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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Pointers (1-10-06)

Lawrence Lessig (constitutional law professor, author, blogger, Creative Commons innovator) has produced a downloadable version of a presentation he created to address the fair use implications of the Google Books project. His blog addresses how he created what turned out to be an 85 MB file (available as a BitTorrent seed). The presentation includes the slides and Lessig’s voice.

A couple RSS notes:

  • FeedMail Now! is a new service that lets you use RSS as a means of communicating with friends and co-workers via RSS feeds instead of email. The press release claims, “FeedMail Now! turns an RSS feed reader into an electronic mailbox. Users of the service can send and receive feedmail messages without the fear of spam or phishing.” The tutorial makes it look easy, although everyone you want to contact needs to subscribe to your mailbox feed. Still, they can reply to your messages just as in email. The service is 99-cents per month.
  • FeedForAll a wizard-like app that lets you create RSS feeds, has introduced FutureRSS, “a PHP script that converts an RSS feed into HTML and displays only the current RSS feed’s items. The FutureRSS script allows webmasters to pre-plan an RSS feed’s items and prepare them in advance,” according to the press release. It’s available free for registered FeedForAll users.
  • Online travel service Orbitz has opened an RSS feed that lets you get information on travel deals.

I don’t usually join in the “look who’s blogging” conversations, since 20-million-plus blogs and a blogosphere doubling every five months means we’d be adding to the list daily, which is a real yawner. But when the International Herald Tribune starts blogging, I figure it’s a big enough deal to mention here.

01/10/06 | 3 Comments | Pointers (1-10-06)

Comments
  • 1.Thanks for mentioning FeedMail Now! We've been working very hard on this product and I hope that people will enjoy the service. I just wanted to clarify that you only need to subscribe to a single feed to use FeedMail Now! The FeedMail Now! application has an online address book for storing your feedmail addresses. There's no need to subscribe to any feeds other than your own inbox feed.

    Shannon Whitley (FeedMail Now!) | January 2006 | San Francisco, CA

  • 2.Thanks for the clarification, Shannon, but how would I be a recipient of the feeds from people who want to contact me if they're not in my address book? I think this is a very exciting product, by the way, and represents the first salvo in what could be the transition of one-to-one communiation away from email.

    Shel Holtz | January 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 3.If you've given someone your FeedMailNow! address, they can "send" a message to your inbox feed. They have to add your address to their address book before sending a message to you. As the recipient, the new item will appear in your inbox feed within your RSS feed reader. You can reply to the message, and you are not required to add the sender's address to your address book. If you'd like to share your feedmail address with other users of FeedMail Now!, there is a page called the "White Pages."

    Currently, only users of FeedMail Now! would be able to send a message to you, however, I've published a document on feedmail server standards at sourceforge.net and other developers are welcome (encouraged) to create their own compatible feedmail servers. Additionally, my feedmail server product, ZipLine, can be licensed and installed on other sites, completely separate from, but interoperable with FeedMail Now!

    Thanks again for your interest and I too am very excited about this first step toward many possibilities.

    Shannon Whitley (FeedMail Now!) | January 2006 | San Francisco, CA

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