AidRSS monitors a blog feed by creating PostRank™ for the posts based on the amount of conversation generated (combination of number of comments, del.icio.us links, tweets, Diggs and Google trackbacks). The higher the PostRank score the better the post is considered in terms of conversation.
PostRank score is used to sort the posts into Good Posts, Great Posts, Best Posts and Top 20 Posts. The idea is you make your RSS subscription manageable by subscribing to the AidRSS feed for the “best posts” from a feed (e.g you may choose to limit your subscription to the “Great Posts only”).
Using AidRSS to Analyse Your Posts
Image on the right shows the different ways aidRSS analyzes a conversation.
As Christy Tucker points out initially your blog’s analysis is limited to recent activity whereas she has used previously so results display back to July, 2007.
Here is the analysis for All My Posts for my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog:
Compared to Good Posts:
And Great Posts
Finally Top 20 Posts
When aidRSS Top 20 Ranked posts are compared to Google Analytics data for Top Content (shown as GA Rank for 1 Dec, 2007 to present) you get a slightly different picture of your top posts:
My thoughts are:
Google Analytics is good for showing how visitors to your web page interact with your content — as it provides information on the number of people who visit your web site.
AidRSS provides a different view from Google Analytics by showing readers responses to your content
What I’ve found interesting (but not necessarily surprising), especially when I analyzed The Edublogger, were some posts were popular in terms of bookmarking but not generating comments. For example, How I Use RSS To Make My Life Easier was bookmarked 16 times in del.icio.us but only received 7 comments. Why? Because it was mainly sharing information. Whereas my Share Your Blogging Experience & Tips For Participants of Open PD post generated comments, with thought provoking conversations, because it contained very little information and instead asked readers to share their experiences.
I’m flying back and forth across the room doing cartwheels! Well strictly speaking in my mind as I’m one of those people totally, absolutely hopeless at all forms of sport (so bad I’ve caused injuries to others).
Gabriela has been a loyal supporter of all my sites from almost the very beginning when I was just a podcaster. She has always provided encouragement and shared information with me and lots of other edubloggers.
Translating Other Languages
I’ve spent hours searching, without luck, for a free online translator for Romanian without luck.
I’ve now added their Google Translate widget to my right side bar to make it easier to read my posts in words other than English as I have many readers that English is not their main language. I feel really bad that as an English speaker we expect people who speak other languages to read our language.
FINAL THOUGHTS
For some reason Google Translate didn’t include Aussie slang! WT? But the good news is you can:
Translate any website into Aussie slang using the Aussie Translator (for all those wannabe Aussies)
Translate Aussie slang words using the Australian Slang Dictionary (for those times when I accidentally talk my language)
But first let me share some cool tips I’ve learnt while getting ready to write about my vacation – I’ll tell you about our holiday adventures in my next post.
If you post a smaller version of a photo in your blog post, but hyperlink to the larger version of the photo when readers click on the photo in the post they are taken to the larger version of the photo for a more detailed view.
Click this photo I took on our vacation to see the effect . Here are my step-by-step instructions (which I’ve posted to Flickr) for how to do this in your own posts.
Everyone’s been talking about how Flickr now allows you to upload videos provided that they are limited to 90 seconds in length, and less than 150MB in filesize. I like the idea of uploading my videos to Flickr since I already use the site for sharing photos.
Using the video setting on my digital camera to create the videos is an issue because the videos ranged up to 93 MB for a 90 sec video which isn’t ideal for uploading videos especially at an Internet Cafe. Ideally it’s best to keep videos less than 30 MB for uploading.
My solution to reduce video file size quickly was edit using MovieMaker and save Movie File as Video for Broadband (512 kbps).
Off course this got me thinking how does Flickr control the time limit on movies you can upload? Well it seemed obvious to me that they couldn’t and can only control by file size. So I edited and combined my photos and movies to create a 3 minute video which I then successfully uploaded to Flickr.
Below is the video (which is hosted on Flickr) that you can check out. What do you think of video quality?
If you are reading my post in a feed reader like Google Reader or Bloglines the video will probably not be displayed so you need to check out on my blog or at Flickr.
My Map Of Our Holiday
I’ve been waiting for a long time for the opportunity to create a holiday map with photos and this was a perfect opportunity.
The easiest option is to Geotag photos on Flickr (geotagging in Flickr is the process of adding location information to your photos by dropping them onto the World map — here are my instructions on how to geotag using Flickr).
However I had two issues with Flickr geotagging:
Flickr uses Yahoo maps that don’t zoom in sufficiently to show roads and many towns in Western Australia — which is really annoying
You can only link to the map and not embed
So instead I created a My Maps using Google Maps that:
I can embed into my blog post
allows me to embed my photos from Flickr into the map (unfortunately it didn’t like the embed video code for the Flickr Videos).
Here are my step-by-step instructions (which I’ve posted to Flickr) for how to create your own My Maps using Google Maps. You will need to create a Google Account to create my maps (it’s best to create a gmail account to do this).
Below is my map that I’ve embedded in this post. You will probably need to check it out on my blog if you are using a feed reader.
Click on the link icon at the top of My Maps and you will find the embed code.
In your post click on Code Tab then paste the embed code in the desired location and then press publish straight away.
NOTE: Make sure you’ve completely finished writing your post before adding My Maps embed code as you can’t edit the post AT ALL after the code has been added.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Hope you like some of the cool tips I’ve shared.
What are your thoughts on Flickr videos? People have differing views on videos on Flickr — check out Beth’s post and it’s comments.
Do you know of a quicker and easier way to create a Holiday map for sharing with friends?
Most importantly I no longer suffer from blogger envy caused by friends having cool toys on their blogs which I haven’t been able to embed. Trouble is I may have become “widget crazy” and need “widget addiction therapy”. Worst still I may have totally cluttered my blog sidebar, which is detracting to readers, so I’m hoping if I list the changes I’ve made my readers may give feedback as to their thoughts i.e. good widget, bad widget or no opinion yet on widget.
Lijit Search
I’ve been jealous of Martin Weller having Lijit search on his blog for a long time. The reason I like the idea of Lijit is because I have my content located across lots of websites and this search allows readers to search content on my blog or all my sites (by clicking on the My Content Tab). Plus it provides some really cools statistics on how readers interact with my blog that are emailed weekly or I can check them out online in my account.
Unfortunately when readers click on My Content tab the search will also shows results from other websites - which is really bad. You want readers to stay on your sites not go to other peoples sites.
The Lijit search widget can be customised to your preferences. I’ve set mine up so that it displays where all my content is located whereas Martin Weller doesn’t display his content. To be honest displaying my content like this may be increasing sidebar clutter and I may have been better using another widget or my blog roll to link to my other websites.
I also still have my Edublogs search widget in my sidebar while I testing Lijit search.
CoComment
Okay I can compromise (although maybe my hubby wouldn’t agree ). I still prefer subscribing to comments on other bloggers posts using co.mment because its RSS feed into Google Reader is better. However I’m intrigued by the community aspect of cocomment which isn’t an option with co.mment. So I’ve installed my cocomment widget to this blog; not sure if anyone really wants to read my comments on other blogger’s posts in my sidebar? Let’s be honest it is creating clutter.
Still need a guide to getting more out of using CoComment if anyone has seen one.
Blogroll Created Using Google Reader Shared Folders
Benefit of this method is your blogs subscriptions are automatically updated whenever you add or delete a blog subscription without you having to adjust your blogroll within your blog dashboard. Apologies to some bloggers –I’ve used two folders to create the blogrolls — Edubloggers and Non-Profit. Some bloggers in the Non-Profit don’t exactly fit that category.
Other Widgets
I’ve also add a Shared Google Reader widget; it’s right at the bottom hidden away — not fussed if it stays or goes. Plus haven’t been able to part with MyBlogLog widget; I like the pretty pictures even if I’ve not got into using MyBlogLog effectively.
I like the FeedJit widget on Frank’s blog that shows where readers are visiting from but think adding it will just make the sidebar clutter even worse.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So besides “widget addiction therapy” what are your thoughts on the new widgets i.e. good widget, bad widget or no opinion yet on widget. Is there an important widget I’ve missed that needs to be in my blog sidebar?
Lately I’ve been thinking about Twitter as an RSS reader. My Netvibes page has about 30 RSS feeds in it, but my Twitter account has over 700 people or feeds that I can learn from. What I have found recently is that I’m reading and following more links from Twitter than I am from my RSS reader.
Yes, I love Twitter (it’s well known) but I’ve been getting a touch frustrated by the number of Twitter friends that are doing exactly what Jeff highlights here. In many cases their RSS feeds aren’t being read; they’re totally relying on people to post the links in Twitter which if they’re not careful could ultimately limit their learning by getting sucked into group thinking.
Snagging URLs from Twitter
However I decided to keep an open mind and inspired by Jeff’s post work out how to effectively collect the links posted in Twitter. Off course I’d just read a post recently, in my Google Reader, which talked how snag the URLs in Twitter –Frank suggested TwitBox. And if I was going to road test a twitter application - I might as well also compare my Snitter with Twhirl that Jeff likes to use (for those new to Twitter these applications make it easier to use twitter than using Twitter’s web interface).
The insanity part — it wasn’t probably the best idea to run all three twitter applications at the same time. Unfortunately whilst I could cope with running the three applications — it appears they couldn’t (think it was an issue with TwitBin and the other two).
Have to admit - Twhirl is really, really pretty and the colours are a nice change from Snitter (this is important to some of us) — and more importantly can be used for connecting multiple user accounts.
Twitbin definitely snags the URLs from your twitter followers; but to capture them all you would need to keep it running all the time (and Frank’s right– it’s ugly looking) plus it only snags the URLs, not the entire twit which provide you with the reason to want to check a link.
Tracking URLs Posted by Your Followers
I think there is merit in grabbing links from Twitter but we need an application that makes it time effective — like a TweetScan or Terraminds application that searches for URLs within your followers and delivers the entire twits.
Meanwhile I’ve been grabbing some excellent posts to read by tracking terms using both TweetScan & Terraminds and subscribing to the RSS feeds using Google Reader.
Personally I believe I take the whole 10 signs of Twitter Addiction to an entirely different level. Perhaps the Twitter Addiction signs should also include:
You’ve got more than one twitter account, doesn’t everyone?
Well apparently I said a lot more than people have come to expect from my mouth - as you can see from what’s been said in my twitter account!
While some of my followers were a tad offended by my tweets — some actually enjoyed these more than my normal ones plus some choose to follow me!
I’m comforted to know that I wasn’t alone in this - it was happening around the World - even Jeff Utecht and Leonard Low joined me. Though it looks like my mouth was considerably naughtier than theirs.
Thankfully my mate Darren Draper came to the rescue, providing a link to the twitter blog post on what had happened.
Twitter was testing a new application server tonight that didn’t work right so they rolled it back. While many people saw the error page other people experienced a more dramatic error which had them accidentally updating other people’s Twitter. Apparently some reported every time they refreshed the page they had another twitter account.
This twitter appears to have enjoyed himself - saying “I posted as 150 different random people on Twitter. It was pretty amazing”.
Meanwhile I was totally oblivious to my twitter antics - which I discovered 2 hours later when I returned to my computer. The hacking of our accounts was very short lived - stopped immediately Twitter realised the problem - but it did give me a massive panic attack at the thought of my online accounts being hacked.
Depending on your love of Google Reader you will either be grateful that Google has given us an early Christmas present or be concerned, like me, that you may need to change your sharing habits. For those who don’t use Google Reader, or who have no idea what I am talking about, Google has linked Reader with Google Talk so now all your shared items will be visible to your friends from Google Talk, and vice versa.
You will have the option to choose which friends you link with and to invite more. Plus the option to clear your shared items.
This is definitely one of the biggest changes that Google Reader has made and it will impact of how we use our Readers. Not everyone in the blogosphere is impressed with this feature with posts warning of further information overload and duplications of posts. from friends.
My thoughts are I will need to seriously rethink how I use the Sharred feature of Google Reader because it is a feature I have totally ignored because I have not been interested in using it. Now I have to make the decision:
Do I want to start caring about my friends and and making sure I share really good posts
Or share nothing using Google Reader instead use blogging to link to posts I really want to share
If you are currently using Google Reader please let me know your thoughts on the integration of Reader with Google Talk — how will it change what you do? Is it a good or bad feature?
Also I am aware that many of my readers don’t use Google Reader — so please tell me more about your Feed Reader because I would be interested in learning how you get the most out of your Reader.
Part of my work involves teaching others how to podcast and when it comes to video my advice always is STOP! and LOOK! first before you consider ever creating your own videos. You can spend a lot of time creating videos — I know I spend way too much time creating videos for my podcast site. There is sooooo much content already on the Internet that it is often more efficient to use videos created by others.
I recommend searching 3 main video sharing sites:
1. Google Video
Google Video search results now include videos on lots of other video hosting services (e.g. MySpace, Yahoo!Video), in addition to YouTube’s and their own uploads. This is faster than searching all the video sharing and hosting websites.
While Google owns YouTube you will obtain different search results when you search both sites using the same search term and YouTube only includes their own uploads i.e. YouTube videos. Also videos on Google Video have not time restriction whereas YouTube videos are restricted to less than 10 minutes.
They include a written text of their videos which you could use to develop a series of questions
Most of their videos can be downloaded in a range of formats i.e. suitable for an ipod, PSP or mobile phone. However you need to create an account to download their videos.
Thanks Joe for reminding me that VideoJug has videos on “how-to-use” applications such as PowerPoint, create podcasts, use twitter …. check out the list of videos at the bottom of Joe’s post on How to Create a Talking Book. I normally demonstrate their videos using How To A Homie Handshake because everyone has a great laugh.
Once they have located the videos they then learn to:
The idea is they can use the videos in class or play on mobile devices. Some video
sharing sites make it hard to download videos. Also Google Video and YouTube videos are .flv format which means you need to convert to a format suitable to play when downloaded.
NOTE: To download a video you locate on Google Video you need to view the video on its original video sharing web site.
Once you have located a suitable video you copy the URL of the video and paste it into the URL text box at zamzar.com then press add URL. Now select your video format (choose .avi for PDAs and PCs, mp4 for ipods). Next insert your email address and press convert. You will receive an email within 30 minutes the link to the converted stored at Zamzar and you have 24 hours to download the video (Thanks Darren — you were right).
2. Free Online FLV converter
Sites like Google Video and YouTube use .FLV format for their videos. Online FLV converters are able to download and convert videos into a range of video formats. Once the file is converted you then download from their website.
vConvert.net will convert FLV to formats such as wmv, mov, mp4, mp3, 3gp. Suz recommends vConvert.net because it is a much more reliable flv converter than Vixy which she has found would frequently corrupt a file on longer videos (thanks Suz). Definite benefit is this site provides more conversion options than Vixy but you will need to create an account to use.
Vixy is a free online FLV converter (i.e. this is the video format used by many video sharing web sites) that you can use for downloading and converting videos for PC, ipod and PSP. Once the file is converted you then download from their website.
3. KeepVid for downloading the video and Super C to convert
Here are the instructions on how use KeepVid and Super C (this is the last resort option because more steps involved). I use Super C all the time for video conversions however it does take time to get used to using.
FINAL THOUGHT
Would love to hear about your experience with videos. What is your favorite video sharing web site(s) for locating videos? Have you got any tips for downloading videos? Where do you like to host your own videos?
Michele Martin (The Bamboo Project) did her first screencast using Camtasia to create a video that shows new bloggers the evolution of a blog post from her reading an article in her feed reader, through posting her response to the article and the interactions that took place in comments on her blog and at the original post. But she was a little disappointed in the quality of the screencapture so I thought I would share some quick tips that will help.
Software options for Creating Screencasts
I should however start by saying there are a lot of options for creating screencasts (i.e. digital recording of a computer screen). Here are a few of the free software you can use:
I normally use CamStudio because we don’t have licensed copies of Camtasia Studio at work — which means if I want to edit the screencast I have to use MovieMaker. Camtasia Studio means you can record and edit the screencast without having to use another program plus Camtasia Studio does more than just screencasts (e.g. create videos from PowerPoints and create digital stories).
Improving the readability of a Screencast
1. Use Fixed Recording Region
My first for creating a better screencast is the recording region. Recording the entire desktop is not an issue if you are creating a video from a PowerPoint because text is usually large (here is an example of a video podcast created by Richard Meagher from a PowerPoint and this is how he creates his video podcasts using Camtasia Studio).
Ideally, for most situations, when creating a screencast it is best to use a fixed region (640 wide by 480 high) and set the screen recording to autopan. Autopan means the region you are recording moves as you move the mouse. This means the text on the screen will be considerably easier to read as opposed to if you had recorded the entire desktop.
2. Video Format
Video format you use to produce your screencast can have a big impact on final quality of the online video.
The trouble is the most frustrating aspect of video is there is too many video formats. Some applications only provide limited options for saving your movie however Camtasia Studio gives you lots of options i.e. AVI video , MOV (QuickTime Movie), WMV (Windows Media video) and Flash (SLV/FLV format) so that you can choose the best option depending on how or what device you will be viewing it.
With video is it always worth having a play with video format, remembering that you may not notice the difference between the formats until you upload to the video sharing website. For Camtasia Studio — I suggest probably best to stick to .mov format, using medium setting, when uploading to video sharing websites.
FINAL THOUGHT
Getting it right with video can be really frustrating! Format and options can drive you insane. I only had time to share a few tips, and I am not an expert with Camtasia Studio. Please add your tips for creating screencasts.
Managing information using RSS is an important skill to learn however it is an area that people starting out struggle with. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) means that whenever new information is added to a site (e.g. your favourite blog) it comes to you instead of you having to continuously check the site. Read more about RSS here.
My preferred way of managing information is iGoogle and Google Reader. This means all my email (via gmail) and RSS feeds e.g. blogs, Ning Communities, photos from my Flickr contacts all come to the one location, iGoogle, which I have set as my homepage in my web browser. Learn how to set up iGoogle and Google Reader here.
Reading blog posts using Google Reader is part of my daily routine — it is how I get my latest information on topics I want to read. Considering how much I use Google Reader I was surprised to realise that I had missed some key features which would help me be more effective using it — thanks Darren for telling us about your RSS Habits and inspiring me to also investigate how to get more out of Google Reader.
How did I miss Trends?
Must have been blind? Google Reader added this feature in January! Trend gives you a graphical and tabular overview of your blog reading habits which is useful for making changes to feeds e.g. delete blogs that are no longer post or those that you do not read much.
I have not included my subscriptions summary (check out the top of Darren’s post and you will see his). Interesting point during my research of Google Reader trends — top bloggers subscribe and read a lot of blogs (check out Darren Rowse). As they say “Good Writer read a lot”.
% Read is the number of posts from the feed that you have actually read as opposed to clicking on Mark as Read.
Subscription trends indicate how many items are posted per day and also shows the % Read. More importantly the inactive tab shows the top feeds that are inactive i.e. hardly posting.
Items read is interesting because it shows your blog reading habit which can be displayed for the last 30 days, time of day or the day of week. As you can see I read most of mine in the early morning and evenings.
Using Feed Settings
I normally use Manage Subscriptions (bottom of Google Reader) to manage my feeds but it is quicker to make minor adjustments using Feed settings. I use rename a subscription when a RSS feed is unable to detect the name of the feed e.g. calls it Title Unknown or Blog.
Using Folders
Folders in Google Reader are like folders on your computer. Some people like to create folders for the different types of blogs they read. My personal preference is not to use folders because folders slows down scanning of latest posts from my Google Reader Gadget on my iGoogle homepage. I do however use folders to add locate all my feeds from the same Ning community.
John Larkin was nice enough to let me know that he uses Folders to create his blog roll for his blog. This means as he alters adds and deletes Feeds (i.e. blogs he reads) from Google Reader the changes are automatically displayed on his blog. Definitely a lot easier than inserting the links yourself. Added benefit to your readers is you grab his blogroll by saving as OPML and import into your own Google Reader.
Using Starred, Shared Items and Tags
At the bottom of each post in Google Reader there is Add Star, Share or Add Tags which you can select.
Starred items are posts that you highlight so that you can re-read later.
You use Share if you want to share a post with others. Normally people do this by adding a Shared Google Reader widget to their blog
Tags are Google Readers way of bookmarking. I don’t use tags because my aim is to read through the posts quickly and I know that I can always search Google Reader using the Search option (top of Google Reader). However some people use tags to share specific categories (tag) with their readers. Check out the shared readers that Chris Duke uses on Muve Forward blog and EdTechatouille blog.
Manage Subscriptions
What I had been missing in Manage Subscriptions was the Goodies — so I have now added a Subscribe as You Surf bookmark to my web browser. This means when I come across a new blog I want to subscribe to I just click on the bookmark and the blog is added to Google Reader.
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Subscribing for free!
