Search results for: “rss”

  • How to use RSS?

    How to use RSS – isn’t a question that I thought would be ever asked. I put together a guide some eight years ago and had been meaning to update it for a while. I was reminded to do this by Wadds recent post on RSS. I realised  there is likely a whole generation of netizens that hadn’t used RSS; or had used Google Reader and didn’t have a clue about what under-pinned it and how it could be useful.

    RSS is dead‘ is a myth beloved of the social networks that want to spoon feed you algorithmically sifted world views. This myth has leaked into web development circles and I have had to fight with development teams to keep in support for the standard.

    Put simply RSS is like a ticker tape for the web that allows you to get updates about new articles posted on websites.

    My own journey in how to use RSS

    I started off using RSS readers with NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire was an application  that developed a swift cult following on Mac OSX. This would have been late 2002. I immediately saw the benefit as a PR person, having the news come to me, rather than having to go do a round robin of a list of sites in my browser bookmarks.

    An RSS reader allows you to:

    • Collect updates from 100s of sites that you wouldn’t otherwise have time to get around
    • Read a precis of these updates
    • Organise sites into folders

    At the time, only calendar, address book, email and task information synced across my work and home computers. I had only just got mobile email on a Palm PDA that connected into a Nokia 6310i via a data cable using Palm’s Mobile Internet Kit. This only allowed me to access a limited amount of the web but no RSS. This only worked with my personal email.

    The problem with NetNewsWire was that there was no sync. If I read RSS at work I would then have to clear it again at home. I got around this by dragging my laptop into work and using the guest wi-fi network access. But this was misinterpreted by management.

    I started using Bloglines an online RSS reader. This was eventually squeezed out of business by Google Reader. In 2013 Google killed Reader to try and force people to use the algorithmic feeds on Google+. Aside from destroying a large audience of RSS users; the cunning plan failed.

    Google Reader was an RSS reader with some proprietary features including bookmarks. I decided against using Google Reader and went with Fast Ladder – which was run by Livedoor, a Japanese company. Livedoor eventually saw its CEO go to jail for securities fraud.

    Since then I have been using Newsblur. Newsblur has a couple of unique features that put it head-and-shoulders above rivals like Feedly, theoldreader or Inoreader :

    • You can train the reader to highlight or hide posts that aren’t of interest
    • It provides three views: text-only (great for speed), feed and the article as it appears on the web page ‘in-situ’
    • It offers seamless integration with the pinboard social bookmarking service

    Navigating your way around Newsblur

    This is what the home screen looks like

    Newsblur in use

    What is an OPML file? If you’ve already used an RSS reader, an OPML file is a standard export file format that allows you to move from one RSS reader to another. The Goodies and Apps option gives you a bookmarklet that you can add to your browser to add new sites that you want to follow and links to apps for Mac and mobile platforms. On the desktop, using the web interface is best. On mobiles the app is pretty much obligatory to use.

    Click into a folder and start reading

    Newsblur home page

    Keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet
    Newsblur shortcuts

  • RSS renaissance + more news

    Now Is The Perfect Time For An RSS Renaissance | Neflabs – great read and a much needed request for a lean web. There has been a post-Google Reader RSS renaissance in terms of readers out there. My favourite reader of the RSS renaissance is Newsblur

    Here’s What Facebook Won’t Let You Post | WIRED – pretty grim read

    CIA agents in ‘about 30 countries’ tracked by technology, top official says – CNNPolitics – “Singapore’s been doing it for years,” she told CNN following her keynote speech on Sunday morning at the 2018 GEOINT Symposium, hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Meyerriecks did not elaborate with further examples. – It makes total sense that the CIA is building a ‘Google Maps’-style dead ground map of areas that they operate in using machine learning. More related content here.

    Chinese cult writer Chen Qiufan on pushing the boundaries of sci-fi | FT – good read with the obligatory name check of Liu Cixin (paywall)

    g2g, brb, and what the loss of early MSN language means | Dazed – interesting change in consumer behaviour as time spent online creeps upwards with the move towards ubiquitous connectivity

    P&G returns to YouTube but with a more selective mindset | Marketing Interactive – ultimately brands are powerless in the face of Google, Facebook and Amazon advertising if they insist on not running with a media neutral approach

    China opposes all forms of protectionism, commerce minister says – says market with high levels of implicit and explicit protection

    No, a keyboard app can’t ‘prevent tragedy from depression’ | Advertising | Campaign Asia – quite shocking claims

    Google’s new video ad format doesn’t need YouTube | Digital | Campaign Asia – interesting move

    AI in the UK white paper | House of Lords – (PDF)

    Microsoft gives up artificial intelligence sales over ethical concerns – interesting positioning, it would be good to get an understanding on on what the board would define as a bad actor

    After Sir Martin Sorrell: The Reckoning | LinkedIn – interesting analysis of the marketing sector, I disagree with the way that some of it hangs together

    Gchat could have saved Google the trouble of launching yet another messaging service. | Slate – what this forgets is that GChat ended up having a lot of bots and spam accounts. For me it was worse than Skype or Yahoo! Messenger at the time. I could see business historians highlighting this as a lost opportunity in the story of Alphabet

  • RSS dead nonsense + more

    RSS dead nonsense

    Is RSS Dead? A Look At The Numbers | MakeUseOf – interesting stats on RSS – a very-much alive format. RSS dead is nonsense, I use it everyday. It is invisible plumbing. Reports of RSS dead is due to the demise of Google Reader. I can’t recommend RSS reader Newsblur enough. More related content here

    Business

    Adidas Group Forecasts 15 Percent Annual EPS Growth Through 2020 | Team Business – interesting definition of open source

    China

    China Focus: Top political advisor highlights CPC leadership, “Four Comprehensives” | Xinhua – comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society, deepening reform, advancing the rule of law and strictly governing the Party

    Culture

    ‘We Came to Sweat’ Tells the Story of New York City’s Oldest Black-Owned Gay Club | VICE – interesting artefact of club culture

    Economics

    Chinas slowdown has suddenly become a “fiscal shock” | Quartz – interesting economic data, the property price change doesn’t surprise me, Chinas slowdown is likely to be temporary

    FMCG

    Kraft and Heinz Merger a Cost Cutting Story | Euromonitor International – cost cutting could also be from a marketing perspective

    Innovation

    Venture investor Bill Gurley predicts startup failure – Fortune – we may not be in a tech bubble, the venture capitalist said, but we’re in a risk bubble

    Luxury

    “Dressing down” is only a status symbol for the elite – Quartz – flagged up by our Becky

    Online

    Facebook Unveils Immersive 360-Degree Video for News Feeds | WIRED – interesting moves to come up with immersive (non game) content

    Philippines

    Homegrown smartphone brand beats Samsung in the Philippines | Techinasia – part of a wider story about how Samsung is getting rolled back out of high growth markets in smartphones

    Security

    Ex-NSA director: China has hacked ‘every major corporation’ in U.S. – CNN Money – strident allegations, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 5Is have also done the same thing

    Software

    Messaging Apps Offer Do-It-All Services in Bid for Higher Profits – NYTimes.com – interesting article on how WeChat and LINE are blazing the trail for western OTT messaging platforms in terms of innovation and business models (paywall)

    WeChat is how content goes viral in China | Resonance China – from a marketing perspective this confirms the decline in Weibo as a platform. It also provides challenges due to the lack of visibility for brands in comparison to Weibo

    What’s missing from this 13-year-old girl’s iPhone home screen? – Quartz – interesting but not necessarily scientific. It does make me wonder why color coding doesn’t happen in app groupings UI specs

    Technology

    No, Really, the PC Is Dying and It’s Not Coming Back | WIRED – dramatic title, 5 per cent drop in PC sales numbers. It ignores the role of the personal computer as a business workhorse and as a creative tool

  • Shrook RSS reader

    How China’s internet regulations got me thinking about the Shrook RSS reader and service. I got unfettered internet access during a trip across the border from Shenzhen , China to Hong Kong. I briefly checked my Bloglines account and found that I had over 11,000 unread posts to catch up on.

    11029 unread items

    This got me thinking about a solution, so I will be trying out Shrook RSS reader and service to see if it provides an effective solution to my RSS addiction in China.

    Bloglines like Google Reader was blocked in China. I presume because these platforms would otherwise provide access to content that the Chinese government might to have censored.

    Shrook is a mix of application and cloud service with a freemium price plan offering always-on RSS goodness. Given my China-specific needs, it makes sense to go to smaller, niche services like Shrook. Shrook has a nice simple design to the RSS reader and is a native app for the Mac. It compares favourably to the way NetNewsWire was back in the day. The ability to sync online also allows RSS usage across different devices – so for instance home and work machines.

    UPDATE (September 19, 2020): Both Bloglines and the Shrook RSS sync service no longer exist. The last version of the Shrook RSS reader to work was published in 2016. The app has since been withdrawn from the Mac App Store. Bloglines closed down on October 1, 2010.

  • May 2025 newsletter

    May 2025 introduction – two little ducks (22) edition

    Welcome to my May 2025 newsletter, this newsletter marks my 22nd issue. 22 is known in bingo halls and the Spanish national lottery as two little ducks.

    Double Duck

    In France, 22 is the equivalent of 5-0 in the English speaking world as slang for the police. 22 is an important number for people who believe in numerology. In Hong Kong, 22 is associated with good fortune. This is down to the number sounding similar to ‘easy’ or ‘bright’ in Cantonese.

    I hope that you are tricked into thinking I am bright based this newsletter, so let’s jump in. Inspired by catching up with my old DJing partner Griff, this month I enjoyed the unashamedly joyous pumped-up sounds of Blackpool’s AZYR at the Boiler Room x TeleTech Festival in 2023. In particular the transition at the end of the set between Frankyeffe – Save me and Infectious! – I need your lovin’. (Extra trainspotter points if you knew that Infectious! is a homage / remake of N.R.G’s The Real Hardcore from a year earlier). Wear your headphones, it might be divisive playing the set out loud in the office. More bangers from AZYR here.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here

    Strategic outcomes

    Things I’ve written.

    • Predicting market share through share of search volume and what the rise of AI likely means.
    • Reaching a precipice in hydrogen power and trends in Chinese skincare amongst other things.

    Books that I have read.

    • Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams. Williams account of her time in Facebook had become the most discussed book of the spring in my social circle. I wrote a long review of it here.
    The Road to Conscious Machines
    • The Road to Conscious Machines by Michael Wooldridge examines the profound cultural impact of generative AI, which is currently experiencing a surge in both its cultural influence and practical applications. Drawing parallels to the internet’s transformative impact in the mid-to-late 1990s, where it permeated various aspects of society and fostered rapid adoption, Wooldridge traces the evolution of generative AI as a phenomenon that emerged gradually over the past half-century. Throughout the book, Wooldridge provides a comprehensive historical overview of AI, including the periods of research stagnation known as AI winters. This historical perspective equips readers with a nuanced understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of AI, enabling them to approach AI adoption with a well-informed perspective.
    • As I finish this newsletter during the bank holiday weekend, my light reading is Rogue Asset by Andy McDermott. McDermott comes from a long line of British authors like Jack Higgins, Len Deighton, Frederick Forsyth and Mick Herron who provide novels aimed at a shrinking pool of readers – men. At least, if one is to believe what’s said in the media. Rogue Asset hinges on the premise that the UK has a unit which assassinates the countries enemies on a regular basis. Think somewhere between The Troubles era Det and the modern deep state trope. Our hero is snared into the plot by being discovered on the run thanks to his online behaviour – which is attributed to GCHQ; (but isn’t as mysterious as it sounds because of the programmatic advertising technology stack). So far so good for what it is. I will let know if it goes downhill as a read next month.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Mmrytok

    Limitations are often the mother of invention. That seems to be the theory behind mmrytok. Mmrytok allows you to do one post a day. It doesn’t support HTML formatting, it doesn’t allow you to link out and doesn’t have a newsfeed. So it’s easy-to-use because it’s less sophisticated than Geocities was. In this respect it is to social media and blogs what Punkt is to smartphones. In an always-on social time, I have found it liberating to use. You can see my page here. I heard of Mmrytok thanks to Matt Muir’s great newsletter Web Curios.

    No, AI isn’t making you dumber

    Australian documentary maker ColdFusion put together an interesting video essay on How AI is making you dumber.

    Yes, you could argue that under certain attributes the population isn’t as smart as they have been in the past. Just last month I shared an article by John Burn-Murdoch. In the article he shared data of a longitudinal trend across countries and age-groups struggling with concentration, declining verbal and numerical reasoning. The problem with Burn-Murdoch’s article vis-a-vis the ColdFusion video is the timeline.

    His article charts a decline further back than the rise of generative AI services. Mia Levitin in an essay for the FT attributed the decline in reading to the quick dopamine hits of social media content.

    A college professor interviewed by The Atlantic put the decline in reading amongst his undergraduate students put it down to a practice in secondary education of atomising content. Pupils in high schools were assigned excerpts, poetry and news articles to read, but not complete books. This has impacted the size of vocabulary and grasp of language that students starting university now have.

    James Gleick

    This isn’t new territory, James Gleick in his book Faster documented the massive acceleration of information through the late 20th century and its effects on the general public. The underlying accelerant was described by Kevin Kelly in What Technology Wants as the technium – a continuous forward progress due to a massively interconnected system of technology.

    There were concerns in research as far back as the late 1980s that television could be adversely affecting children’s reading comprehension and attention spans.

    TL;DR – with generative AI you could become dumber, if you use it unwisely – but the problem lies with all of us and what we chose to do with our personal agency.

    CIA advertise for Chinese spies

    The CIA commissioned a couple of high production value adverts that they’ve been running on social media channels. The adverts are designed to encourage Chinese government employees to come forward as an agent. The sales pitch is about taking control.

    CIA China advert

    A translation of the Chinese tagline: ‘The reason for choosing cooperation: to become the master of (one’s own) destiny‘. More details from the FT about the campaign here, and here’s the two executions currently running on YouTube.

    It remains to be seen if the campaign will be effective. The Chinese Ministry of State Security managed to roll-up the CIA’s spy network back in 2010-2012. Up to 30 informants in China were executed.

    Montirex

    montirex

    Merseyside sports-inspired lifestyle brand Montirex have published a film telling the brand story from its origins to the present day. The brand is expanding beyond its Merseyside roots to get national and international sales.

    Trust, attitudes and use of artificial intelligence

    A 2025 global study covering some 48 countries was conducted by KPMG in association with the University of Melbourne. Some key insights from the report. Consumer generative AI is being used instead of enterprise options by workers. Generative AI adopters still have self-perceived low AI skills but that doesn’t slow their adoption. There is higher adoption and trust rates in emerging markets than in developed markets.

    Pro and anti-trust AI issues solidifying

    Year-on-year we are seeing an increase in both distrust and trust for specific AI use cases, indicating that it is becoming a polarising subject. The lowest trust levels is in tech-savvy Finland. More here.

    Chart of the month. 

    McDonald’s Restaurants saw a decline in sales. This was down to low income consumers spending less, while middle class earners still weren’t going into McDonalds. Normally when there is a recession, McDonalds should benefit from the more well-off trading down to McDonalds. Instead, fortunes have diverged into a ‘k-shaped’ recession. Lower income earners are hit, while middle classes aren’t. What Axios called the ‘McRecession‘.

    McDonald's quarterly sales growth

    Things I have watched. 

    Tony Arzenta (also known as Big Guns). The film is an early 1970s gallo film. French star Alain Delon appears in this classic retribution story based in Milan. As Tony Arzenta, Delon exacts revenge on the former bosses who killed his family by accident in a botched assassination attempt to prevent him from retiring.The film uses a wintry Milan as a good atmospheric backdrop for the action that plays out in a series of shoot-outs and car chases. It’s John Wick before it was even conceived. Delon brings a tension that other stars of the era like Charles Bronson failed to do in similar roles. As Arzenta’s targets flee across Europe, he goes through Germany and Denmark to catch up with them.

    Sansho the Bailiff – as a film Sansho the Bailiff comes encumbered with a weight of praise. It is highly rated by film critics and Martin Scorsese had it as one of his must-watch films for young film makers. Director Kenji Mizoguchi assembled an ensemble cast of Japanese actors to tell a story of family hardship and poverty. Kazuo Miyagawa is key to the the production, providing a signature look to the cinematography. There is a tension between the emotional rollercoaster of the story and the reflective nature of the scenes portrayed – I don’t want to say too more, except that even the character actors like Kikue Môri (who plays a pivotal role in the plot as a priestess) are amazing in the film.

    Warfare – I was a bit leery of watching Alex Garland’s Warfare after watching Civil War which was strong on aesthetics and emotion, but weak in terms of the creative conceits involved in making the story work. Warfare is the collective accounts of a US military unit during a two-hour fire fight. The story is told from multiple perspectives in real-time. The film captures the stress and boredom of inaction as well as what you would normally expect from this kind of film.

    Useful tools.

    Reddit Answers

    Reddit Answers – alternative to Gigabrain that I recommended back in March. Like Gigabrain, Reddit Answers looks like the kind of knowledge search product that we failed to build at Yahoo! twenty years ago (or NORA as Microsoft has been calling the concept for the past few years). Reddit Answers is powered by Google Vertex AI.

    Process online data like its peak web 2.0 all over again

    While WordPress installations come with RSS enabled as standard and is something that can then be disabled, many types of sites aren’t RSS enabled. And where they are the web devs will often disable it just because. RSS app will create an RSS feed for websites that don’t have it. This allows you to pull it into data processing using something like Pipes. RSS app starts at $9.99 per month and goes up to $99.99 a month. Pipes starts at free and goes up to $79 per month.

    The sales pitch.

    I am currently working on a brand and creative strategy engagement at Google’s internal creative agency.

    now taking bookings

    I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements in Q4 (October) – keep me in mind; or discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my May 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and onward into spring, and I hope you enjoyed the last bank holiday until August.

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.

    Get in touch if there is anything that you’d like to recommend for the newsletter.