The FeedFire Blog -

How bizarre... Technorati does NOT offer RSS feeds? Is that like C3P0 NOT offering Luke platitudes? Unthinkable?

Fri, 12 May 2006 14:47:46 +0200

Is it a strange form of irony? Perhaps I'm trapped in the Matrix [am certainly trapped in the 1970's, dress-code wise...I am a living advert for 'Denim' aftershave].

Can someone, without a smile on their face or without a strangulated reasoning or indeed some inadequate excuse, please advise me WHY such a wonderful, savvy, cutting-edge, easy to use, diabolically GREAT service that Technorati IS...does NOT offer RSS feeds [full stop] but more importantly does NOT offer RSS feeds for their search results?

I cannot think of anyone more appropriate who MUST be, SHOULD be, COULD easily be, offering RSS feeds of their searches, can you? Please, don't say Google! We all know it's up next and besides, they are not forming their enterprise upon RSS technology [at present, it outwardly appears] as Technorati appears to be.

Can you advise me why the lovely people at Technorati haven't yet implemented it into their search results? Perhaps if I said they weren't so lovely anymore, they WOULD implement them ASAP?

It almost seems to be a case of do as I say, not as I do?

Anyways, no point wasting time...here's a RSS 1.0 feed that FeedFire made at Technorati, from the search query http://technorati.com/search/feedfire

The RSS feed that FeedFire made: http://www.feedfire.com/site/rss.cgi?ChanContentId=014805

You too can make your own search result RSS feed from Technorati! Simply hop along to FeedFire.

Warm wishes, my tech-savvy-technorati-temperate-tribe,

Mike

What makes a customer satisfied? Does it really matter if you are doing it for free, anyway?

Wed, 10 May 2006 14:49:29 +0200

A post by one of my favourite bloggers, Tom Vander Well, over at QAQNA has made me yet again affirm that the most critical piece of our organisation is NOT the code, is NOT the service we provide [though they are both essential attributes] but it IS our customers.

Lower prices isn't always what customers want.

Now, herein at FeedFire we have a generous policy. I like doing many things for free on the Internet, so I like to reciprocate and hope that we, one day maybe, become a part of the fabric of the Internet, much like Hotmail or AltaVista etc have become.

We offer FREE RSS feed making facilities, and paid ones.

The paid ones are inexpensive and within reach of most people [most, being comparative; I know there are many, many people who cannot afford such a luxury, so I am not ignorant to their plight, hence the free facilities].

My moot point is thus, and Tom's posting made me think [yet again] about the following: When offering something for free...does this mean we, the service provider, place no value on the 'product' we are offering OR that we can treat our free users with a lesser regard/respect than our paying customers?

In other words, do the free users really matter to us?

Apart from asking all our free users to send me a slice of cake and a cup of tea [Worzel Gummidge style....I am often mistaken in my dress, and demeanour, for said scarecrow] I am happy to provide our facilities at their disposal....and we do have a LOT of free feeds and a LOT of users.

EACH user at FeedFire is of absolute importance.

Without the users, free or paid, FeedFire simply wouldn't exist and I am absolute in my conviction that they have to be offered premium services at all times, with the paid customers getting an even higher level of premium service for their patronage.

So my belief is that when we receive emails etc from ANY user...it doesn't take much more effort to respond than it does to completely ignore them!

An email [and yes, I write many and receive hundreds per day] is my way of discretely saying to the client that I think they are worthy of my time, and that I am glad they are using FeedFire; for them to be using our technology, is a compliment that I receive on each new feed made.

Tom's post resonates well with me, although it may actually pose the same question I began at the top of this article: Do we at FeedFire place no value on our [free] service?

Au contraire, mon frere...we place so much value on it, that we feel it is worthwhile sharing with everyone.

The value of the feeds will always remain; when an upgrade is made to a feed, all sorts of enhanced features are made available, so intrinsically every freely made feed has the potential to become a paid feed.

Therein lies the secret to our success. We trust our product so much, that we allow it to roam free, and it brings back more investment than if we operated everything behind a 'for fee' interface.

I concur wholeheartedly and would like to offer ourselves as a working example of his mantra....knowing your customers mind, providing product AND service quality is the basis upon which we can do some things for free and yet still make a decent profit.

Kudos to Tom...yet again, he made me think.

That in itself, deserves a medal as many people assumed I was devoid of such process.

Warm wishes, my customer-centric chums,

Mike

What on Earth is "Now go we in content"

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:19:01 +0200

I struggled with this one.

Would you, dear reader, think it was "Now we go incontinent"?

Then I realised, you are ALL MUCH brainer than I am...my brains can be placed on a pinhead with masses of room left.

In fact, it's a William Shakespeare quotation. You know him...the geezer who confuses most people by uttering the English language in quite a tortuous manner. Responsible for many pseudo-intellectual conversations this side of the pond, and no doubt every side of the pond, should a pond have sides that is.

Here's the full explanation behind the quote. Shakespeare

Doth, do I depart and leave thee most unencumbered of knowledge.

Warm wishes,

Mike

OK...this new fangled thing called 'Blogging' MAY have something about it.

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 17:44:49 +0200

Well, I was-perhaps still am-totally reticent to jump on the bandwagon and start 'blogging'. I really thought that there was no need for it....who would want to read the incoherent and inarticulate ramblings of a 41 year old male from the UK whose physical and mental stature is very much akin to Doc Brown* from 'Back to the future'?

* The 'Doc' had slightly less mad stary eyes than I have.

Though, on second glance [actually, 10, 000th glance] I now see it as a direct channel to communicate directly with the FeedFire user base or, indeed, anybody interested in FeedFire.

That particular thought process got me thinking...err, that's what thought process are for, after all.

You see, recently there's been trouble afoot here at FeedFire and to some degree I could have kept you entertained with stories of server problems, server restarts every 2 seconds [no...literally] and all sorts of hardware failures that would have made a Saint set upon the server with an axe. It may actually have worked better, had it been reduced to a tinny mess.

As it was, we had troubles a'gogo and I could have communicated things better to you, dear reader, in a much more efficient, timely and intimate manner.

That was presuming, of course, that the server was up and running and allowed me to do so. There's a dreadful irony struggling to get out of that paradox, somewhere.

The whole incident meant that we had to email ALL the FeedFire users [which is something we don't like doing; 1 mass email in 2 years is our total offering in this sector!] and explain what went on and why. I'll probably talk about this, in retrospect, sometime soon. But for now, please understand that out of this horror has arrived something good...a weblog that will interact and discuss freely with anyone willing and kind enough to visit these pages. Not to mention masochistic.

So for now, beloved follower of all things RSS, please forgive me as I return back to the De Lorean...errrr...drawing board and continue apace with thinking up mad plots and diabolical schemes for which to gain world dominance and power.

Until then, hope you love the new server which currently embraces the FeedFire website....a Saint with an axe is hovering nearby, in case of troubles.

Warm wishes,

Mike

See FeedFire

PS: Although I am terribly astigmatic, I HATE large font sizes, so please bear with me yet more!

The FeedFire Blog -

How bizarre... Technorati does NOT offer RSS feeds? Is that like C3P0 NOT offering Luke platitudes? Unthinkable?

What makes a customer satisfied? Does it really matter if you are doing it for free, anyway?

What on Earth is "Now go we in content"

OK...this new fangled thing called 'Blogging' *MAY* have something about it.

OK...this new fangled thing called 'Blogging' MAY have something about it.