let you share all your activity in one place, or to track friends' activity, but FriendFeed is the only one that lets you share items directly to the feed, elevate discussions through comments and show "likes" to highlight individual posts.

See my FriendFeed here: http://friendfeed.com/louisgray

Like Twitter, FriendFeed enables users to sift from the best of the blogosphere to find their friends and peers. No two individuals' FriendFeed is exactly alike. And while I once questioned why anybody who wasn't a Web services junkie and RSS maven would join, I've seen users who want to be consumers of information instead of producers of information enjoy the service, solely for communicating with friends. And while the term "friend" can vary from service to service, FriendFeed has got the formula right. I can see quickly who likes the same items I do, who contributes to FriendFeed conversations that I do, and if in need of new friends, I can use FriendFeed's recommendation engine to suggest people my friends find interesting.

Looking at Duncan's stream on FriendFeed (http://friendfeed.com/duncanriley), I can see he imported his service and added friends, but he didn't participate. He didn't comment on other items. He didn't respond to others' comments. He didn't "Like" anything. He took a very passive approach and it's the interactivity of FriendFeed that sets the service apart.

Luckily, others besides Duncan get the FriendFeed story. Muhammad Saleem writes Where is the value? Connections or Conversations?, where he says conversations are more important - a big win for FriendFeed. Adam Ostrow of Mashable said yesterday that FriendFeed Crossed the Chasm, Frederic Lardinois of Last Podcast noted FriendFeed's Big Day, Dave Winer said FriendFeed Gets Interesting, Robert Scoble loves the service, and both Corvida of SheGeeks and Mark Evans gave me some of the credit or blame for yesterday's spikes. (See: Louis Gray Is The Culprit and What’s the Caramilk Secret?).

FriendFeed is winning not because it has smart folks behind it (though it does) or because it has more services supported than most competitors (which it does) or because it has a strong evangelist (though it does). FriendFeed is winning because it is interactive, it is architected intelligently, and the company listens to its users. Maybe Duncan will listen to this one.

ReadBurner to Return With New Ownership

Alexander Marktl's debut of ReadBurner in January had rapidly propelled him and his service to a short-list of new Web tech All-Stars. In days, the Google Reader shared items tracker rocketed to popularity, gaining praise from all corners of the Web, many of whom, including me, had long begged for a universal directory of shared links and most popular items - seeing the ranking of such shared items as a democratized, transparent, version of TechMeme.

But, like fellow All-Stars Barry Sanders and Michael Jordan in their respective sports, Alexander prematurely retired, and left us wanting more - in this case, saying real life had gotten in the way. But as with Jordan, this early retirement has not been the true end - setting the stage for a dramatic re-entrance, this time, with a little help from some powerful friends, including Adam Ostrow of Mashable, Drew Olanoff, and Eric Kerr. (See: I’ve Acquired ReadBurner: Attention Data is the Future of Social News

As of this morning, ReadBurner is no longer a gaping hole in the Web 2.0 sphere, but has returned with a splash page promising big things. The plan is to relaunch the site in a couple weeks with a more scalable back-end, improved design, and even more features requested by ReadBurner's demanding fan base - myself included.

And this development is tremendous. Many ReadBurner fans were up in arms over seeing one of the best sites to debut in 2008 get shuttered. Steven Hodson of WinExtra wrote, "ReadBurner - Please reconsider", and ReadWriteWeb simply lamented, "ReadBurner is Gone". The loss of ReadBurner left us with RSSMeme, a strong alternative on the Web, and Feedheads, ReadBurner's Facebook counterpart, and the original innovator in this space.

ReadBurner hasn't just found new friends. In fact, the site's found a new owner. Adam Ostrow isn't just bringing the site back. He bought it, for an undisclosed sum, from Alexander, in partnership with Drew and Eric. Now, the threesome, with Alexander acting as an advisor, will move forward and help ReadBurner achieve the amazing potential it always promised.

The excitement I had when I first uncovered ReadBurner and exposed the fledgeling site to the world is back.

When I found ReadBurner, after midnight on January 7th, I knew this little site had the power to change how we share and discover new sites and gauge momentum. In days it had its share of copycat sites (including RSSMeme on February 6th), and had gained media buzz from Mashable, LifeHacker, WebWare, the Download Squad and many others. It was fun to see Alexander's project grow to a full-fledged service, one too big and too successful to be held down by my little blog. Now, I feel like I've seen the baby grow up... and it's ready to set out on its own.

Welcome back, ReadBurner.