News hub. Creative Commons license by Lorrie McClanahan.

As I am probably not the only one to look for an RSS reader I decided to share my list of those I think are the best ones.

Most people nowadays use Google Reader for RSS (and Atom) feeds but I do not want Google to have all my data, I use far too many Google services by now.

Anyways, I still think that it’s one of the best RSS readers so I included it here in my list of the best free cross-platform RSS readers (also referred to as feedreaders by many) along with alternatives. Cross platform means they work on Windows, Mac and Linux.

• 3 of the best RSS readers are open source software based on the Java programming language, that’s why they work on all operating systems.
• 2 of them are Firefox extensions (add ons) and work on all system as Firefox itself is cross platform
• 4 of them are web based feed readers. It means they work in your browser like any website.
• 1 is a mail client that can also be used for RSS.

So here is the list, the standalone desktop programs first:

1. RSSOwl – Probably the most popular free open source RSS reader, nice clean interface, supports dozens of languages
2. BlogBridge – Simple, browser-like interface, also open source and quite popular newsreader
3. BottomFeeder – It’s a complex open source RSS reader for the power user
4. Sage – Sage is by now an established Firefox Add on for RSS. It’s been very simple and easy to use
5. Feedly – Feedly, a newer RSS Firefox extension offers a magazine like display of your feeds thus adapts to your natural reading habits. I requires Google Reader though.
   
6. Google Reader – AJAX enhanced most popular web based RSS reader, using the typical Google colors and fonts. Allows easy sharing of items
7. Netvibes – Netvibes is more a web based starting page than a stand alone RSS reader but you can use it like one, you can share items too
8. FeedShow – This service is similar to Bloglines (RIP) from its appearance but a little more fancy in its colors
9. Thunderbird – The popular mail client by the Mozilla Foundation, the makers of Firefox, can also be used as an RSS reader. Reading news like this saves time but can also be distracting.

Are newsreaders, feed readers, Atom and RSS readers the same? Yes and no, I prefer the term RSS reader even though they also support Atom feeds (just another RSS-like format) because there is an RSS Reader software called Feedreader. I do not want you to mix them up.

I did not include Feedreader here as it only works on Windows. “Newsreader” might refer to the so called Usenet, a part of the Internet that came before the Web and still is used by some people. Usenet newsgroup readers are not the same as RSS newsreaders.

Last updated: September 11, 2010.

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Vodka Stolichnaya (from the capital) by Wysz

You certainly know the metaphor with the glass and the water. It’s featured in lots of more or less uplifting Hollywood movies (like Groundhog Day e.g.), for those readers who live in India and do not watch American movies, it goes something like this: Two guys sit in a bar and get drinks served. When the bartender brings the glasses it becomes apparent that both drinks contain 50% liquid and 50% air. Now the one guy is convinced that his glass is half empty while the other guy’s glass is half full in contrast.

Now usually people don’t tell a whole story but just ask the question “is the glass half empty or half full?” to find out whether you’re a pessimist (half empty glass) or an optimist (half full glass). I do not bore you here for no reason, I want to offer you a full bottle and explain what it has to do with social media.

Let us return to the bar setting. The scene, two men sitting at the bar and drinking encourages already a somewhat pessimistic interpretation, you imagine them a little drunk and melancholic at best. Now imagine a bar

• full of people from all over the world,
• people with different apparel
• interests
• beliefs

We’re clearly not in a bar in Texas where you get weird looks for not wearing a hat or a Mexican sombrarro. We’re more probably somewhere San Francisco.

Believe it or not, for a long time I was more the “half empty glass” kind of guy.

One way to combat this shortcoming is this blog and my overall outreach to the virtual inhabitants of social media.

In a real bar setting in San Francisco we probably would encounter a group somewhere, not just men but also women, not at the bar but sitting at a table or on couches. Now this group, chatting, smiling and laughing gets their drinks served. They’re all half empty or full depending on your choice. Do you expect these people to analyze the drinks in order to find out whether they got served the correct quantity of liquid? I imagine them getting some alcoholic mix drink like White Russian (Vodka with Cream) e.g.

Although I rarely visit bars and I’m not a big drinker I have drank plenty of white Russians in the past. The funny thing about them is that no White Russian tastes the same although they consist mostly of those two ingredients mentioned above. Even the kind of glass varies greatly, from all kinds of cocktail glasses to average glasses you could drink orange juice or tea from. So you might get

So the bar

• is crowded
• the music is loud
• the girls are beautiful
• and the guys tell stories about their great adventures or achievements

A lovely scene indeed. To my religious Muslim readers from Iran and elsewhere: Just imagine the evenings during Ramadan where everybody meets in the streets to finally eat and drink something after sunset.

Now do you think the girls and guys will do more than just say something funny about the bar running out of drinks? Will they interrupt their conversation to muse about the drink or will they in fact say “chias” and toast? They will drink and laugh and be happy. Why? It’s because they are there together sharing. When you’re sharing with lots of friendly like-minded people you do not notice small annoyances. In fact in some languages the terms sharing and being happy have the same origin.

While I’m not a particularly religious person I’m still very impressed by some things Jesus did and said. In one case, metaphorically he did foresee the digital age. When the people of Israel were hungry in the desert he took 5 leaves of bread and two fish and fed thousands of people with it. In the digital or Internet age the more we share the more we have. We multiply by sharing. Jesus would love the Internet, he particularly would love social media.

Now let’s return to the bar again: Lets assume the group I described above gets a little agitated. In fact they notice that glasses are half empty/full and they want them completely full. One of them could for instance stand up, go the bar and ask for another bottle to pour in more vodka into the drinks. In the worst case all vodka is gone, sold out now s/he could just let the bartender offer an alternative and so on and so forth. The person who went to the bar could come back and offer even a better drink this time, even something they didn’t know before.

Social media brings you a full bottle daily. Your glass might be even half empty but the moment you start sharing with others you get more and more to drink.

Also, Jesus loves social media. I bet there are some Christian social news sites out there. Otherwise build one now!

I don’t have to teach my Indian readers how to share, their whole culture is based on sharing. In Islam you also have to share, even with complete strangers if they ask you to. We westerners have the biggest problem with sharing, we’re used to egoism. In social media it does not make sense at all. While sharing we do not lose anything, we multiply each time we share. Everybody can be Jesus on the Internet! Or at least behave like Jesus. So do not focus on your half empty or full glass, visit the bar, millions of potential friends wait there.

And do you know what? Social media even works without alcohol! On the other hand, no social site can make up for a missed evening or night at the bar! Just combine both. I do not only get clients via blogging and social media. People from overseas even call me up while in Berlin to go out for a drink. Then of course a half full glass is perfectly enough in most cases.

Btw. when it comes to Vodka do not buy some weird over-advertised ugly stuff. Buy the originals from Russia or Poland where I come from. They taste completely different and muuuch better. Vodka Moskovskaya and Wodka Wyborowa are good choices. Some Vodka brands use Russian names but they are not from Russia.

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At first I thought I it was just me or the wrong submitters stumbled me etc. etc. but I did some tests and asked people around, also from outside the SEO, meta-blogging and social media marketing niches: StumbleUpon traffic is substantially down.

What happened? I guess it’s a we don’t want bloggers anymore thing. Before I write an article about that I want to ask you:

What was your impression of StumbleUpon lately? Did it send visitors to your blog?

Disclaimer: I do not submit my own posts (just recently stumbled some of them after the traffic ceased) my readers do that. Now it seems my readers can stumble how much they want to no avail. StumbleUpon traffic stopped.

[April 2nd 2008]

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Did you know that researchers found out people shouldn’t work more than 4 hours a day as their productivity diminishes if they work more? In capitalism sadly we are far from achieving this ideal. In fact so called progress made us work more and more and longer hours in recent years. Despite automation being introduced gradually in more areas of expertise people are forced to do even more work to survive.

It’s not only the young girls who assemble your iPods in China in a 60+h work week for the Chinese minimum wage. It’s also you who sits in front of the screen all day.

This won’t last forever, as this unfair system is inherently flawed and based on some people being excessively rich, while most others are struggling to survive to some degree. Here in Germany for instance the middle class is melting down while the number of working poor skyrockets. At the same time the filthy rich get richer.

So the money is distributed more and more unequally. Accordingly the time is distributed in a similar manner. As time is money you will surely also notice that you have less and less time for your family, friends or your true interests.

As we can’t just go away to some other planet and I guess Cuba is not an option for most of us we have to deal with this situation.

Being a freelancer, and not a wage slave who has a slave master to force one to work, you are your own slave master in a way.

You have to force yourself everyday to leave your family, friends and real interests to go to work.

I struggled for years with doing that. Now after more than 5 years of being a freelancer and more than 3 working full time on my own I have found ways to be a good slave master and to enhance my productivity with a daily routine that both motivates me and makes me more efficient while not making me a dumb robot only performing tasks for the sake of money.

I want my work to make me as happy as possible even as I acknowledge that family, friends and other “real” not monetary interests are solely able to make you truly happy. Unless you’re Bhagwan/Osho who got rich by healing rich westerners. In this case the pursuit of happiness was part of the work I guess.

So here we go:

1. Start early, do not sleep until 10AM or your day will be messed up already, it was tough for me, but I learned to get up in the morning. If you have kids you have to wake up early, so at least then you learn. In Berlin many freelancers work at night though.
2. Do a work out, go for a jog or take your kids to school before work. You need contact with yourself and your body and also with other human beings before starting to work, ideally the beloved ones.
3. Work at an office, do not work at home if you can afford it. Walk or go by public transportation to your office. Look at the surroundings or read something to wake up.
4. At the office: Read the news at first. Start with general news or news not directly connected to your trade. Researchers have found out, that you need to know what’s going on in the world for a stable identity. Don’t read everything about wars, catastrophies and misery though as this might make you go suicidal.
5. Do something creative at first, for instance blogging. On days where I do not write a blog entry, I lose motivation. Do not start with checking and replying your emails.
6. Start with the nicer and easier tasks. I do web analytics, ranking checks and ego surfing for myself and my clients at first. I guess that stats are boring for many of you or not easy to look at so you have to think about something that fits for yourself.
7. Check your emails before going to lunch. Just sort them. Sort them accordingly to priority and which ones need a reply which not. Reply only to those that need an immediate response and make it short, do not spend more than 30 minuets to do that. The rest of them must wait until evening.
8. Go out for lunch. I mean go in the sense of take a walk preferably. It’s very important that you take a walk as sitting at a desk all day is not very healthy as you can probably guess. If you don’t move a little at least once a day your body will retaliate. Read a newspaper before or after eating. Do not read industry news as your mind needs a break too.
9. Now after you finished lunch start with the most difficult tasks. Those that need your attention most. Try to perform those tasks for at least 2h in a row, better 3 or 4 with just standing up from time to time to move a little. Some people might argue that it’s best done before lunch. Yes it does, depending on what type you are. You have to decide yourself.
10. Now pause and surf the web for half an hour, or better engage in some social media activities, especially if you have no one else to talk with at your office.
11. Now, at the evening you can reply to your emails, make the paper work and all the other boring and annoying stuff.

• Eat and drink all the time. Researchers have found out that the body absorbs nutrition best if you have something like 6 to 8 meals a day. Of course that’s too much to cope with so just eat all the time, each time you sense appetite or thirst.
• Get up, stand up. Do not sit all the time. Move a little from time to time.
• Switch off all the annoyances like instant messengers while you are at your main or most difficult and creative tasks.

Now you might ask, does it work for you? For me it works. It’s not perfect, but I’m not bankrupt or insane yet. So apparently it’s OK.

You can’t trick capitalism completely this way though. Of course you will be tired afterwards as well and sometimes you will think that you can enhance your productivity by skipping the reading of the news, going out for lunch, taking a walk and similar parts, but it doesn’t work. You’ll degenerate after a while. You can’t live without having a body or identity.

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Orwellian Newspeak is abundant nowadays. We speak about “collateral damage”, “ethnic cleansings” or “human resources”.

In SEO/SEM we have also terms like this. Quality traffic is an abominable term which for most marketers means something like visitors who are interested in your subject matter, stay on your site for a while and at best buy something. Nothing ugly here you think?

Well, I prefer to treat others and be treated like myself like a real human being.

It’s the same story with link bait, a term I despise, as your visitors are not fish.

So what’s the underlying problem here? Isn’t it just a term like dozens of others in SEO nobody else would understand anyways? Well, no. It’s a word that shows that you don’t care who or rather what your visitors are. They are human beings, not numbers and certainly not amorph traffic. What’s really most despicable about this term is the “quality”.

Quality is such a nice word, isn’t it? No! Not here. I’m not a fucking product to buy or sell, I’m not a slave on the Web 2.0 market to be priced and sold!

So do not talk about my quality! I was a linguist and poet before turning SEO so I still care for language and the usage of words. Some of you might wonder how come I express myself so clumsily then at times. Well, English is my third language. Polish was first, my mother tongue, German was second and then came English. So from this point of view my English is great! Besides I also learned Spanish and French but I suck at both, c’est la vie.

So what’s the point of this? You should treat your audience like real people, like human beings not numbers. You should visualize them, treat them like real human beings made of flesh and blood. Also you should strive to make them your friends. Not in the loose Web 2.0 sense of “adding friends”.

You really should befriend them or at least you should make them feel like the

• mothers,
• Americans,
• dreamers,
• farmers,
• Buddhists,
• bloggers

they are. In many cases they are many of those at once.

I hate it when people treat me like an SEO, or rather like the cliche of an SEO they know.

They don’t know anything about me personally, but they label me already somewhere along the lines of beggars and terrorists.

In SEO 2.0 you harness the power of people’s compassion. To do that you must accept as and treat them like human beings not numbers.

Then there is a hierarchy like in real life outside the family. You have

1. mentors,
2. friends,
3. partners,
4. colleagues,
5. acquaintances,
6. guests,
7. clients,
8. casual visitors,
9. strangers.

So to succeed online, like in real life, you need to classify your visitors and other people you “meet” online.

You probably notice that clients are very low in this hierarchy. Imagine yourself to be a book shop owner sitting all day in his shop. Who do you want to sell something? Your mentors, friends, partners, colleagues? Unless you’re into Amway you probably will not target them specifically.

So let’s categorize the people who visit your blog according to this hierarchy:

1. mentors – people who are leading in their area of expertise and you look up to, Danny Sullivan, Aaron Wall, Rand Fishkin, Maki of Dosh Dosh e.g. in my case
2. friends – fellow bloggers like Fred, Shana or Pearl who I often cooperate with
3. partners – people who not always share your interests or preferences but work together with you like Wayne
4. colleagues – people who do the same work as you, other SEO bloggers e.g
5. acquaintances – people I will encounter a few times on StumbleUpon, Sphinn or Pownce
6. guests – people who will visit me and we chat a little, other bloggers
7. clients – people I have only money relations with, I also have money relations with some of the above though, but this is important to see that clients are usually treated like being very low in this hierarchy (this is not to say that they should be treated like that), SEO company represenatatives
8. casual visitors – they won’t talk to you, they are just there, stumblers
9. strangers – you won’t even notice them most of the time, Google visitors

Successful blogging is about talking to strangers. You should make them feel like your friends though without feigning it.

So let’s take a second look at the hierarchy:

1. mentors – Aaron Wall or Maki visits my site, I rol out the red carpet
2. friends – fellow bloggers I really appreciate visit me, I offer my best sweets and some refreshments
3. partners – I am respectful but I don’t say yes just to be friendly
4. colleagues – I am polite and helpful
5. acquaintances – I say hello
6. guests – I smile
7. clients – I ask “can I help you?”
8. casual visitors – I make eye contact (difficult but not impossible on the Net today)
9. strangers – I may ignore them or not

Now this sounds a little like a status quo. Now you have to promote each kind person visiting you to the next level. So I make eye contact with strangers, I ask casual visitors if I can help them and I smile at my clients, saying hello. At best I talk to strangers.

You do not have enough red carpets for all of them but many more than in real life. Make your visitors your friends!

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The Web 2.0 Expo was in town, in this case Berlin, Germany where I live and work. I’m not the typical expo or conference guy. I do not wear ties you know, I don’t even have a real business card because I move office and positions so often that each time I get one it’s already outdated. I guess I should print one with nothing but my URL on it, as it did not change since 2001.

Well, I digress.

So how did I sneak in into the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin without paying the 1000$ or something entry fee?

Well, you know, all SEOs are crooks and liars! So it was easy for me as I’m even SEO 2.0! Here are the 5 steps:

1. Pose a someone important, especially if you are a VUP (very unimportant person) like myself, create a website and call it Whatever 2.0 (substitute whatever with your site name), in my case SEO 2.0
2. Propose a session to the overworked and far too busy staff that only cares for the VIPs not the VUPs
3. Soon you’ll get an email which isn’t of much help, or rather confuses you. Just reply that it’s OK and that you’ll be there
4. If you’re a VUP (not a VIP!) you’ll end up on a guest list if you’re lucky, or in my case I was asked to add myself to the Wiki as it’s Web 2.0 and we’re all very modern and all about UGC and participation
5. Go there, be late to your session, at least 20 minutes and tell the hostess who has got no clue about the expo that you have got no clue where you’re session is but that you are an invited speaker and you are late (more than 20 minutes)

DONE.

Then you will find lots of people who have no clue either and can’t help you. Especially they have never heard of you or any wiki and they can’t find it on their website. Of course as you’re only a VUP you can’t find your scheduled session anywhere so you can just dive into the expo and listen to all the VIPs. You can even stay for a free lunch, I hope free, as people who pay 1000$ or more should get food for free I guess.

I did not stay as I was told by another disgruntled visitor that the food sucks.

Before I left I had an interesting talk with a representative of one of my favorite Web 2.0 services, Zoho. As I wrote some weeks ago Zoho offers the best web based word processor among of it’s by now huge number of advanced tools and applications for online office. Ian of Zoho introduced me to the Zoho Creator where he dragged and dropped a data base driven email application in front of my eyes. That was awesome.

Besides that my favorite social browsing tool was present: Yoono. Sadly I could not find them. As I wanted to quickly return to my work place i did not look too hard for them.

If you’re in Berlin right now and stay for a while and you are interested in meeting a VUP like me I guess we can arrange something, because the Web 2.0 expo itself was not a good place to get in touch. Well, wait didn’t you actually tell us that you met Tim O’Reilly?

Do you trust crooks and liars SEOs?

Well, I did and I almost interrupted a TV interview with him in the press room aka speakers lounge or whatever. We had eye contact twice as he probably wondered “who is this annoying guy looking like the Mexican who sells the burritos in LA where I stop by sometimes?”.

I even thought about chatting with Tim but then I was to busy too wait as long. Tim, skip those boring interviews next time if you want to speak to the guy who coined the term SEO 2.0, kind of.

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So I want to ask you to get a global perspective on this: How much money must your blog make to allow you a decent lifestyle where you live? 30$, 300$ or rather 3000 Dollars?

Tell me in the comments about the situation where you live!

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If you listen to western media you tend to believe that people in Iran

• hate Jews
• kill homosexuals
• oppress women
• want to destroy Israel and Europe with nuclear weapons
• are all armed and fanatical

Even educated and so called open minded people in the western hemisphere believe that crap. I do not and I condemn any future plans of waging war against Iran.

I do not want to talk about politics though, I want you, the Iranian people visiting my blog in large numbers to tell me what you love most about Iran! As a true cosmopolitan I already have noted the first 3 things I love about Iran myself:

1. The art and design,
2. The ancient history
3. The mystic Sufi tradition
4. Poetry and literature, especially by Molavi
5. Iranian Food
6. Nature (flora and fauna) and landscape, especially mountains
7. World’s first human rights declaration 2500 years ago!
8. Faithful, Peace-loving, hospitable and generous people
9. Classic Iranian music
10. Wonderful Persian bloggers
11. and many, many more, just read the incredible comments!

So you only need to add 7 more!

Thanks to everybody for adding as many things you love about Iran! Of course 10 are not enough so I had to choose those most common and easily understandable for the international public…

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This is incredible! I’m on Iranian Digg, or rather Reddit as this social news site called Balatarin has apparently a “+” and a “-” button. I’m at least as proud as the last time when I was big in China.

My Persian is non-existent, I only know some Arabic expressions, but nonetheless I love Iranian art and design, Reza Abedini is my favorite. A teacher of mine was Persian and we used to play chess. He was one of the few players that really won each time. Back then I was a really good chess player.

I didn’t even know that Iran has it’s own Digg, but why not? The Iranian people are humans like we are and have one of the most thriving blogospheres. So naturally they have their own Digg version.

User alizali who already commented here has submitted my “greatest website of the world” story.

Of course I do not mind if you submit websites in Persian. If you can explain what the site is about, no problem.

Why is SEO 2.0 so popular in Iran? The answer is simple, because I have a faithful translator down there: Read the post in Persian. He seemingly translates every single post of mine. I feel very flattered!

[Update: Wow, while writing this post I made the frontpage of Balatarin!]

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Do not tell me your homepage, Google or Digg, I mean a website that works on its own without depending on other sites and that does not belong to you…

Please do not post just a URL, explain also why this particular website is the greatest!

I will collect and publish the best replies and everybody taking part will get due credits.

Probably most people will reply Wkipedia…

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