Feed Review – Web Services

Just for Fun

Posted on October 3, 2007October 3, 2007 by Mike Nolan

Keeping on top of your feeds can be hard work – all that news and analysis flooding in every day can be a bit heavy so I subscribe to some which are a bit more light hearted.

As I mentioned previously I’m going to self-censor…

Dilbert – I sometimes worry that I’m becoming more and more like Dilbert and frequently the comics mirror my own life. I just wish I had a tie that curled up.
User Friendly – if Dilbert isn’t quite geeky enough then try out User Friendly. It’s set in an ISP and it’s easy to identify some of the character flaws^H^H^H^H^H traits in the Real World.
Rusty Lime – this is one of those sites I stumbled across quite a while ago and subscribed to just to see what came along – it’s not disappointed and has a steady stream of off-beat news stories that slip under the normal news agenda. I’m sure it’s all stuff you could find by watching digg, but why waste time sorting through the crud when someone else can pick out bits for you? Rusty Lime have also had some really nice designs for their blog which unfortunately you miss out on in the RSS feed.
explodingdog – you send in the titles, sam draws the pictures.

What feeds do you subscribe to just for fun?

It’s a serious business

Posted on July 25, 2007July 25, 2007 by Mike Nolan

Technology, and especially the Web, is a fast moving environment and it’s sometimes hard to know where to keep up to date with the latest news. Two sites I subscribe to are TechCrunch and GigaOM which both feature news and analysis about Web 2.0 products, services and companies. They cover similar material, often batting to be the first to break a story but it’s worth reading both to see the differing opinions.

Now for some audience participation! What tech news sites do you read? Do you go for tried and trusted traditional sources like Computing and Computer Weekly or go for blogs with a slightly less heavy style? Answers on a comment and feel free to post your opinions on TechCrunch and GigaOM too!

Bob Cringely from the Pulpit

Posted on July 23, 2007October 13, 2007 by Mike Nolan

So I’m off on holiday for a few weeks, but as promised I’ll be reviewing some of the feeds I subscribe to starting off with one of the most interesting people in technology journalism – Robert X. Cringely.

The history of Bob Cringely is bizarre – he’s a character from US trade rag InfoWorld and written by a series of authors. One of these – Mark Stephens – took the character off paper and onto the screen in the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds. It tells the story of the rise of the PC including very interesting interviews with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. There was a falling out at some point which resulted in Stephens being able to keep using the character for certain purposes so he’s still able to keep writing on the PBS website for a column titled The Pulpit.

Cringely has been blogging for a decade in the form of a weekly column and they’re well worth a read. He might not always be right (like the recent article claiming that the iPhone had hidden 3G capabilities, published after it had been stripped down to prove it didn’t!) but more often he writes insightful, well informed articles. For example, back in November 2005, Cringely wrote about Google’s plan to use shipping containers as data centres – almost a year before Sun announced Project Blackbox. He does this time and time again.

The most interesting articles each year are his annual predictions in January. With an average accuracy of 75% they can be a good indicator of the year ahead. We’re into July so they’ve already started coming true:

Some smart or lucky company will buy FeedBurner, which ought to be the YouTube or Skype equivalent for 2007. Yahoo really needs it and ought to buy, but being without a brain or a required sense of urgency Yahoo may miss the opportunity. Google ought to buy it but may not because Google has a similar service in beta that probably won’t succeed. But SOME company will buy FeedBurner and start printing money as a result.

Well done Google and well done Bob!

Hope you’re able to check out Robert X. Cringely’s columns – it’s always good when they drop into my feed reader on Friday morning. Enjoy the summer and look out for another feed review soon!