John LoGioco.com

#TwitterDisrupt Part I: RSS Reader Usage

My Twitter stream is pushing me content that I am finding relevant and interesting.  It has become a significant source of discovery for me.  By contrast I not going to my rss reader as much to find content that I think is interesting.  Both platforms require work to maintain, but I can reach that satisfied feeling that my Twitter stream has been "read" so much easier than my rss reader.  As a big fan of rss this is intriguing to me and one area of my life that I see Twitter starting to disrupt.  This does not mean I am shying away from long form content, in fact the contrary, but it does point to the fact that the crowd (read the people I follow) can surface a good portion of the content I need to stay in touch with.  After Web2.0 I made a decision to switch rss readers and since then just haven't gotten to it yet.  This is pretty amazing because a year ago this would have been my first priority.  Discovery of content is still atop my list, but the hassle of getting through my rss list is now conveniently avoided thanks to Twitter. I know I am not alone. People I respect that have a good notion of how they want to discover content like my colleague Amit have gone so far as to leave it up to the crowd and what is trending on Twitter to stay in the loop.  I am guessing there are more of you out there. I suggested a hashtag today called #twitterdisrupt to track the conversation around areas that Twitter is displacing.  From what I see, rss reader usage is one of the first to be significantly impacted. How about you? 

idea for Compete: explain traffic spikes with links to news stories

Ok so I do use compete.com for placing sites is some context.  I know it's    not laser sharp but I do find it useful for categorization and comparison.  But, they can really leave you wondering why companies see such spikes in traffic.  So my suggestion to compete is to call googles's blog/news search api for the potential news that may have broken around the times/days of significant +/- traffic spikes.  The idea is to search and list any relevant posts about the company from notable sources that may have caused the spikes in traffic.  My guess is that this will help explain a good bit of the spikes I see.  Here's an example of a company called Gigpark.com.  They have a significant upward spike around May.  After looking on google blog search I found a post from techcrunch on May 23rd.  Funny - that's right around the time of the spike.   More importantly this would lend more credibility to compete's data and if you are in the data business, credibility is everything.

here's the compete graph complete with *unexplained* spike in traffic:

Here's the post from techcrunch that most likely caused this spike;

Welcome to my new blog

Hi folks.  Welcome to my new blog!  Many thanks to Blogger for giving me a frictionless entry into blogging.  My previous blog on blogspot; An Upwelling will no longer be kept.  It served its purpose but Typepad is my new home and I welcome you.  There are a few changes though as this blog will primarily be business related to include my thoughts, experiences and ideas in technology, the web, building Outbrain and other notables I am pursuing.

While reading, I do encourage you to rate each post that you read.  The 5 star rater at the end of each post is actually "smart."  "Smart" in the sense that if you are gracious enough to cast a rating, the rating widget may also show you a few other recommended posts that just might be worth your time.  Over time, the recommendations will adapt to your likes and dislikes in hopes of surfacing some real gems from the blogosphere that you would find most interesting.  This is the product that I am working with at Outbrain so any comments or suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks for coming over.