No More Beta Codes: Lazyfeed Is Open for Everyone

Almost two months ago, we first introduced Lazyfeed, a real-time blog search and feeds engine, which has grown to be a big part of my information gathering process, following topics which I like, rather than people, or specific RSS feeds. The product's uniqueness is one of the more innovative services I have seen in 2009, which was a big part of why I practically have had a part-time job as a beta code broker, trying to gain people access to the site. As of today, that unpaid gig is done, for Lazyfeed has removed the beta wall, and opened the site to all who want to enter. If you didn't get access to the site, I strongly recommend you go and try it, as you will find the wave of interesting news and blog posts from around the Web addicting.


Topics for Lazy Me from Lazyfeed
As I've mentioned in my previous coverage of Lazyfeed, including a quick how-to video on the service, the site does two major things - first, finding blog posts and news articles relevant to me based on topics I have provided, and second, find related items to those entries I have added to my own social sites, including this blog and my Twitter account. Blog posts that have tags will generate new items, while hashtags on Twitter will do the same. This second portion is what Lazyfeed says gets you the lazy portion of the name, because in "Topics for Lazy Louis", I haven't even had to enter the topics into Lazyfeed - it just happens on my behalf.


The New Lazyfeed Home Page Is Open for Business

Ethan Gahng, CEO of Lazyfeed, uses his own product in a much different way than I do, leveraging the search engine for entertainment, sports, TV and other things, where as I just continue to feed my tech obsession like a bright orange RSS-powered IV drip. But that's what makes a site like Lazyfeed so powerful - it can be whatever you want it to be, and hopefully, without too much work. Stay lazy.

Disqus Launches Version 3 Of Comments, Adds Profiles

The world of comments on blogs has changed quite a lot just in the past few years. Once the central discussion point for all activity around posts, comments have become distributed, floating to a myriad of social networks and RSS feed readers, while still others are simply retweeting the items they like. The changes were enough to see one comment provider, JS-Kit, say that comments were "dead". Meanwhile, amidst the noise, Disqus has rolled out version 3 of its product today, providing a new, smoother look and feel, and most-importantly for today's Web, real-time updating and greatly improved "reactions" that pull in activity from around the Internet.


Disqus Has Now Split Into Two With Profiles and Comments
In parallel with the company's revamp of its comments engine, Disqus has also added a separate product, called your Profile, which lets users add or delete comments, without impacting the original site, and also presents yet another place to add your third party services, so you can tie all your activities on a post through your profile. Other benefits include a personal URL, such as http://www.disqus.com/louismg for me.


My New Disqus Profile


The New Look of Disqus Comments
Disqus's improvements are coming none too soon. With a great deal of comments taking place elsewhere, as I mentioned with my recent post on Google Reader, and have seen with various sites trying out JS-Kit's Echo platform, the world of comments on the blog has to adapt. I just wonder how the real-time aspect of comments can keep people on the site instead of venturing somewhere else, where they may have established a community. I am looking forward to seeing Disqus 3 play a more connected role to the social ecosystem.

Parse.ly Spices Up the News Based On Your Interest Filters

I am enjoying seeing the growth in Web services tailored to finding the very best news just for me. From My6Sense's attempt to only show me the best news, and hiding the less-important items, to Lazyfeed's topics-based blog search engine, we've recently seen two interesting approaches to cutting through information overload and finding the best data. A new invite-only beta service, called Parse.ly, claims to offer "fresh content" with "minimal garnish", and, leveraging my interests, gives me the highest-ranked stories, derived not just from my leanings, but how strongly I find myself aligned with specific topics. The result is another news source with an outstanding signal to noise ratio.

If you are among the lucky few who has thus far obtained access to Philadelphia-based Parse.ly (I am betting the best way is to follow their Twitter account), you start by entering terms you want to find news on, and dragging them to boxes that signify your intensity of interest. The five boxes range from "Most" to "Extremely", "Very", "Moderately" and "Somewhat", in descending order.


Prioritizing My News In Parse.ly
Per my usual approach, I filled the boxes with tech terms, and deigned to see if Parse.ly could find me new, interesting stories about the topics I am most interested in. And it came through - no question.

Each of the buckets ("Somewhat" to "Most") gained a numerical score, from 2 to 10. As a result if a blog post had two of my "10 point words" in its title or excerpt, it would have 20 points, and be pushed to the top of the results queue. Higher yet would be a story on Google around Pubsubhubbub and RSS, which weighed in at 28 points, sporting two 10 point words and an 8 pointer. Like traditional feed readers, Parse.ly shows the title of the story and the date, but it also includes a short summary and, yes, the post's numerical score. Sorting by score shows the highest ranking results.


My Starred Items In A Parse.ly Reading Pane

How Stories Got Scored Based On My Preferences
If you click on a story in the standard view, an excerpt is displayed in the reading pane, which also features a "Score Explanation". And if you click on the story itself, a new window will open with a Parse.ly share bar, prompting you to either save the story for later viewing, or share it to a myriad of other social networks.


The Parse.ly Sharebar In Action on eWeek
Parse.ly clearly states that its focus is all about the content and minimal when it comes to garnish (or design). That's absolutely the case. The product is reminiscent of GMail and Google Reader with its simple interface and the ability to star items, or show only read and unread items. You can also archive old items or delete them, just like you would for old e-mails and RSS feeds.

I am eager to see Parse.ly open up and let people get into the product, for while I have plenty of places to get news, Parse.ly has among the best I've ever seen in terms of quality. The company even says it could be a solid alternative to Google Alerts. Not a single spam blog was found, a testament to Parse.ly's selection from 50,000 different sources. The option to share out to other networks will also make it an interesting part of the social ecosystem.

SocialToo Status Extends Facebook Updates to Twitter

Last week, many people were surprised by Facebook releasing a utility that let Fan Page owners update Twitter from the popular social network. But some thought Facebook did not go far enough - as individuals could not utilize this tool to broadcast their own update from their profiles. This morning, Jesse Stay's SocialToo launched a feature which will let users update both Facebook and Twitter - not just for their fan pages, but from anywhere on the site.

Using the SocialToo Status application, you can share your personal status from Facebook to your personal news feed, as well as Twitter.

If you are already a SocialToo user, go to http://www.socialtoo.com and click the "Facebook App" link to activate SocialToo Status. Once the application is enabled for your account, you will see a SocialToo Status icon in the "attachments" section of Facebook, which you can update from the home screen, or your personal profile. If you have already associated your Twitter account with Facebook, it will ask for permission to publish, and following this, you're all set. You can even grant the application permission to publish from fan pages you may run as well.


If enabled, my posts from Facebook can flow to Twitter as well.

For a long time, power users of social media tools have found ways to bring their Twitter updates into Facebook. But now, you're seeing the first tools start to take data the other direction. You can also find the SocialToo application on Facebook here: http://apps.facebook.com/socialtoo/status.

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Disclosure: I am an advisor to SocialToo

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