What do you think?  If you’re a Plaxo user, I created a poll over there to see if folks think it will rise, and when.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Will FCoE Rule the Future?
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Feed readers are great. I can sit down in the morning, open Google Reader on my iPhone or PC, and catch up on my favorite news sources on my favorite topics, from Apple to enterprise storage, to the Red Sox. It’s like my own personalized New York Times.

But I want more socialization! I’ve been loving Friendfeed since I can see what (a few of) my friends like and dislike, and even their comments. And I love Friendfeed’s friend-of-a-friend feed, since it lets me find other new friends to disagree with! It’s like reading the New York Times with my buddies at a nice local coffee shop!

But I want more interaction! See, by reading blogs in Google Reader, I miss out on the comments, and I am far less likely to comment myself. And we need to be able to watch blog-to-blog threads.

So here’s what I want: A reader like Google Reader with social features like Friendfeed and integrated comment reading and writing.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Implement blog post threading per Ryan Tate’s excellent in-reply-to suggestion.
2. Import post comments and display them on demand within the feed reader.
3. Use OpenID (where supported) and cached logins (everywhere else) to let me add comments to the original blog within the feed reader.
4. Add multiple feed sources (like FriendFeed) and de-duplicate links and posts so I see a nice, clean, integrated stream from everyone.

Now, Louis Gray tells me that AssetBar is heading in this direction. And I’ve tried it – although it’s getting better, it’s still not what I want. Like every other thing I’ve seen, it lacks threading and integrated blog commenting.
Note that the integrated commenting I’ve postulated are very different from the comments appearing on FriendFeed and AssetBar! Comments on these sites exist only in the “walled garden” of that particular application. I’m talking about a more correct implementation that puts the comments in the source blogs themselves, capitalizing on the fact that most blogs use a few specific platforms (WordPress, TypePad, Blogger) with integrated logins, and many support OpenID commenting.

That’s what I want. Who will give it to me?

Update:  Frederic at The Last Podcast proposed the same commenting idea a month ago!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | I Want a Real Blog Aggregator
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Here’s what the email looks like (though I suppose you already know…):

From: Spock Team <info@spock.com>
Date: Dec 6, 2007 12:06 PM
Subject: Stephen Foskett has requested your trust on Spock

To: everyone@iknow.com

Hi Future Spocker,

Stephen Foskett wants you to join their Trust Network on  Spock.com.

Click here to get started.

-

Unsubscribe: http://www.spock.com/do/public/request_unsubscribe

To the Spock team: This is a real problem. It said “request trust” not “annoy with email advertisement in my name”. The former means “put a little check box on the user’s page or something”. If you’re going to send email, you must warn people! If anyone’s listening, kill those emails now.

To all potential Spock users: Stay away. It’s another Plaxo-like virus. Avoid my mistake and just don’t use it.

Update: Now that the emails have gone out, the update emails to me are starting to pour in.  So not only did 135 of my closest friends get Spock mails with my name on it, I’m now going to get some unknown number of alert emails as each of those people try out the site.  Thanks!  >:-(

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Spock: Spam is Not Logical!
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I avoided all of these things for years before finally succumbing to LinkedIn.  It seemed like everyone in my (professional, over-30) “network” was on it, and was sending me invites all the time, so I decided to jump in and join just that one network.  LinkedIn was, and remains, just “ok”.  I like that it is focused professionally and that many of my colleagues are in it.  I really don’t like that it’s not really integrated with anything – your network lives on LinkedIn and never gets out much.  And I hate the spammy messages and Ponzi scheme aspect of collecting contacts and luring others in.  But it remains ok.

Then there was Plaxo.  If you disliked the messages from LinkedIn, you hated the ones from Plaxo, especially their embedded “business card” signatures with JavaScript, images, and god knows what else…  I finally joined Plaxo because it purports to keep your Outlook address book in shape for you.  But I’m furious that what it really does is “re-duplicate” all of your contacts, messing up your address book until you have to sign up for their premium service just to get the de-duplication feature.  And don’t get me started about when I switched jobs and it spammed everyone in my address book without my consent!  And Plaxo just re-launched with a more Facebook-y interface called Pulse, which is pretty but mostly empty and highly useless.  I’m considering quitting Plaxo…

Then there are the social social sites.  I “joined” MySpace so I could keep up with one of my favorite bands, but I’ve never really used it.  It’s just so creepy and ugly – a race to see who can come up with the worst home page reminiscent of the way-back days of the world wide web.  I refuse to use it, except to delete the continual spam mail from would-be women friends in Russia…  Come on, Tom, can’t MySpace do something about that?

Next up?  Facebook!  Aah yes, home of 10,000 useless ways to “poke” someone you already know.  And home to exactly 38 people that I kinda know. It was interesting playing with the customization features, and seeing the crowded but much less ugly home pages.  But it’s not for old folks like me, I guess.

So why am I writing this today?  Well, if you’re my friend (and if you’re reading this, you probably are) then you might have just received some more social-spam from me this morning.  And I wanted to apologize.  See, I just tried out Spock, a people search engine that looked kind of keen.  It mines other sites to try to come up with uniform information about people from all those other social networks – a network of networks.  It asked me to add in my connections, so I let it search my address book (which, thanks to Plaxo, is about as crufty and full of surprises as my kids’ toy box) and then told me that 135 contacts were “already on Spock”, so I could “add them to my trust network”.  Sure, I stupidly, thought adding them to my trust network sounds OK!  After clicking “Add to trust network”, it asked if I wanted to email everyone else, and I said no.  Now I am not sure what Spock did to request trust, and I have no way to take it back.

But there was something nagging me at the end of this little interaction with Spock, making me think I might just have spammed everyone yet again.  Maybe I’m just mistrustful or jaded, but I guess I’ve just gotten to the point of assuming that all social networking sites are Ponzi schemes to bring eyeballs to ads by sending out email “on my behalf”.

I’m sick of it.  I’m opting out of the next social network I get invited to, and I suggest you do the same.  I’m thinking of pulling out of Plaxo, Facebook, and MySpace.  And the next site I trust that spams my friends will get the boot, too.  Hear me, social networks?  Quit it or I quit.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | “Social” Sites: Quit It or I Quit!
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.