Blogs, Feeds, Flares
As my co-founder colleague Steve observed, we "suddenly" seem to have a fresh raft of talented, interesting bloggers aboard here at FeedBurner. This is of course good from the "use what you make" perspective of being a FeedBurner-powered publisher of a subscribeable content feed; we all use our own product and are familiar with benefits and learn from its limitations for future releases. The added wealth of inspired creativity also puts my tired words to shame and rekindles my interest in making I.C.B.B. something other than what it is today -- something of a test aircraft junkyard, where once-novel concepts briefly took flight but now accrue rust from non-use and disrepair.
On to the new: if you haven't seen FeedFlare, you should take a good look at it. It allows readers to more easily take meaningful action on your content, whether it's viewed on your site or in your feed. Find out who's linking to it at Technorati, save it to your delicious bookmarks list, email it to your buddy in Pittsburgh, and more. As Eric pointed out, the real hijinks are coming soon, when we open up the Flare API:
I'm really excited about this new development with FeedFlare, but I'm really really excited about what's coming next. The API is going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see the kinds of FeedFlares that will be created.
The open API we'll be releasing will allow anyone to tie actions and other data to their content in ways their readers will care about. Incorporate Google Maps, Amazon Web Services, the BackPack API, and other popular, powerful web services into your content, using your feed as the core that brings it all together. We hope to provide lots and lots of both concrete and utterly conceptual-yet-suggestive examples to spark your creativity.
Off for a quick ski vacation for a couple of days, then back hard at work on Flare and other good stuff. If you subscribe to my feed, expect a few Flickr photo posts from the slopes shortly!