Blogs and Feeds

What Every Geek Must Have

Many thanks to Mike Churchill of KeyRelevance for sending along news of the RsstRoom Reader a got to have bathroom gadget that prints news feeds onto toilet paper! The biometric toilet seat even figures out who you are based on your weight and prints the news you want. For more on this gadget. Oh! Think of all of the time saved, now the executive bathroom in hip companies can really become a functional reading room, not the place where old magazines go to die. Oh! Think . . . maybe we just better not go there.

This gadget, more fictional than functional, is surpassed by the thrilling $4.99 (a sure stocking stuffer this one) Purring Kitty software from Vibelet that promises to "Unlock the hidden pleasures in your mobile phone by instantly turning your cell phone into a discreet vibrating personal 'masseur' "  Since it is compatible with about 40 or so phones, surely there is someone on your holiday giftlist who would be thrilled to enjoy the Purring Kitty.

But, remember Santa knows who has been naughty or nice so be good for goodness sakes.

RSS and The US Government

Want to get a daily image fresh from space or hourly weather observations sent directly to your RSS reader? If so, you might want to browse the summary page on First Gov that details the agencies with feeds. The feeds available from the Census Bureau alone are more than many individuals track on their readers.

It is not until you dig a little that you can find all of the information that Uncle Sam makes available via RSS. Give it a whirl and you'll be surprised at what you find. I was.

NYTimes.com's RSS Feeds Drive Record 5.9 Million Pageviews In March

Paid Content.org pointed me to -- NYTimes.com:

"The New York Times Company reported today that for March, NYTimes.com achieved a traffic record of 555 million pageviews, a 17% increase from March 2004, according to internal data. The previous monthly record was set in January when NYTimes.com had 553 million pageviews, a 30% increase from January of last year. Unique visitors increased to 15 million in March, up 10% from the previous year. . . .

NYTimes.com's RSS feeds generated 5.9 million pageviews on the
site in March, which represents a 342% increase year over year and a 39% increase from February's 4.3 million pageviews. The sections that were most popular among RSS feeds included: Washington and Business. The feeds have been available since February 2002."

RSS feeds will continue to drive record-breaking traffic for those who adopt the technology.

RSS Readers

"What RSS reader should I use?" This is a question that I am constantly at a loss to answer. There are so many. If you have ever wondered how many different RSS readers are available, here is a compendium of RSS readers including those that will work with phones, pocket-pcs and email. I've personally used Pluck for sometime now. I like its functionality, but I may shift to MyYahoo! or Bloglines or even the Web-based version of Pluck. I prefer web-based applications since they are not tied to one computer and use web-based email exclusively so it makes sense. I was so impressed with the depth and breadth of the list of readers that I had to share it.