I’ve just posted a long review of ten top RSS feed readers and their handling of video, audio and images over at the SplashCast blog. It was one of those posts motivated by personal need – I need to find something better than NetNewsWire for my new video-intensive job. I believe that online video and audio are going to become an increasingly important part of what almost everyone does on the web – so this was intended as more than just a post on what’s out there now.

I won’t be writing here about all the posts I make at SplashCast, but this is one that I think is of relatively general interest and could help folks out in making decisions about RSS readers for themselves.

Switching readers can be done at any time, of course. The secret code word is “OPML.” Any decent feed reader will let you export and import a list of all your subscriptions in OPML format. Most will require you to download the file to your desktop then upload it elsewhere, but some readers give you an URL of your subscriptions in their service that you can just point to when you want to put those subscriptions in another reader. It’s a little tricky with Bloglines, but if you’re a long time Bloglines user you should make sure to try out some other tools. Desktop readers in particular. Bloglines users have to import from their desktop, following this path: MyFeeds, Edit, Import (see very bottom of left sidebar).

If you want to practice importing OPML files, try this one out. See that link next to the orange OPML icon? Right click (or cntrl click on a Mac) and save the link to your desktop. They you can import it into your feed reader and sha-pow – you’re subscribed to all of these at once. Bloglines won’t respect your folder, but other feed readers will put all of these together in their own folder titled “Big Pic Eco News.” Enjoy!

Big Picture Eco News

Not local, not issue specific, not necessarily from any particular perspective but big picture, popular news from folks who focus on environmental issues.

Contains:

1. Popular recent items tagged “environment” in Del.icio.us
2. Environmental News Network
3. Gristmill, the blog of Grist.org
4. Sprol.com, using maps and pictures to examine eco troubles world wide
5. Tree Hugger, eco news for the hip and urban – I think.
6. WorldChanging, a great group blog on many issues including eco solutions.

I’ve been offered and have decided to accept a full time position as Director of Content at a pre-launch Portland startup called Splashcast. Splashcast is a multimedia platform that I believe is going to change the web in some important ways. TechCrunch broke the news. Here’s my new boss’s post on my joining. When TechCrunch and I parted ways, I intended to go independent – but this is a job I couldn’t pass up.

In the position, I’ll be highlighting the best groups of videos, photos, audio and text feeds from around the web, engaging in conversations about technology trends and online media news and co-ordinating guest editors from more niches than can be imagined. It’s a totally meta gig 😉 I hope to break some news, too. Along the way, I’ll help raise the profile of Splashcast’s show-stopping good product. The company has an enterprise software background and I have great confidence in our ability to execute.

I think it will be a great place for me to combine my public interest concerns with the fast pace of the for-profit startup world. From independent journalism to modern dance performances to photo slide shows of train yard graffiti set to the music of emerging underground hip hop artists – Splashcast is going to be a great way to spin out channels of thematic media content. I’m excited to demonstrate how it can be done by creating and co-ordinating channels like that myself. I hope that many people will want to use the Splashcast media sharing system but I intend to create a premier destination for highlighted User Generated Content that will be worth visiting regularly for anyone online.

Here’s the feed – I hope you’ll subscribe and join us for the ride.

I want to post a quick note in thanks to everyone who’s been sending so much support for my way for my next adventure. I’m working hard on a next big blog post but am just slammed with things to do regarding this transition. I’ll be posting more details on my consulting aims, with the same disclosure of hopefully valuable information as was the case with my last post, as soon as I can.

If I owe you a phone call, expect to hear from me later today or tomorrow. Thanks again!

Wagner James Au has a great post over at Gigaom about the growing industry of people in China who play video games like World of Warcraft and then sell the items they acquire in-game to US and European game players on eBay. It’s a bizarre world we live in these days and this is a good picture of one of the stranger parts of it. If you haven’t seen Au’s blog on Second Life, New World Notes, it’s totally worth checking out too.

Can’t help but think of the latest episode of the podcast Technometria, a great show that amongst other things referenced this week a quote (I can’t remember who from) stating that in the future of computing “the world would become magical.” I thought that was shockingly sad, as the world is so magical already! In fact, I can’t help but think that properly tending the relationship between the magic being created on the web and the the magic that already exists in meat-space (as it’s called) is essential. Failure to do so seems very dangerous.

Not sure how to put the above two paragraphs together, but I think they are related. Just a few things I’m thinking about. I don’t think that Chinese gold farms are particularly magical, but there is something going on there. There is a lot of magic emerging online. Dealing with information overload alone may require some serious magic, for example.

Don’t look now but women are making more of an appearance on TechMeme, the automated tech blogosphere buzz tracker, than usual. It’s often derided as an insiders’ boys’ club but today you’ll find a discussion of CNet’s obnoxious story Top 10 Girl Geeks of All Time and a Mama Musings/Nancy White meme about a cute baby video. Highest on the page right now is some good Katie Fehrenbacher reporting, but that’s nothing new. The CNet story was the top story when I woke up. (I should have used another example perhaps – that story is totally going to end up having a bunch of dudes circled around it kicking it while it’s down and that’s not the point I’m trying to make – I swear!) Jeneane Sessum hypothesized that there was an algorithm adjustment but it’s more likely a slow news day, to be honest. If Techmeme is going to be worth reading in the long run, though, it’s going to have to include more womens’ blogs. That won’t happen by manual inclusion by Gabe Rivera (ok, fine Gabe) but the way it will happen is as every blog gets indexed there: linkage. Blogs already included in Meme can link to blogs not included and thus introduce Gabe’s robot to the new blogs.

So if my personal blog here is still included in Techmeme’s index, I’m going to shoot to get this post on it by linking to one of the top stories. (Update: Success! Within about 30 minutes I was on the list discussing that ridiculous CNet story.) Then I’ll link over to a couple of people who should be indexed there, just in case they aren’t. Marnie Webb wrote an interesting post this month about an activist camp in SecondLife, as did Ruby Sinreich, Beth Kanter wrote about Revver ads in nonprofit videos online. Those folks are already blogosphere heavyweights, but this is just a proof of concept and I need to get back to work. 😉

Maybe this is silly, but maybe it’s this simple to change who’s included in Techmeme. Those blogs I’m linking to may need to be linked to the same links on Meme that I linked to early in the post though – in other words, they may need to be participating in these particular conversations already. I don’t know, it’s a mystery. And of course getting on Techmeme presumes that those blogs link to the same URL as other people indexed within the same half day or so that conversation first emerges. That’s not something that everyone is interested in or in a position to do – but that’s the nature of Techmeme.

My blog was first included there when Barb Dybwad linked to me writing about something. I may have neglected this blog for long enough that it’s no longer indexed by Techmeme, I don’t know. I remember when I first made it onto the site, though. It was very exciting and a huge traffic spike for this humble little blog. Let’s see if we can get some of that Meme love spread around.

Two court cases worth watching in recent days: one court ruled that Craigslist isn’t responsible for discriminatory housing ads users post on its site and another kept SF videoblogger Josh Wolf in prison possibly for the duration of a grand jury regarding a protest. The Craigslist ruling is complicated in its implications and may not be 100% good news for the web. The company has said throughout, by the way, that they hope the “flag as offensive” option would help with situations like this. Good discussion of case complications at the Chicagoist.

On Josh Wolf the video blogger, if you consider a videoblogger a journalist (and I think you should), then it’s important that if Wolf is detained for the duration of the grand jury (until July) then the NYT says “Mr. Wolf, who has served 88 days, will be the longest-incarcerated journalist in recent American history, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.” Here’s Wolf’s site.

Ugh, another test. Are there any RSS subscribers anymore?
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