Do these Web2.0 Tools Exist?

I am, in this blog post, asking for leads on two tools that could be useful to me, or organizations engaged in social media. Do you know of any tools, free or other, available to do these things? Feel free to post ideas in the comments.

  1. Tool #1: Registry of Twitter/Blog/RSS Feeds : Let’s say that you are a professional group, or maybe a large medical group, and you would like to aggregate all of the RSS feeds generated by your members/employees/people affiliated with your organization on the Internet. This could be their Twitter feed, blog feed, delicious links, even flickr feed. The purpose would be to know who in your organization is out there, to follow along what they are doing, and maybe tap their expertise when needed. Friendfeed used to have an “invisible friend” feature, where you could add an RSS feed that was out there without having the person actually get an account, but that feature appears to be gone from the new version. This particular tool request may be hard to explain the first time, so feel free to ask questions in the comments.
  2. Tool #2: Preferred URL registry for individuals: This need comes up on this blog a lot – I decide that I’d like to reference a person who I’ve been working with or had a conversation with. Do I link to their Twitter URL? Blog URL? LinkedIn URL? Company biography URL? Or do they even have one? It would be nice if people had a place to indicate which place they would like people to point to when they are referenced. Maybe the default will be Twitter, but until then, I’d like to be respectful of each person’s preferences.

Thanks for any ideas!

7 Comments

Ted, take a look @ Co-Tweet. Might be what you're looking for. Guy to contact is:[email protected] . That's Jerry Michalski, an Advisor to the firm. Former Mgng Editor of Esther Dyson's NL, RELease 1.0. OK to use my name. Jerry is a good guy, and knows social media "cold".

All best.

Lew

Allright, Lew, I have signed up to get an invitation to Co-Tweet. I think this application is about multiple people handling a single twitter account. What is out there for an organization to group multiple twitter users, beyond just a single twitter client? And what if there is more RSS content out there, like a blog or delicious feed? It's too bad that Friendfeed dropped the invisible friend feature (am I right about this)?

Ted

By Post Author

Thanks, Mark, for the info and the link! I'm beginning to think I'm ahead of my time, again,

Ted

By Post Author

HI Ted,

I had the same problem (#1) and we decided to go for a closed microblogging platform due to privacy issues. I can send you the different platforms if you are interested.

Re #2 I think that is what google profiles is trying to do. Have you seen it?

Best,

cisco

Hi Ted –

#1. Friendfeed groups aggregates feeds…..for an example: http://friendfeed.com/a-smarter-planet….aggrega… blog, twitter, anything that has an RSS feed from any source.

#2 preferred URL: whatever they are most active on. all things equal, use blog, since it's the most personal. Second, use twitter. Third, use linkedIn.

Laurie/Cisco,

Thanks, experts!

On Friendfeed, my worry is that the current (new) iteration requires each person to create an account. I can't just aggregate them myself, like you used to be able to, so it's a two step process. Otherwise, I agree, it's ideal. Maybe there's another RSS aggregator service out there?

#2, I like that as a general rule, and will start using it. Our operating systems have not caught up with social media – in the Apple OSX address book, there's space for "URL", but not for "Twitter" or social media profile duJour, still a little awkward. Looked up some stuff online about this, and other people are wanting more robust addressbooking as well. Maybe Bento/Filemaker would fit the bill, but ideally good for people to self select their dominant URL and me access it, kind of like a global registry. I'll check out Google Profile.

Great conversation thanks everyone, keep the suggestions coming.

The goal is a good one – to promote professionals working together in engaging with their communities and customers in a productive health-promoting way,

Ted

By Post Author
Ted Eytan, MD