Library clips

What TechMeme is doing for top blog posts in the blogosphere is now doing for blog sources.
The TechMeme blog has announced the TechMeme Leaderboard, the Top 100 blogs over the last 30 days…as you may guess to qualify a blog has to have many of it’s posts as headline posts.

NOTE: Not all TechMeme content comes from blogs

What a great idea, they have got this data anyway, so why not rank the sources by quantity of headlines over a time period.

The great thing is it’s all packaged in OPML, beats me why they are not using Grazr on the sidebar as a way to view the latest posts by these top 100 blogs.

Grazr enables you to not only list and read a bunch of feeds via an OPML, but this list of feeds can perpertually change, so it’s kind of like feed shopping.

You don’t have to do anything but visit a revolving set of feeds…if you don’t want to go to the Grazr reader daily, you could subscribe to this OPML in BlogBridge (this is one of the very few RSS Readers which actually subscribes to an OPML).

Similar hack

A while ago I posted on Adam Green’s TechMeme tool, which is a very similar idea, he hacked a way to created an OPML with sources from the current headlines on TechMeme. As a headline drops off the front page, so does the source feed drop from Adams Grazr hack (unless that source has another headline on the frontpage)…as a headline from a source makes the TechMeme front page, that source feed will appear in Adams Grazr hack.

It’s similar to the TM Leaderboard, but even more dynamic, these sources are changing all the time compared to the TM Leaderboard.

Both these lists are useful and have their own purpose, one is on the Top 100 sources over 30 days, and the other is Top Daily sources.

Also note that mashtrackers top 25 blogs is based on the same idea as Adam Greens hack…it’s built with Megite (I guess a competitor to TechMeme).

SLE (list feed)

TechMeme Leaderboard would be perfect as an SLE feed, that way I don’t have to visit the Leaderboard page, I could just subscribe to the SLE feed, and whenever there is a change in the line up, the feed would have a new item, and this new item is a list of the current 100 feeds.

TechCrunch and Read/Write Web have more on this new release.

[ADDED 03/10/07: Pito Salas from BlogBridge illustrates how you can subscribe to the TM Leaderboard OPML in the BlogBridge RSS Reader]

Steve Rubel is always posting on useful productivity hacks, and this time it’s networking using email.

His post mentions how he sends/recieves content on Twitter and Facebook (status) without having to go to these sites…I posted a while back on using Facebook without having to visit their site, and Fuser has even catered for this need into a full fledged offering.

Send

Just like Steve I use TwitterMail to post Tweets by email, I use email on my phone, so TwitterMail is a must have.

But till his post I hadn’t yet realised a way to do the same for Facebook status updates…I can update photo’s, video’s and notes to Facebook by email, but not status.

The Facebook alternative to update your status is by SMS only, but now we have been told there is a way by using an email to SMS gateway, if you send an email to Teleflip, ipipi, and others, it will auto-forward that email to SMS, and presto you have updated your status.

NOTE: if I’m on the go, sending an SMS update to my Facebook status is just as effective as using an email to SMS gateway, but if the email to SMS gateway is free, then this would make a difference…not sure if the 3 linked services above are free…I’m a web 2.0 spoilt brat

[ADDED 03/10/07: Since Facebook have altered their API, the Twitter App on Facebook now allows you to check an option so your Tweets will post as your Facebook status updates, see more.
You can now create a new Twitter account for your blog and auto-post it via an RSS feed using TwitterFeed, then your blog post titles will appear as Facebook Status updates as well.]

Receive

TwitterMail also handles getting updates on your friends, just send an email with “Friends” in the subject line, and you will be emailed back the last 20 tweets from your friends. A similar service EmailTwitter even lets you specify a friend and the amount of tweets.

Steve’s post mentions another handy service called TwitterDigest, this basically allows you to follow a batch of users, where you get emailed a digest of Tweets.

TwitterMail will also send you emails when you have a @reply, so it’s all sweet…prior to this I was using a Terraminds search feed for @johnt and running it through R-mail to get these replies on email.

Updates of your friends Facebook status is a no brainer, from your user space just get your friends status update feed and convert it to email.

Friendstream

Steve goes on to mention some Gmail filters and labels in organising this content…he mentions any social network output in RSS or SMS can be converted and managed in email, which becomes your central network hub.

This means you can use Gmail as a friendstream…go to your friends blog and grab the feed, do the same for their bookmarks, presence blog, podcasts, etc…then mix these feeds at an RSS remixer like Feed Digest, then convert this feed to email using R-Mail or RSSfwd (there’s plenty of these services).
If your friend already has a lifestream, then most of the work is already done.

You can skip the remixing part and subscribe to each feed on it’s own in Gmail, and filter each one to go to a label with your friends name.

Related:
Gmail RSS Reader hack!
Getting the Most Out of GMail
10 Ways to Pimp Your Gmail
Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center