I am sitting in my hotel this morning catching up on some research while waiting for a client meeting this afternoon.  These down periods are nice, I finally have the chance to reflect on client meetings from earlier in the week.  We had a very good business session with a major consulting services firm outside of Philadelphia.  This was the second of a two-day session, the first day was for laying out the technical details of the NewsGator implementation and today was for laying out the adoption / rollout plans.  In the middle of the session, it occurred to me that we need to be planning for adoption with three distinct target audiences; Leadership, Community Managers, and the User Base.

Everyone who has ever seen, managed, or participated in the rollout of something as culture altering as social networking knows the importance of Executive Sponsorship.  It stands to reason for activities to really take off, Leadership participation is essential.  Once that epiphay occurs, the question becomes, who is the right members of this Leadership group to participate, what is it specifically they need to do (both in the short-term and in the long run), and how do they get messaged to get and stay engaged.

There has been a lot of conversation lately about the importance of Community Managers, not only as curators of social networking sites, but also as drivers of adoption if they are realy, really good.  The same questions that applied to Leadership about selecting the right folks, specifying what actions they should take, and how to message them initially and keep them engaged apply to Community Managers as well.  But, the tactics of how it is done will be completely different.  Where a face to face meeting with an executive to help them set up their profile may be in order, I would hope a Community Manager is much more inclined to do that themselves.

Finally, the User Base.  By this point, Leaders are involved in the solution, Community Managers are tending to their community gardens and the solution is ready for end users.  Standard questions apply; what’s the most effective way to message, what is the content of those messages, how are they enticed to the site the first time, what keeps them coming back, etc., etc., etc.  This begins to look like the Change Management approach that accompanies nearly every enterprise software rollout, but without success in the Leadership and Community Managers, the effectiveness of any messaging here will be limited at best.

Well that’s a start, something to keep in mind when pushing enterprise social networking solutions to the user base; there are three distinct communities which require three distinct messaging patterns to make them active participants in the solution.

NewsGator: “Social Sites 3.0 Harnesses ‘Social’ to Drive New Business Performance in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010″ http://bit.ly/225ln6

NewsGator Social Sites built in to MOSS & NOW SharePoint 2010 too! See it in booth 401 at #SPC09. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/225ln6

Overview:  FeedDemon, the most popular Windows RSS reader.  The easy-to-use interface makes it a snap to stay informed with the latest news and information.  You can completely customize the way feeds are organized and displayed and set up custom news watches based on keywords.  You can even download podcasts and audio files and have them show up on your portable audio device.  In addition, FeedDemon now synchronizes with NewsGator Online and the rest of the NewsGator RSS Suite.  The software is pre-configured with dozens of feeds, so you can unleash the power of RSS right away.  Learn more:  http://software.techrepublic.com.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1147595&tag=nl.e175

NetNewsWire 3.2 is out, and is now stable. Somewhere around the same time, FeedDemon 3,0 was also released. This pretty much completes NewsGator plans to settle down with Google Reader as the synchronisation location, rather than Newsgator Online.

As a Mac, user however, NNW 3.2 came as a big disappointment. Especially when you look at what NewsGator has been able to achieve with FeedDemon. I have been following the NNW updates religiously, since NNW decided to move to Google Reader.

During this period of instability, I also moved to Gruml, which shows great promise to be a very good offline client for Google Reader, for Mac users. It, obviously has a long way to go.

Article Actions, Gruml

I am very surprised by the lack of Google Reader features that are missing in NNW. Especially so, since the same company decided to make these available in their Windows equivalent. I am especially referring to sharing, liking, and sharing with notes and Twitter integration (Limited to sending articles to Twitterrific and I don’t use Twitterrific). Also, I cannot read items shared by others on NNW.

Article Actions, NetNewsWire

RSS Readers have a huge possibility, but a few seem to willing to exploit it and include features that makes the RSS experience valuable.

For now, it seems, I am switching between to Gruml and Google Reader for my feeds.

Day 23/30 of Experiment:  views 4
Main Referring Sites: 1 StumbleUpon, 1 RBKartworks.com, 1 WordPress/LinkedIn

Today’s Activities:

1. Tip 2, 7, 8, 13: Surfed the web for some more blogs to add to my RSS reader. Found a whole host of new sites for added resources and inspirations. See Links below for my favorite subscriptions.

Thoughts out Loud

I’ve been asked a number of times this week why I use an RSS reader, and if I really get any value from it. The answer is, ABSOLUTELY YES!

For anyone new to blogging or following blogs, a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader is a handy free software (shareware) you can install on your computer that allows you to read all the blogs you subscribe to in one simple place. By simply adding a chosen blog to your list, you will be alerted to any new posts they publish. It saves an incredible amount of time. I call it my personalized electronic newspaper.

I organize my blog subscriptions into category folders. Branding, marketing, design, web, social media, and even inspiration. I continually add new ones so my list over the last few months has really grown. On any given day I can have 50-70 articles posted to my reader, so I always have resources at my disposal.

As a blogger, I’m always looking for new links to provide as resources in my articles. I skim through headlines to see what’s new in my industry and I often get inspiration from popular topics posted. It’s constant brain food and inspiration. As a freelancer, it’s vital to staying connected. I’d be lost without my reader.

Below is a list of some of my favorites, feel free to check them out and recommend some of your own in the comments section. I’m always looking. Enjoy!

• Branding: Brand Freeze, Design & Branding Delight
• Copywriting: CopyBlogger, Copywriting tips for online marketing success
• Graphic Design: The Design Cubicle, graphic designer Brian Hoff shares design tips, tutorials, and links. Viget Inspire, a design house who’s whole team contributes. Great variety. Blog.SpoonGraphics, Chris Spooner is a designer who often posts techniques and a number of good creativity links.
• Freelancing: Freelance Folder: Community for all types of freelancers
• Illustration: VetorTuts+, Everything vector, great tutorials
• Inspiration: Inspiredlog: the official tumblelog of Inspired Magazine. Design Finds Me, a mish mash of good random stuff.
• Marketing: Online Marketing Connect, Social Media Marketing. Duct Tape Marketing, small business marketing
• Social Media: E-Commerce Experiment, a work in progress much like this experiment, they keep posting all their resources. Great link source and relevent information to a new growing media.
• Web Design: TripWire Magazine, goodies for web developers and designers. Webitect, resource for webmasters

Of hoe FeedDemon zichzelf bij mij de nek omwringt. Ik ben heel lang heel enthousiast geweest over FeedDemon, in die mate zelfs dat ik ervoor wilde betalen, en ervoor betaald heb. Toen ging FeedDemon over naar Newsgator. Geen probleem, alles bleef hetzelfde. Een tijdje geleden werd FeedDemon dan opeens gratis. Mwah, geen probleem, goh ja, ik heb ervoor betaald, maar ik ga daar niet moeilijk over doen. Dit in tegenstelling tot vele anderen, mocht ik lezen op de weblog van FeedDemon-maker Nick Bradbury. Toen werd er geëxperimenteerd. Kwam er een reclameblokje in FeedDemon. Toen werd een gevraagd om een betalende versie (opnieuw), zonder reclameblokje. Zag ik eigelijk ook wel zitten. Toen werd er langs alle kanten gereorganiseerd bij Newsgator, en zouden ze de synchronisatie stopzetten. Waarop overgeschakeld werd naar synchronisatie via Google Reader. Mja, waarom niet. Overgeschakeld, en man man wat ging dat opeens snel. Geen eeuwigheden om te synchroniseren langs alle kanten, supersnel. Cool. Maar om te synchroniseren via Google Reader, moest je die Google Reader wel gaan instellen. Dus was ik even gepasseerd via Google Reader, en tiens, dat zag er toch wel leuk uit nu. Nog eens gepasseerd. En nog eens. En er nog eens gaan lezen. En nog eens. En raad eens? Pffffff. Ik lees nu zo goed als altijd mijn feeds via Google Reader, en FeedDemon heeft na vele jaren een heel klein beetje afgedaan bij mij. ‘t Zijn toeren. Hij heeft er zelf om gevraagd, meneer Bradbury.

Free

Malcolm Gladwell eviscerates Chris Anderson’s Free. Saving you time as well as money bit.ly

OFCOM

Consultation to reform the rules around commercial radio & local content tr.im

Consultation on liberalising the rules concerning ownership of local media tr.im

Newsgator, Google and RSS

Newsgator: option of paid-for ad-free desktop readers. Synch via Google. Good if you wanted synch with GReader. A lot of people don’t. See comments bit.ly

Techcrunch: NewsGator Discontinues Online RSS Reader, Points To Google Reader bit.ly Desktop readers get Google Reader synchronisation.

Local papers

Andrew Gilligan attack on local authority newspapers in the Evening Standard bit.ly

A good piece about local news, blogs, council newspapers, the Press Association and Digital Britain from 853 blog bit.ly

Sense about Science

Excellent overview of #singhbca by Ben Goldacre pays tribute to “intrepid band of bloggers”: bit.ly

Beware the spinal trap: Simon Singh and chiropractic libel case bit.ly

Twitter

Chicago’s Horizon Realty Group Sues Woman For $50,000 Over A Tweet bit.ly

Patents

Court rules against Blackboard in patent case – bit.ly

You Tube: launches a Reporters’ Centre

“Helping you report the news” bit.ly

Tennenbaum: the price of copyright infringement

Verdict in Joel Tenenbaum case: 22,500 per work. $675,000 total

Fair use is not a defence “Tenenbaum ‘piracy’ case is all over bar the shouting” tinyurl.com

‘How it feels to be sued for $4.5m’ is.gd

The folks over at NewsGator have seemingly given up on consumer news feed syncing and have ceded to the superiority of Google Reader.

First it was NewsGator’s Windows syncing feed reader Feed Demon that got the switch from NewsGator syncing to Google Reader syncing. Now its the Mac client’s turn and the esteemed reader NetNewsWire has now switched syncing services too. Yeterday’s announcement by NewsGator states that its will be taking its NewsGator Online news feed reading and syncing service offline by the end of August. This leaves little time for NetNewsWire to fast track a stable switch to Google Reader syncing, but yesterday the first public beta of NetNewsWire 3.2 was made available.

There are a few differences between how NewsGator and Google Reader do their syncing. Notably Google Reader does not support folders within folders, which poses a problem for people who have organized their feeds in such a way. ‘Flagged’ items in NetNewsWire get transplanted as ‘Starred’ items in Google Reader, but the ’shared’ and ‘liked’ features are not supported yet.

Beyond the big change of where feeds are synced to, the new version supports sending articles to InstaPaper, sports a fancy new icon and has had a general code cleanup to boot. Being able to sync to NewsGator is not even an option anymore (due to NewsGator stopping their service) and neither is the previously available alternative option of syncing to .Mac or an FTP site. The Clippings functionality is also currently missing in action; they haven’t been deleted, but there is no way to access them.

Not all users are happy with the new beta, as can been seen on the NetNewsWire forum. NetNewsWire was originally a paid application, which was then turned into a free application by NewsGator. The new beta contains a relatively large ad embedded in the bottom left of the window. In the future, this can be turned off with a yet unannounced payment system of some sort, which of course has some people up in arms. While one can usually say “just stick with the existing version” this won’t apply beyond August when NewsGator shuts off its sync servers. But for a syncing service without any monthly fees, you’re always taking this risk. Personally, I’m happy to switch to Google Reader and can cope with ads. Developers need income too!

An updated version of NetNewsWires for the iPhone/iPod touch is also in the works that will support Google Reader syncing. The release date for this is currently unknown. For those that are interested, you can follow the progress of the new betas at nnwbeta.com and even follow the developer’s twitter account recounting the coding work.

NetNewsWire is now going to sync with Google Reader [1]. I may start using it again.

Viral videos can make a profit. [2]

Someone is trying to take on Google Voice. [3]

Yahoo got Binged. [4]

Ahhhh. Hotels…. [5]

NewsGator online will cease and that is certainly bad news for me. Why? I have just switched to NewsGator Online few months back.

I was using Google Reader and it was under utilized, maybe I di not like the interface. My reading rate improved with the use of NewsGator Online because of 2 things.

1. Interface

    I just like it better.

2. iPhone 3GS

    Just bought it and started to go log in everywhere I go. My iPhone has made me more mobile (more inclined to log in due to the ease)

    Well, I just have to get back to Google Reader and hope for an improvement in the layout.

English | Español

I have been using NewsGator applications for quite a long time in order to be up-to-date on everything that goes on in technology and gaming, especially its Web version (NewsGator Online) and its Windows software (FeedDemon). However, this morning’s news from BradSoft surprised me about its planned changes.

NewsGator will no longer continue offering its free consumer version of NewsGator Online. It has been my favorite RSS aggregator. I was even using it more than the Windows app. It saves all of the feeds online, instead of storing it on my PC. Now I’m going to have to say adiós to it. Because it works together with NG Online, I’ve recently synchronized FeedDemon to work with Google Reader instead of with its own NG service. Enterprise clients will see no changes and will still use NG Online. NG recommends its users to download and install the latest version of their Windows and Mac software (NetNewsWire) to be able to synchronize it with Google Reader. An iPhone version of NNW is also available.

The company will also discontinue support the free consumer versions of NewsGator Inbox, NewsGator Go!, and NewsGator’s RSS features after August 31st. If you are a NewsGator user, you can go to its site to get more info such as instructions and FAQs.

Source: NewsGator Consumer RSS Reader Product Changes & Google Sync [http://blogs.newsgator.com/daily/2009/07/newsgator-consumer-rss-reader-product-changes-google-sync.html].

Español | English

He estado usando las aplicaciones NewsGator durante bastante tiempo con el fin de estar al día de todo lo que sucede en la tecnología y los juegos, especialmente su versión Web (NewsGator Online) y su software de Windows (FeedDemon). Sin embargo, esta mañana la noticia de BradSoft me sorprendió sobre sus cambios proyectados.

NewsGator ya no seguirá ofreciendo su versión gratis de NewsGator Online. Ha sido mi agregador de RSS favorito. Hasta lo estaba utilizando más que la aplicación de Windows. Guarda todos los alimentadores (feeds) en línea, en lugar de almacenarlos en mi PC. Ahora voy a tener que decir adiós a la misma. Debido a que trabaja con el NG Online, he sincronizado FeedDemon recientemente para que funcione con Google Reader en lugar de con su propio servicio de NG. Clientes empresariales no verán cambios y aún utilizan el NG Online. NG recomienda a sus usuarios a descargar e instalar la última versión de su software Windows y Mac (NetNewsWire) para poder sincronizarlo con Google Reader. Una versión iPhone de NNW también se encunetra disponible.

La compañía también dejará de apoyar las versiones comerciales gratis de NewsGator Inbox, NewsGator Go!, y las funciones RSS de NewsGator después del 31 de agosto. Si usted es un usuario de NewsGator, puede ir a su sitio para obtener más información tales como instrucciones y preguntas más frecuentes (FAQs).

Fuente: NewsGator Consumer RSS Reader Product Changes & Google Sync [http://blogs.newsgator.com/daily/2009/07/newsgator-consumer-rss-reader-product-changes-google-sync.html].

http://www.newsgator.com/
NewsGator one of the first online RSS readers I used back in the day, is being tossed in the deadpool by parent company in a move that signals its newfound focus on desktop applications and social computing tools for businesses.

Users of the online feed reader are kindly requested to migrate their subscriptions over to Google Reader before August 31, and NewsGator will provide step-by-step instructions and in-product reminders to make sure all goes smoothly.

Speaking of NewsGator’s desktop RSS readers, which includes FeedDemon for Windows and NetNewsWire for Macs, they have both been updated to a new version. Users of the software programs are asked to download the updated versions in the next 30 days, and in another testament to the company’s friendly relationship with Mountain View it is mostly touting the new synchronization feature with Google Reader as a selling point.

NewsGator’s focus on its range of paid applications makes sense. Yesterday, the company released an announcement about the momentum for its enterprise social networking product Social Sites, which recently hit the milestone of 1 million paying users.

NewsGator has raised $39 million to date , mostly from Mobius Venture Capital and Masthead Venture Partners.

Update (7-30-09): Since I posted this, Newsgator has made some changes in how they do things. There will be a new version of FeedDemon that can sync with Google Reader, but it is not clear to me at this point whether it will still be free. More later on this.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had started using Newsgator’s FeedDemon to track blog posts. See the May 20, 2009, post here. I described some of the basic features in that post, but I have since discovered a number of other goodies in FeedDemon.

Since I am now subscribed to more than 70 blogs, I definitely don’t want all those feeds coming in to my e-mail. Subscribing by RSS feed with FeedDemon helps me to do a quick scan of the topics. The main screen looks like this:

The left column is the list of my subscribed blogs. In the center is the list of posts on the blog I’ve selected in the left column. The right column contains the blog post I’m currently reading. I scan the blog column where I see in bold print the ones that have updates. I select the one I want to read, and the latest post appears in the right window. I scan the title and first paragraph to see if it’s worth reading the whole thing. If not, I just mark it “read” and move on.

The blogs I subscribe to help me keep up with trends in the publishing industry, news from writers I follow, daily Bible study, world news—you name it. It would take me forever to read every word of every feed every day. FeedDemon helps me make quick work of it. I can flag individual posts (notice the blog titles in red font above. I can add posts to my clippings folder if I want to save them for later reference.

I’m not the only one who likes FeedDemon. See Reviewsaurus.com

If you use Google Reader, you will soon be able sync it with FeedDemon and have the best of both worlds. FeedDemon has new version coming out soon that allows this.  Check it out here.

Try it!  Go to the Newsgator site to download FeedDemon. It’s free. If you use use a Mac or iPhone, other Newsgator products are available here. Reminder: you do need to sign up for the online Newsgator account in order to use FeedDemon. With the online account, you can access your blogs from any computer (as long as you remember your username and password).

The terms ‘social sites’ or ‘Facebook for business’ are being widely used to describe the next generation of corporate collaboration tools or web 2.0 facilities. Both these terms have a negative connotation within most businesses. Many businesses have banned or blocked access to social networking sites.  So it is understandable that the idea of having a corporate ‘Facebook’ meets with plenty of resistance from corporate decision makers.

The Facebook phenomena grew at an exponential rate and caught many people off guard including the inventors. There are many reasons why it became so successful and an overnight sensation, the primary one being that it gave people many different ways of interacting with each other and sharing rich content.

Can this concept be replicated within an organisation? The answer is a resounding yes. Most office workers are currently being swamped by information, and in many cases only a fraction of this information is relevant to the recipient at any given moment. All too often crucial information is lost under a load of less relevant ‘stuff’.

I’ve seen Sharepoint evolve over the years into a very useful corporate collaboration platform and portal as each version becomes more feature rich and the corporate user becomes familiar with it.

For all its useful features adoption has been much slower than expected. Why?

Part of the reason is that SharePoint was delivered by IT departments to the business in the same way as a new version of office was. Initially there were very few compelling reasons to use SharePoint.

MOSS has become more widely adopted as the business starts to see the value of this new platform with more and more content being stored, indexed and delivered through MOSS.

It is all very well moving all the crucial corporate data onto the MOSS platform but are the users able to find and access this data easily? Today’s data is unstructured and feature rich. This makes most traditionally designed storage and retrieval systems inadequate.

One of the products that I have been working with and I really believe is a ‘killer application’ for SharePoint is Newsgator’s Social sites Enterprise. This system is able to deliver relevant content to users in an intelligent way. It breaks down the lines between users and content by connecting users to users and users to content based on topics.

Simply put, two engineers working on similar projects in completely separate business units can be automatically connected by the similarity of their roles and the content they create and access.

I’ll be covering these features and concepts in a later posts, as well as other products offering similar features.

Are we ready for social networking within the corporation? I’ll be looking at this topic and investigating what is happening in this area.

I downloaded Newsgator’s Free RSS Feed Reader called FeedDemon yesterday which is a small application that gets the latest Feeds from your favourite news websites and blogs. Newsgator also has an online service that I use from work.

Newsgator Website

Newsgator RSS Readers Download

Shahmeer’s Blog RSS Feed

Do you blog, do you read blogs, do you use blogging to support learning, are blogs dead?

This is the twenty-third e-Learning Stuff Podcast, To blog, or not to blog, that is the question.

Download the podcast in mp3 format: To blog, or not to blog, that is the question

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

James is joined by Kev Hickey and David Sugden.

Shownotes

• So what is a blog?
• You can get a free blog on WordPress, Blogger and many other sites.
• Commoncraft have a very nice guide on what a blog is.
• James has used blogs as tools in workshops at conferences to allow delegates to share their thoughts, this he has done at a mobile learning workshop at PeLC09 and at the ALT Conference.
• The LSN and TechDis publication Go Mobile was accompanied by the Upwardly Mobile DVD.
• Andy Black’s blog.
• …from the elab… is Phil Ackroyd’s blog from City College Norwich.
• Lisa Valentine’s blog can be found here.
• Newsgator allows you to aggregate newsfeeds from a variety of sites, combined with NetNewsWire on the iPhone it makes it very simple to keep up with a number of blogs or dip into the stream now and then.