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I’ve Adopted FeedSmith – It Helps

May 8, 2007 By 5 Comments

A few days ago I installed the FeedSmith plugin, now under FeedBurner management and its been a help. FeedBurner stats showing an additional 40 readers or so, now edging that bit closer to the 200 mark.

Installation is a breeze

    1. Upload FeedSmith plugin to your plugin directory
    2. Activate it in WordPress
    3. Enter your FeedBurner URL

Using some WordPress plugin magic, and user-agent detection, this plugin simply forwards all your feed traffic to FeedBurner. The plugin will detect all ways to access your feed (e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/feed/ or http://www.yoursite.com/wp-rss2.php, etc.), and redirect them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. It will forward for your main posts feed, and optionally your main comments feed as well.

And thats it – all blog feeds now redirected back through FeedBurner. The whole process can be done (timed) in under a minute – improve your stats, track them better, make sure overall that you’re tracking all your readers. You can set it up for your comments feed as well if you’re doing that kinda thing…

Filed Under: RSS

Premier League Now Gunning For Google

May 7, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Must be a busy weekend in Google land, you can imagine the fun their lawyers have been having, what with the Premier League slapping them with a class action suit in the US, something which will likely spell the end of premier league highlights on YouTube.

The latest action against “deliberate” and “rampant” copyright infringement by YouTube was filed on May 4, 2007, by the Football Association Premier League Limited (the “Premier League”) and Bourne Co. (“Bourne”) to:

The Premier League describes itself as the top division of English soccer that is viewed by audiences in over 200 countries worldwide and estimated at 2.59 billion people. Bourne describes itself as one of the leading independent publishers or music in the United States with notable classics “Let’s Fall in Love” and “Smile.”

I hold an e-season ticket for LiverpoolFC.tv, something I enjoy as I get access to all the Liverpool highlights, goals etc. throughout the season but I’m not going to fork out 60 quid for every Premier League club each season to get highlights, my alternative as a resource therefore to look them up on YouTube – whether coming from BBC, Sky, French football networks, Chinese football networks or otherwise. But, given that YouTube make money from the videos thanks to the new bond with Google, the Premier League have become a camp of very unhappy bunnies and have challenged YouTube to a battle in court. Interesting days ahead on this story.

Filed Under: Technology

Help Yourself In Kilkenny Today

May 3, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Keith and Aidan are back with the next series of Help Yourself talks in the Newpark Hotel in Kilkenny today. There’s finger food and a chance for some light networking at 12:30pm with the talks on from 1pm – 2pm.

Today is looking at showing you how to

  • Focus your search to get results more relevant to your requirements
  • Keeping track of competitors/sectoral news easily
  • Use alternatives to Google for certain searches

See HelpYourself.ie for details as usual.

Filed Under: Help Yourself

Pandora Will Fall Silent In Europe

May 3, 2007 By 6 Comments

I blogged on KilkennyMusic.com a while ago about the saving of internet radio, mentioning Pandora in particular as a site that I love to have open in the office. The selection of music is incredible and I’ve been introduced to so many great artists over the last year or so. Alas, in reading Techcrunch before I’ve checked my emails it looks like the curtain is falling on Pandora for users outside the US.

With DMCA laws in place, Pandora are fine to continue in the US due to the rights deals agreed to date but as the DMCA doesn’t extend past the US, Pandora need to negotiate direct deals with the labels, publishers and acts to continue using the music – something they’ve been working on for over two years and hope in the hope of being able to resume service in the UK and Canada while gradually restoring transmission through Europe.

Reading the comments as well, the news has hit Pandora pretty hard, this comment coming from Tom Conrad (CTO)

I can’t even begin to say what a disappointing outcome this is for us. We’ll continue to work with music rights holders with the goal of making Pandora a truly global service.

To those that have listened from outside the US, we thank you for your support and we’ll look forward to the day when we can restore access — we’ll take good care of your stations in the meantime.

Going to miss my Incubus Station, Zero 7 station, Alanis Morissette, Cary Brothers station and all the other stations I’ve built up of late.

Filed Under: Music

LouderVoice Moves Out Of Beta

May 2, 2007 By 2 Comments

Looks like the work has paid off for Conor O’Neill and co., LouderVoice has moved out of the private beta stage and been opened up to the world for scrutiny (and use). I’ve got two reviews (here and here) at my LouderVoice review blog which were posted during the beta phase.

Have to say, much rather the final homepage design as opposed to the pre-launch stage. Quite warm and inviting indeed as Paul Watson puts it. The site has plenty of details on what exactly LouderVoice is, so now that its open, why not pop along and register? Posting your review is a breeze, you can also publish to your own blog, grab a Firefox plugin, WordPress plugin… endless possibilities thought out.

No doubt there’ll be a plethora of blogging coverage to come from interested parties, thought I’d fire in my two cent…

A few tweaks to come but I’m impressed anyway and thats all that matters? Right? Make up your own mind…

Filed Under: Web 2.0

Summer Clothes For kenmc.com

May 2, 2007 By 2 Comments

Been a while since I changed the theme on the blog and having effectively broken my last one (as well as IE throwing a small fit), I’ve gone and given kenmc.com a change of clothes for the summer. Slimmed out, added some stripes to the header, brought in a few images from flickr, tidied up some of the load, deriving the theme from Non Zero.

Header background generated online by the Web 2.0 Stripe Generator, fun to play around with for background images. (result here).

Filed Under: The Site

Any Spare Joost Invites Going? (They’ve got ice hockey!)

May 1, 2007 By 5 Comments

Ok, now I’ve got to get in and check out Joost – anyone have a spare invitation? Reason for this now piquing my interest (taking ‘pique’ courtesy of Conor O’Neill), is that the NHL have announced a partnership with Joost for coverage of the Stanley Cup Final, with the season now currently in the playoff stages.

I did have a look at some of what Joost had to offer a few months ago but if one can get free hockey, without having to fork out a monthly sub to the North American Sports Network or get a Chorus or Sky connection into the house then I’ve gotta see it.

So I ask, anyone have a spare Joost invite for a blogger with a love for ice hockey? If you do and would like to leave a comment, that would be mighty fine :)

Filed Under: Web 2.0
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