Slideshow: Finding Signal In the Real-Time Noise

Finding Signal in the Real-Time Noise

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With more data being created and shared in more places by more people, each of whom is more active in each network, it is no surprise that many people are being overcome by the sheer noise of social media and RSS. On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to stop by the Bay Area Real-Time Web Meetup in Oakland and talk about some strategies and tools to help cut through the noise and find the signal. From my6sense (who I am advising as part of Paladin Advisors Group) to Lazyfeed, Mozzler, Cadmus, Twazzup, and others, each can help find personalized or socially recommended content that is more relevant than the unfiltered flow.

The full deck is embedded above, via Slideshare. If you want me to participate in your event, or talk to your company, let me know.

Blippy Streams Gain Graphics and Video Previews

Even if some may find Blippy's purchase records as exciting as reading old receipts, the site is working to make the platform more interactive and appealing. Just over a week after the service, started by Philip Kaplan, a serial entrepreneur, added popular purchases and lively chatter, Blippy also moved beyond text, to include DVD covers of movies rented from Netflix and iTunes application icons, bringing a little more color to the occasionally sterile feeds.

Blippy still has a way to go before becoming a heated forum for conversation about one's purchases, but the product looks to be naturally evolving in a way that mirrors some of the more popular aggregation services out there, pioneered by FriendFeed, and most recently seen in Google Buzz and Facebook.

iTunes Apps from Blippy Now Show Clickable Icons

When items from Netflix and the iTunes store are added to the Blippy feed, Blippy's army of crawlers tries to spider out relevant imagery. Some Netflix videos even sport related movie previews (and in a couple cases, unrelated YouTube videos).

Blippy Got the Netflix Covers Right, and the Preview Wrong

In other news from the week, Kaplan reported that Blippy will soon be debuting an iPhone application. There is an app on the iTunes store now masquerading as Blippy 1.0, but it is not approved.

To watch my boring purchase history, you can find me on Blippy here: http://blippy.com/louisgray.

Cadmus Launches Personalized Twitter Trending Topics

At the end of January, Twitter introduced local trending topics to show what people in your geography are tweeting about. But some have hoped the service would go further, displaying trends only from those you follow. While that may be on the roadmap, Twitter hasn't promised this feature, and other services are filling the gap. One of the first is Cadmus, which I first profiled back in November as a real-time stream filter.

Cadmus' new introductions, described in the company's blog post, highlight not only topics trending in your stream, but also groups conversations with nested replies to popular updates.

Unsurprisingly, for me anyway, my trending topics in the last few days have been "Buzz", "Google Buzz", "Twitter", "Windows Phone" and "Series", in light of Microsoft and Google's latest announcements.

As with Twitter's Web interface, clicking on a trending topic shows tweets that feature this keyword, but Cadmus, again, only shows updates from those who you are following.

Personalized Results for Google Buzz from Cadmus

A Popular Conversation on Twitter from Cadmus

Cadmus' personalization mirrors that of the new Twitter client from Twazzup which we highlighted last month. It too features personalized topics. Cadmus also pulls in content from FriendFeed and RSS.

You can find Cadmus at http://thecadmus.com.

EdgeTheory: Google Buzz: Content Creation or Collection?

Google Buzz, only a week old, is gaining a lot of visibility, and is seen as Google’s most direct attack against social upstarts Facebook and Twitter. Some really like it. Others are up in arms about perceived privacy violations. Today, Chris Saad and I talked about whether Buzz’s clear mimicry of FriendFeed and other existing sites missed a new opportunity to innovate – and become a true social network aggregation tool, including aggregation of gestures.

Did Google make a mistake, and not really invent anything new with Buzz, making it immediately an also-ran? You'll find Chris and I don't always agree.

Original Post Here: ET Conversations

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