Hi Dave and Fred,

Dave, I’ve been away from your RSS for a while now. Heck, I’ve been away from blogging. But I’ve been thinking about what you told me when I visited you in New York. You weren’t going to read me on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook. Why? You like reading RSS (you should, you helped bring it to the world).

Fred, you told me that I was nuts to give up my blog (I told you I had left it for the better engagement of Google+). You told me that it is dangerous to not own a place with your own name on it, on servers that you — at least in theory — control. Didn’t think it was gonna work out for me to post my content solely on Facebook or Google+ (both of which now have blog-like features and feeds).

I pushed back, noting that the ability to gather engagement is way off the charts on Google+ and, even, on the revamped Facebook (about a month ago Facebook added a new feature, called subscribe, so people can subscribe to my feed there without being my friend and they also gave us the ability to post long posts).

I also told you about Flipboard and how it’s changed my reading behavior. No longer do I use RSS-only news readers. Today I can see Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, RSS, Facebook and much more aggregated together in Flipboard.

Now Dave doesn’t like the paginated world of Flipboard. I imagine he won’t like Google’s Propeller (a tablet-based competitor to Flipboard), that’s rumored to be coming this week, or whatever Yahoo is doing, or whatever Feedly, AOL, Pulse, Flud, CNN, is doing.

I still remember the day when Dave first showed me how he likes reading blogs. He likes a simple feed where new stuff shows up at the top of the page, or, even better, in his outliner (for those who don’t know, Dave invented a lot of outlining technology that most of the industry has long forgotten about, but Dave still likes reading, and blogging, in an outliner where most of us just read Facebook or Twitter).

But something happened over the past few weeks that’s gotten me reenergized about RSS. What is it?

Well, Google, in its new “focus on Google+” strategy, has announced that it’s dropping some features from Google Reader. Mostly the social stuff.

Now THAT is interesting! One reason why I left Google Reader (and RSS) is because Twitter and Facebook just became dominant in the world of news. For instance, look at my Twitter news feed of news articles from major news brands around the world. Stick that into Flipboard and you have a world-class newspaper that NOTHING can match.

This change in Google Reader is going to be very interesting to watch. Yes, I see that lots of people are up in arms about this change (funny enough, I read that on your own blog at Scripting.com).

Lately Dave you have come into a number of different conversations. The famous Silicon Valley investor, John Doerr, yesterday, told me he found your writings to be as interesting, and smart, as ever. He’s not the only one who’s said that lately.

So why this note. I’ve decided to live most of my life “inside Mark Zuckerberg’s and Larry Page’s trunk.” It’s a damn nice trunk, too.

Acutally, I see it more of a dark force. It sucks all data toward it. Both Facebook and Google are like black holes.

I’ve decided to live on the dark side of the force, inside the black hole.

Why? For a few reasons:

1. I don’t have a business model to protect. I just need to be where Rackspace’s customers, and potential customers, are. Increasingly that’s inside Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ (yesterday at Y Combinator’s Startup School person after person came up to me and talked about a post or two I’ve made on Google+ or Facebook).

2. I don’t care whether my words, or videos, survive into history. Heck, the first few years of my blog, from 2000 to about 2003 aren’t available anywhere anymore and that hasn’t really caused me too much pain.

3. Everyone knows multiple places to find me, so I don’t care that one company could delete me anymore, either. Remember when Facebook deleted me for about a day? Well, now, if they tried that it would just help out Google+ (and vice versa). And if both of those got together, I still have my blog. Heck, even if the entire social media system decided to try to block my words I’d find a way to communicate. Now my rolodex is good enough that I’d be able to get airtime even on old-school pro media.

But I keep coming back to what the value of RSS is. Dave, you nailed it when you said it travels through firewalls (in other words, those put up by governments, like in Iran and China).

And, there ARE some things I want you both to read, even if you decide never ever to set foot into the black holes of Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

So, I’m going to start participating in the RSS world again. Maybe just as letters to you two. See, one reason that my blog has gone dormant is I just was having more fun inside the dark force of publishing. RSS isn’t as addictive, nor as social, nor as conversational anymore and that’s where I’ve chosen to live my life.

This is why the new Google Reader strategy intriques me. Sometimes I want to write a long ass piece where I don’t need to interact so much. Heck, I might even turn off comments here. Might even become, hate to say it, anti-social here, since there are so many better places to have a quick, real-time, low-friction, conversation amongst friends (both Google+ and Facebook are serving that for me, far more than here).

To Fred Wilson: I’d love to unpack where you think the investment opportunities are in the new modern publishing world.

My own feeling? Developers really like the new Facebook “verbs” platform, but they see the value flowing only one way: toward Facebook. They are waiting for Mark Zuckerberg to make his verbs platform two way: their data goes into Facebook and Facebook writes checks, or pushes advertising back out through those verb interfaces.

If that happens I can see lots of startups getting on Facebook’s bandwagon and it might even justify some of the valuations we’re seeing for companies like Color, Path, etc.

I’d also love to hear if you think there’ll be an investment opportunity around companies that focus on RSS again (or, better yet, decentralized identity technologies). I’m starting to think that there might be and if I’m thinking that, it’d be interesting to hear if you are thinking the same thing.

I’m thinking that way because I’m meeting more and more people who don’t have a social graph, don’t care to have one, and, even, are actively not participating in Facebook or Google+ because they are scared of what those companies are doing with the data. They have no such fears around RSS and that’s why getting rid of the social features over on Google Reader might actually be a good thing!

Anyway, thanks for listening. This was mostly a way to get my blog’s pipes unclogged, so sorry for running on a bit.

Your friend, Robert.

Hi everybody.

I’m Rich. I work at 10 Yetis PR Agency. (‘Hiiii Rich’, you say in a soothingly choral sort of way).

And I’m an addict. (You clap empathetically, looking at me with a knowing approval and compassionately tearful gleam in your eye).

Read more on Are you addicted to early adoption?…

Right on the heels of dumping stake in Bharatmatrimony, Yahoo is all set to bid its farewell to its Joint Ventures in India.

 Yahoo India has just announced that it is moving out of strategic investments in India - Tyroo and Callezee. The company’s board, as part of a Global Clean-up Plan, approved the complete divestment in India three weeks ago.

 The love story of Yahoo with India had begun in 2006 & matured in 2008. Subsequently, the 12% stake in Bharatmatrimony was offloaded in October 2011 to Bessemer Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Canaan Partners for INR 100 Crores. Yahoo is now about to finalize a deal for Tyroo and Callezee with Xplorer Capital, a fund floated by none other than former Yahoo employees including former senior VP Keith Nilsson!

 Gurgaon-based Tyroo, an online advertising network, had received Yahoo funding (Yahoo had acquired around 35% stake) in 2007 and has since grown to become the second biggest online advertisement network in India & comes in after Google with 100-150% growth over the last years! “Yahoo is exiting all its investments in India” a Tyroo executive revealed. This year itself it was also reported that Tyroo partnered with Slideshare to monetize their website in India. It was also reported that MediaMind and Tyroo tied- up with each other to launch their new ad format called VooDoo.

Callezee is a telephone directory search service. In 2008, Yahoo had acquired around 30% stake in Info Network Management Company Pvt Ltd (INMAC), the company that owns Callezee. Callezee was supposed to augment Yahoo’s search capability through its Voice Search offerings

With these warp-ups, Yahoo India appears to be on the brink of closure. However, Yahoo as a brand will always stay. Is Yahoo indeed right in its “Clean-Up” act or does it require some liquid funds for expansion / acquisitions elsewhere? Only time (or some Yahoo employee) can tell!

Author: Alap

Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

Internet users in Singapore who’ve visited YouTube today would notice something different: A stylized YouTube logo with a Merlion, and a SingTel/Android ad.

That’s the Singapore version of the largest video-sharing site in the world, which launched today (20th October). This new website promises to give Singapore viewers more relevant local content, which also means more exposure for local content creators.

If you’re not able to see the Singapore site for some reason, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and select “Singapore”, or visit YouTube.com.sg directly.

YouTube has also announced a licensing agreement with the Composers & Authors Society of Singapore and the launch of the YouTube Partner Program, which allows all Singapore-based video creaters — musicians, singers, short firm makers, and so on — to earn advertising revenue through the site.

So far, there are 35 localized YouTube sites worldwide. Singapore follows the Philippines as the second country in Southeast Asia with a localized site.

To usher in YouTube’s new baby, a video featuring many local celebrities has been created. They include: Mr Brown, Hossan Leong, Xiaxue, Chua En Lai, and Nat Ho. Popular Filipino singer Charice Pempengo also sent her greetings.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article for the Next Web about Steve Jobs. In it I tell about my front-row seat on Steve Jobs career.

Tonight I apologized to Tim Cook, Apple’s new CEO, for being harsh on him and his performance on Tuesday where he introduced the iPhone 4s. If you’ve been following my Google+ account, you’ve been seeing all that. That’s where I’ve been “blogging” lately.

Tonight I was driving near the Cupertino/Sunnyvale border when I heard the news on KGO Radio. Steve Jobs had died. I shot a rainbow over Silicon Valley shortly after I heard the news, then drove onto Apple’s campus in Cupertino, where I discovered the flags were half staff. I was one of the first tech blogger/journalist types there.

It was quiet. A few people were taking pictures of the flags, hanging. What I noticed was how quiet everyone was. Most were staring into their iPhones, at least partially in shock at the news. Soon the press started showing up. One of the first was Dean Takahashi, of Venture Beat, who shot this video of me. That was discussed here on Google+.

Some other photos and discussion:

First flower appears in memorial to Steve Jobs. Many more would follow. The discussion about that on Google+ is here.

Video of a bagpiper who played in front of the Apple campus:

Apple employees reading their iPhones, waiting for a bus. All were quiet.

Apple’s headquarters when I came on campus. Now there’s a crowd there and a memorial. When I arrived employees were sadly walking around, being very quiet, occasionally shooting a photo of the flags.

Apple’s headquarters with dark storm clouds overhead.

A rainbow over Silicon Valley shortly after I learned of the news.

Thanks, Steve, for all the change you brought to my life. You made it immeasurably better. You’ll be remembered for many years to come and there won’t be another one of your kind to come soon. I’m so honored to have met you.

With black background just as photos are meant to be viewed.

What happened with the Internet in 2009?

How many websites were added? How many emails were sent? How many Internet users were there? This post will answer all of those questions and many more. Prepare for information overload, but in a good way.

You can change the upload date of your photos (you can also change the “taken on” date of your photos in the same fashion).

It can sometimes be useful to have some text be aligned to the left and some text be aligned to the right on the same line.

Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.

This widget clearly has features that overlap with Digg, but it’s not a website or service of its own. Yet the question must be asked: could Google build a social media service from this widget that could compete with Digg or StumbleUpon? Would they want to?

Opting out of a network does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the network from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your Web preferences and usage patterns.

If you are keen to increase Twitter followers, here’s a compilation of 100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons And Buttons you can apply on your site.

An experiment into connecting the Web with language.

A US man has sold the domain name pizza.com for $2.6m (£1.3m) - after maintaining the site for just $20 a year since 1994.