November 19, 2007

Bloglines Eric Engleman Interviewed

Recently I had the chance to interview Eric Engleman, the General Manager of Bloglines. We talked about the overall blog marketplace, the recent updates to Bloglines, and more.

One of the more interesting aspects of the interview was learning about the search functionality built into Bloglines. Here is what Eric had to say about it:

You can actually search within that person's feed library. You can search the entire Bloglines feed index, or I can search within my own set of feeds, or I could search within Eric Enge's set of feeds.

This is really cool functionality that shows how a vertical search tool can really enhance the functionality and usability of a web application.

Posted by Eric Enge at 11:00 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2007

Bloglines Debuts Top 1000

Bloglines today launched the Bloglines Top 1000, a list of the most-subscribed blogs in its feed reader. It's been tracking the Top 200 for a couple of years, but the list was expanded to include the next level of feeds beyond the most popular.

The list shows the feed's relative rank, along with its movement since the last update. Bloglines says they track the number of "active" subscribers who interact with a feed during a specific time period. No more details than that are being offered, to prevent gaming of the system.

<SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION>

We're currently ranked at 191 for the SEW feed (feel free to subscribe in Bloglines to help us along).

The SEW Blog feed is at 231 (you can subscribe in Bloglines to that one too).

If Bloglines isn't your feed reader of choice, feel free to subscribe to our feeds using any method you like.

While you're at it, why not favorite it in Technorati? favorite it in Technorati

</SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION>

If you haven't tried Bloglines in a while, it's worth a look. The new beta version has added several nice features, and holds its own against most other feed readers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:38 PM | Permalink

October 2, 2006

Reading Other People's Gmail Via Bloglines

Using Bloglines to snoop on people's private Gmail from Martin Belam looks at how he accidentally stumbled upon email feeds that individuals are posting to Bloglines. To be fair, it's an issue that could happen to any "private" feed that someone unknowingly shares to the public.

Gmail allows people to get a feed of their email, as covered in these help pages. That lets you see the subject of your emails along with short descriptions. But even this small amount of information might be too embarrassing for some people to have made public.

How would those summaries get made public at all? In the case Martin looks at, people are adding their Gmail feeds to Bloglines but leaving those feeds public for others to view. That's how he stumbled upon them.

Google does warn about this, but he thinks the warning could be more visible. Perhaps -- but it's also worth keeping in mind that using an online news reader means you need to carefully consider ANY feed you take and whether those settings are public or not.

Postscript From Bloglines:

Bloglines is committed to online privacy and we take our role in this effort seriously. I'd like to help correct some of the misconceptions and explain how Bloglines privacy works in regards to both search and feeds as well as how to use Bloglines properly to generate secure feeds.

The main issue at hand is the appearance of Gmail accounts in Bloglines and a users's ability to subscribe to these feeds (or search for posts from these feeds).

The examples displayed were actually Gmail accounts registered through a third party (Feedburner) and then subscribed to within Bloglines.

Bloglines actually provides HTTP authentication for secure feeds. When this method is used, Bloglines secures the feed so that it can not be searched on or subscribed to except by the owner of the feed.

However, when the user generates their feed through a third party like Feedburner, the authentication portion has been removed from Bloglines' control and we have no way to identify and secure the feed. As a result the feed and it's previously secure data become public. Clearly this is a problem and we are in contact with Feedburner and other third parties to help them better inform and protect their users.

The other issue is the definition and understanding of "private" feeds within Bloglines. Marking a feed as private in Bloglines only hides the feed from your public blogroll and your identity from the feed's list of subscribers. We try to make this clear to Bloglines users by prominently displaying the following note during the feed subscription process:

"Private subscriptions don't show up in blogrolls and you will not be listed as a public subscriber. However, the feed and all its posts will remain available to the public via Bloglines and Ask.com Blog & Feed Search. Exceptions are Bloglines email subscriptions and feeds that require http authentication. In both cases, the feed and its posts will not be included in search results."

This issue has reminded us that there is still some confusion about privacy in the world of feeds. We recognize that a better system of limiting access to feeds is needed as more content becomes syndicated or syndicatable. We have been leading the effort to build new safeguards into syndications standards and are hopeful that some type of Feed Access Standard will provide further security for users and their feeds.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:36 AM | Permalink

September 29, 2006

Google Reader & Ask's Bloglines Undergo Updates

Both Google Reader and Ask.com's Bloglines have gone under some interface and usability updates, with some added features included.

The Google Blog announced the update last night, and posted screen captures at the Google Reader Blog. The new features include unread counts, mark all as read, folders, expanded view, subscription sharing options, and a new interface to support all these new features. It looks more Bloglines to me, and much more friendly to power RSS users.

Speaking of Bloglines, they have also released an update. Bloglines announced that they have no longer refresh the left pane when you click on a feed, instead they use a "fading yellow indicator" to speed things up. Also the feeds update automatically more frequently, instead of you having to refresh the page. Bloglines added DHL support for tracking DHL or Airborne packages. Finally, Bloglines recently enabled Skweeze for Mobile Bloglines that improves speed and readability of Mobile Bloglines.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:20 AM | Permalink

August 2, 2006

Ask.com & Bloglines Proposes Blog Search Exclusion Tag

TechCrunch reports that Ask.com & Bloglines has released a new tag that can be added to your feeds named access:restriction. The tag will tell Ask.com and Bloglines that this content is private and you do not want it included in the Ask.com or Bloglines blog search engines. The goal is for other rss search engines, from blogs, news, pictures, movies and so on, do make this a standard. More details at Bloglines.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:28 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Ask.com Adds RSS Smart Answers

The Ask.com blog announced a new feature to its Smart Answers line up today. For example, if you do a search on se roundtable an abbreviation of my blogs name, you will get RSS feed results at the top from my blog. The Ask blog says that the initial list of sites included "was selected based on the most popular feeds chosen by our users in Bloglines."

Currently, I am not sure why it does not work for the query Search Engine Roundtable when it works for the abbreviated version. Note that it does work well for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Watch Blog but it does not pull the SEW blog RSS feed, it pulls the SearchDay feed.

Here is a screen capture of the first query:

More details at the Ask Blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:56 PM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

Sébastien Billard Asks Danica Brinton Questions About Ask

I've been using the Bloglines blog search a lot lately, and if you haven't tried it out, you may want to give it a spin. Danica Brinton, head of International Product Management and Localization for Ask.com, was interviewed about the blog search by Sébastien Billard very recently. When I first saw the interview, it was in French only, but Sébastien let me know that it was also available in English (see the pdf file in the first paragraph of the interview).

If you would like to discuss the interview, or some of the topics relating to it, such as Ask's Expertrank, there's a thread started on the topic at the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 10:34 AM | Permalink

June 6, 2006

Mark Fletcher Leaves Ask.com & Bloglines

Mark Fletcher, founder of the popular web-based RSS reader Bloglines, has announced that he is leaving the service. On February 8, 2005 Ask.com acquired Bloglines and continued to add features and resources to the service. Just last week Ask launched a blog and feed search service with the help of the Bloglines team. Mark said he is leaving not just to spend more time with his family but more because he wants to start up new companies and help other startups succeed. Mark said he is confident in leaving Bloglines in the Ask.com hands.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:32 AM | Permalink

June 1, 2006

Ask Launches Blog & Feed Search

Nearly a year after acquiring Bloglines, Ask has rolled out a new blog & feed search that combines the best aspects of its web search engine with the intelligence it has gained from the thousands of Bloglines users who read blogs on a daily basis. The result is a terrific new search tool for the blogosphere—one that will appeal to heavy feed readers and casual searchers alike. More on the new service in today's SearchDay article, Ask Debuts Blog & Feed Search.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

November 12, 2005

Bloglines Expands "Universal Inbox" Initiative with Job Listings

Two job search aggregators, Indeed.com and SimplyHired have always offered keyword-based RSS and e-mail alerts to notify users of new job postings. However, users first have to know about both of these excellent services. Today, I noticed that Bloglines is allowing their users to create new job alerts from both databases as part of their growing "universal inbox" intiative.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:28 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2005

Bloglines Announces Enhancements To Service

Mark Fletcher (a very nice guy by the way) and his Bloglines team are announcing several new enchancements to the Bloglines web-based news aggregator this afternoon and we've got a quick peek. Expect more on the AJ Blog (or is the Ask.com Blog?) shortly.

Keyboard Hotkeys

  • New keyboard shortcuts (aka Hotkeys) Don't like the mouse? Can you navigate more quickly (how about less scrolling?) with the keyboard? Then these might be of use. You'll find a link to what Hotkeys are available at the bottom of each feed. I've also posted a screen cap here.

  • Colons Coming: Unread vs. Keep As New Note: When I tested this new feature it appeared not to be live yet. There's a difference between "Unread" articles and those marked "Keep as New" (subtle, but distinct), so you will now see two numbers next to your subscribed feeds in parentheses. The number to the left of the colon represents the articles you have not read/seen before, and the number on the right represents the articles you have manually kept new.

Mobile Bloglines I've said before (including another mention today) how much I like Bloglines Mobile. So, what's new?

  • Embedded Media Access to enclosure links in blog articles, allowing you to view images or listen to your favorite podcasts from your mobile device. I'm assuming you're going to need a mobile MP3 player like Pocket Tunes, Real, MS Player, etc.) to access podcasts. Regardless, great idea and a true time saver.

  • You can now use the "Keep as New" option for articles you have previously read, allowing you to scroll through as many articles as you want and come back to them later.

The Universal Inbox Keeps Growing

  • The Bloglines Universal Inbox initiative grew today with new types of information becoming available via the service. Today, accecss to horoscopes and winning lottery numbers (they might go well together (-;) were added. Other Universal Inbox data includes package tracking data and local weather info.

Postscript: The AJ Blog has been updated with news of these new features.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:22 PM | Permalink

October 7, 2005

How Many Feeds Really Matter: Part 2, New Numbers from the Bloglines Database

Today at Web 2.0, Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves, updated his "What Feeds Matter" blog post from July using some new numbers obtained by mining the Bloglines database. Jim has been nice enough to let us post them. You can find his PowerPoint stack here.

According to the numbers Lanzone shared today: + Currently, 1.3 million feeds in the Bloglines database have at least one subscriber, what Jim calls, "blogs that matter." Why? Someone has made the effort to subscribe to them. + 36,000 feeds "really matter" since they have 20+ subscribers. Lanzone calls these feeds the ones that "really matter." Of course, Jim's comment was tongue-in-cheek. + 14,363 feeds have at least 50+ subscribers. These feeds "really really matter." Again, another tongue-in-cheek comment. + 437 feeds have at least 1000+ (aka "totally sweet" feeds) Lanzone said jokingly. + 60 feeds have at least 5000+ + 1 feed has 50,000+ subscribers (which one? Slashdot)

More about Jim's thoughts about why these blogs/feeds matter in his original July blog post that also includes some good comments from Findory's Greg Linden.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:08 PM | Permalink

September 14, 2005

Ask Jeeves Launches Blog/Feed Search in Japan

While we're all focusing on Google Blog Search today, a reader sends along a note that Ask Jeeves released (beta) their new blog engine on Ask Jeeves Japan a couple of days ago. Interesting. I wonder when it will become available on other AJ sites? Of course, Bloglines, now owned by AJ, has offered a blog search service for several years. In fact, Bloglines won our SEW Award for Best Blog/Feed Search Engine this year.

Here's a search for "Search Engine Watch" on Ask Jeeves Japan blog search. I don't have a Japanese character set on my computer (I don't read Japanese) but I did notice a button to subscribe to feeds (with Bloglines) located next to each result. I also spotted a time stamp of when the post hit the database and an option to limit your search results to Podcast entries (look for a link on the right side of the results page). You can also limit a search to podcast content from the outset by selecting the option located next to the search box. More as we learn it.

Postscript: I just had a brief chat with Jim Lanzone from AJ. No word about when the new blog search tool will launch outside of Japan.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:20 PM | Permalink

July 19, 2005

How Many RSS Feeds Really Matter?

Everyday we read estimates of the total number of blogs and feeds out there. Of course, we rarely get solid definitions of just what a blog is. Does every feed belong to a blog? Do blogs or feeds that haven't been updated in x amount of time count? Do all the sites that post totals use the same criteria? I'm sure you've asked these and other questions. Just like total the database sizes that we see from some web engines, total blog and feed numbers are primarily marketing tools.

Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves, has just posted some interesting numbers and graphs on the Ask.com Blog that reveal the total number of feeds that have at least one subscriber who access the feed with Bloglines.

Lanzone believes this is a more accurate number of the total amount of feeds since someone has taken the time to subscribe to it. He calls these, "feeds that matter."

According to Bloglines members around the world, 1,121,655 feeds “matter” to date. Note this includes only content feeds tracked, and not topics tracked via “saved” or “persistent” searches using the Bloglines service.

Findory's Greg Linden adds an excellent comment to the post saying that a feed might need more than a single to subscriber to really "matter." He thinks 20 subscribers might be a better number to use. I think Greg makes an excellent point. Lanzone promises more breakdowns in the near future. I would also like to see how many of these 1 million plus feeds are updated at least once or twice a month.

I'll add that in some cases Bloglines has more than one feed listed for the same blog. I can speak from experience on this one since Bloglines currently lists seven feeds (one official, others unofficial, several broken) for my ResourceShelf site. All of these feeds have at least one subscriber.

Bottom Line? This post is worthy of your attention and, at the least, helps to provide a more realistic idea about the number of feeds out there.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:58 PM | Permalink

New from Bloglines: Subscription Suggestions and UI Translations

Bloglines has just launched a new service called Quick Pick Subscriptions service that allows users to quickly find blogs that they might be interested in subscribing to.

The Quick Pick Subscriptions page consists of two boxes. One box contains a selected list of blog titles organized into 37 categories. Category titles include:

  • Fashionista
  • Gadget Freak
  • Hard Core Gamer
  • News Hound
  • Webmaster

The other box provides a list of that day's Top 50 subsciptions. All a user needs to do is select one or more titles of interest from these boxes and a subscription to the blog(s) will be added to their Bloglines account.

Also, translations of the Bloglines UI are now available in Italian and Dutch. You'll find links to them and other UI translations listed under the "Choose your language" header on the on the Bloglines homepage.

Postscript: I checked several relevant categories to see if our blog was listed. Sorry to report, I didn't find a link. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:47 PM | Permalink

July 6, 2005

Q&As, Q&As, Q&As On Search

It's Q&A madness out there. Below links to Q&As with a black hat on SEO, a recovering PR meister on search and public relations, an information research professional on search marketing, Bloglines, PriceGrabber, Digital Point and MSN Search to come.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:02 PM | Permalink

June 8, 2005

Bloglines Adding More than 2 Million Articles Each Day to Its Database

Those of you who track the steady stream of blog, blogosphere, and RSS stats might want to add some new numbers from Bloglines that were released today to your files.

  • 500 million blog and news feed articles are now stored [and made searchable*] in the Bloglines database
  • Between January and June of this year, the size of the Bloglines index doubled
  • Each day Bloglines adds 2 million to 2.7 million new blog and news feed articles to the database

* John pointed out a few weeks ago that Bloglines is planning on launching an improved search tool sometime this summer.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:54 AM | Permalink

March 30, 2005

Bloglines Adds Package Tracking; More To Come

Bloglines has rolled out a new package tracking feature today that keeps you updated on the progress of items being shipped through FedEx, UPS or the US Postal Service.

To access the feature, use the My Feeds tab, then the Add link, then you'll see a new Package Tracking link that appears in the Subscribe window. Enter the tracking number for the appropriate service, and you're subscribed.

Bloglines says this is another step toward a "universal inbox" it wants to build where all types of information can be collected. Chris Sherman will be taking a closer look at this in the near future.

For some additional quotes from the company, see Bloglines adds package tracking to its service from IDG.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 21, 2005

Seared Ahi Tuna, Bloglines, and Ask Jeeves

The San Francisco Business Times has a bit more about the Bloglines/Ask Jeeves deal in the article: Bloglines: Ask Jeeves exec gets his news fix with acquisition.

Being a fan of the service, I reached out to Mark Fletcher and set up lunch," [Jim] Lanzone [senior vice president of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves] said of Bloglines' CEO. The two met on a scorching September afternoon in San Carlos' A Tavola restaurant. Overheated and overscheduled, they skipped past small talk. Lanzone learned that Redwood City-based Bloglines, which by some counts has 50 percent market share for so-called feed aggregators, was being courted by VC firms and other Internet outfits. They continued their conversation again in November at a Berkeley noodle shop over seared ahi tuna.

More about the AJ/Bloglines deal in this SEW Blog post. Also, AJ has already created a Smart Search shortcut for blog and RSS info. We mentioned it last week.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 17, 2005

Jeeves Creates Smart Search Shortcuts for Blogs and RSS

I've noticed a couple of new Smart Search result boxes on Ask Jeeves serps. If you search for the term blogs or weblog you'll see a Smart Search box (at the top of the page) that includes numerous links with basic info about blogs and RSS that come from AJ's recent acquisition, Bloglines. A search box for the Bloglines search engine is also part of the Smart Result. A Smart Answer for RSS is also online. It includes a link to Bloglines, info about RSS standards from Harvard and links to RSS feeds from Moreover. Placing these links in a single location at the top of results page can not only help someone new to blogs and RSS access basic info quickly and easily but also help promote the Bloglines service.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 8, 2005

It's Official: Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines

Today, Ask Jeeves is announcing that they've acquired Bloglines, a well-known, critically acclaimed, and free web-based RSS aggregation tool for an undisclosed sum of money. The move confirms rumors that have been around since Saturday.

Jim Lanzone, senior vp of search properties at AJ has been a Bloglines user since its early days and thought the service would would fit well with what Ask Jeeves already provides.

"This acquisition is more of an investment to allow Bloglines to achieve their roadmap more quickly," Lanzone said.

According to Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher, the deal has been in the works since last September.

At the present time, Ask Jeeves has no plans to change anything about what Bloglines offers. It will still be available at Bloglines.com and will remain free. While many know and use Bloglines as an RSS aggregation service, it offers a wide array of tools including:

+ A weblog and RSS search engine that Ask Jeeves hopes to turn into a "world class" resource using their Teoma technology. + A weblog publishing platform including an option to quickly clip and annotate items from weblogs and feeds. Blogs are hosted on the Bloglines server. + A directory of RSS feeds. + An option to access your email discussion lists using the Bloglines aggregator while simultaneously reducing spam to your primary email account. + User Interfaces in six languages.

The LawLibTech blog offers an excellent Bloglines tutorial.

Today's acquisition also fits well with Ask Jeeves recently discussed mobile search plans. Bloglines works with WAP enabled devices. In fact, this is the way I frequently access the service.

The acquisition should could also help with Ask Jeeves getting some attention and "cred" in the blogging, RSS, and "early adopter" communities where Bloglines has a very large and loyal user base. Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher began the service in June 2003. He sold another online service he started, eGroups, to Yahoo in September 2000.

The acquisition is another step toward Ask Jeeves rebuilding a great brand in search it originally had but which faltered between around 1999-2002.

Not The Same Old Butler In the past two years, Ask Jeeves has moved from a lackluster web search provider to a well-rounded search service that I not only use but have zero problems recommending to others.

In my view, the turnaround began with AJ's purchase of Teoma in September 2001 and ending the idea of using humans to pre-suppose thousands of question and answer sets. In 2003, Ask was one of the first large web search providers to jump on what is now a growing trend of providing direct answers on search results pages.

2004 was a busy year for The Butler. Not only did he trim down and get a makeover, but Ask Jeeves:

+ Launched a local search product (using data provided via a partnership with CitySearch) + Introduced, My Jeeves, a personal search product + Continued developing and releasing new "Smart Answer" options including Famous People Search + Debuted a desktop search product

Moving forward, I believe one of the biggest challenges Jeeves faces is their name and their past. While many people know that Ask Jeeves is a search tool, it's often associated with the poor service that Jeeves previously provided. Acquisitions of a high quality service like Bloglines, should help the company get many more people to take a look at the work that they've been doing for the past four years.

Postscript: Welcome, Bloglines! from the Ask Jeeves blog provides the tale of the purchase from Ask Jeeves vice president Jim Lanzone, along with how Ask hopes to build with Bloglines to create a great blog search engine. Bloglines also has a FAQ and information on the purchase here: Letter to Bloglines Subscribers

Posted by Gary Price at 12:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 7, 2005

Ask Jeeves To Buy Bloglines? Postscript, the rumors are confirmed: It's Official: Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines.

Various places are reporting that Ask Jeeves is to acquire the Bloglines feed search and reading service:

  • Ask Jeeves Buys Bloglines at Napsterization is apparently the source of the rumor, though neither Ask Jeeves or Bloglines are quoted confirming the acquisition.  
  • Ask Jeeves to buy Bloglines? from News.com revisits the Napsterization post and notes that Ask Jeeves has scheduled an announcement for Monday.

I can confirm that as with the News.com story we've been told Ask Jeeves will be making an announcement today and are preparing a story to release for it. Due to an embargo on the news, we can't discuss what we've been told unless the embargo broken by someone citing an official Ask Jeeves source.

The Napsterization post notes that the newly launched Ask Jeeves Blog has had exclusive links to Top Blogs and Most Popular Blog Links provided by Bloglines, further signs of some type of potential partnership.

If the move happens, it will leave Google as the only major portal not offering some type of feed subscription service. See also:

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Ask Jeeves Reportedly Acquires Bloglines.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

December 3, 2004

Bloglines Goes International

Bloglines, the popular web-based RSS aggregator and blog search tool has just released "international" versions of the service. You're now able to access Bloglines in six languages: + English + Spanish + Japanese + Chinese (Traditional) + French + German + Portuguese

Bloglines has also announced that their search engine is indexing more than 200 million articles. From the post, "It took us a year to reach 100 million, and less than 4 months for our blog and news feed content index to double."

Posted by Gary Price at 1:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

September 28, 2004

Bloglines and RSS Bandwidth Problems

A busy day in the RSS world.

First, the removal of the beta moniker to the RSS/ATOM section on My Yahoo along with a searchable directory of feeds.

Second, news that Bloglines has released new tools (open API, Web Services) to help with RSS bandwidth issue which has been in the news recently. You can find more details in this news release and eWeek story

Posted by Gary Price at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 23, 2004

Profile On Bloglines Feed Aggregator

Nice, short profile from the San Jose Mercury News of the Bloglines news aggregator service: Bloglines aims for simplicity. Greg Linden also has a nice summary of why he likes Bloglines just out: Bloglines and feed readers.

There are plenty of other services like Bloglines, of course. We list a number of these here: RSS News Feeds & Blog Search Engines. And if we don't have it, Fagan Finder probably will: Fagan Finder: Weblogs, Journals, & RSS.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack