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hi everyone, i just wanted to mention that i have launched a new site, called stumblerank. i have been using stumbleupon for a while and the more i use it, the more i realize that some aspects of the site don’t work as intended. therefore, and rather than complaining about what doesn’t work, i decided that i should offer a substitute that does work.

stumblerank is supposed to provide a more detailed and more accurate alternative for the top stumblers list that stumbleupon provides us with. with that in mind, head over to stumblerank to check it out and don’t forget to stumble it!

additional coverage: mashable, searchenginejournal, franticindustries, valleywag, islamcrunch, downloadsquad

Technorati Tags: stumbleupon, stumblers, stumblerank

it was supposed to be a feature that we had all been requesting for a long time: the ability to communicate with other digg users easily, and on the site. instead it ended up being a spam nightmare. here are my thoughts on david’s ten reasons to hate digg shouts:

note: i omitted reason 4, 6, 9, and 10 because they are largely irrelevant.

1. new diggers are now able to get submissions on the homepage

i don’t know why this is on the list david. allowing new diggers to get on the homepage is a good thing. it gives them an ego boost and ensures future participation from them. i think the fact that new diggers get on the homepage is not a problem, rather the problem is that they spam their way there.

2. it doesn’t require as much skill to get submissions on the homepage - anyone can do it

yes, this is incredibly annoying because people who don’t care about social bookmarking etiquette can get on the homepage while the people who actually give a damn (and are refraining from shout-spamming) have a lesser chance to succeed.

3. new diggers are adding 900+ friends, shouting them all and getting 40 diggs in less then an hour

i think that is an understatement. i’ve seen people add just a hundred friends, shout to them and get an 80% response, after which they don’t need any more (most of these new spammer-diggers can get a story on the homepage using this method with just 40-50 diggs). this is one of the main reasons why i have 2,108 fans but only 98 mutual friends (and decreasing). i’m hesitant to network with other people for fear of getting spammed.

5. top diggers are being challenged

a challenge is good but putting michael jordan in a wheelchair and asking him to compete is not a challenge, it’s a crime…

7. ron paul submissions can now get over 100 diggs in an hour

the best part, though, and the part that makes me love digg (and the social news space in general) is that the content is still moderated so that legitimate content gets on the homepage and stays there while most of the spam is buried while it is still in the upcoming queue, or shortly after reaching the homepage.

8. the feature reminds me of netscape/propeller

i’ve written extensively about this and yes they pretty much copied the feature from propeller without learning how to prevent (or limit) spam the way propeller is trying to.

Technorati Tags: digg, shout, spam, netscape, propeller, sitemail

one of the many factors that stumbleupon uses to asses your ranking in their hierarchy of users is how many pages, photos, and videos you have stumbled. i recently discovered a stumbleupon-approved way of stumbling at light-speed.

by clicking tools > toolbar options and clicking through to shortcuts, you can set keyboard shortcuts for the various stumbleupon interaction options.

furthermore, you can go to the configuration panel from toolbar options and set your preferences so that based on whether you like or dislike a page (or both), the toolbar automatically sends you a new one without having to keep on clicking the stumble button.

once you’ve made these two changes, all you need to keep in mind are your ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ shortcuts and you can keep on stumbling without using your mouse.

note: it is also a good idea to ‘prefetch stumbles’ (from toolbar options > configuration panel) so that new pages don’t take extra time.

Technorati Tags: stumbleupon, settings, configuration, toolbar, stumblers, stumblegod, stumblegoddess

pownce, kevin rose’s twitter-clone, just released their public api.

right now you can get lists of public notes, user profiles, and individual notes with replies. we’ll soon be adding the ability to post notes and get friends-only or private notes. check out the api documentation to find out more details.

this is definitely a good step for pownce (towards bringing it in line with other micro-blogging platforms) but i’m still left wondering what to use the service for. twitter (even with all its drawbacks) has a larger user base, is less buggy, more light-weight, and already has a slew of api-based applications that i can use. furthermore, the one reason why i was using pownce (as a digg-messaging service) was made redundant once the digg team added shouts to the latest revision of digg.

Technorati Tags: pownce, api, twitter, digg

many of you have pointed out that searching for my site on google prompts the user that my site may harm your computer. my wordpress installation was hacked and some code was injected into my index.php which was causing people’s browsers and anti-virus software to scream.

i have just upgraded to the latest and greatest wordpress and have upgraded three of my plugins (i have my thoughts on what may have been responsible), and hope everything is back to normal now; especially since i have a big day of posting planned for tomorrow.

p.s. i’m sorry for any inconvenience. trust me, i’m just as annoyed.

hi everyone, just wanted to quickly point out (as i am getting on a flight in a few hours) that i am aware that google is mad at me for some reason and thinks that my site will harm your computer. i have contacted them about this and am waiting for their response.

i have no idea why google thinks this and i assure you that i’m doing no such thing (at least not intentionally) and am looking into this further. thanks to everyone who pointed this out to me.

muhammad.

i have written a guest post at ben cook’s blogging experiment:

blogging means different things to different people. for some it is is merely for entertainment, for others it is purely a business venture, but for most people (including me) blogging is about sharing your ‘expertise’ with others, meeting new people, and building relationships. With that in mind, here are what you will find to be quite straightforward steps you can follow to strike a conversation today and build a relationship tomorrow.

please check out the entire article for all 6 steps.

Technorati Tags: social media, blogging, relationship, conversation

this is a quick announcement to point out a youtube channel that i have been working on. the channel is called everymeme and yes, you guessed it, i’m planning on using the channel to aggregate all the popular internet memes in one place. i have 17 videos uploaded already and am working on adding more. if you find one missing, please point me to it and i will add it right away.

here’s a look at a sampling from the channel:

Technorati Tags: internet, meme, youtube, video, channel

the stumbleupon toolbar got a couple of updates this weekend. before we look at the details of the update, here’s a look at the new toolbar:

the single best new feature in the toolbar is the integrated stumblethru option. previously stumblethru was only acessible from the dedicated stumblethru page or by actually navigating to the main page of the site you wanted to stumblethru.

here’s what the updates includes:

versions 3.12

• fixes a bug that could cause rating buttons to get stuck for users who habitually sign-out from the toolbar.
• fixes a bug where the stumblethru menu could appear blank for some users.
• fixes several bugs associated with moving the toolbar items to an incompatible toolbar.

versions 3.11

• allows buttons and extensions (including foxytunes) to share the stumbleupon default toobar.
• merges home and network buttons into the what’s new button to match the new profiles. note that the classic network button is still available on the configuration tab of toolbar options.
• merges forums and groups buttons to match the new profiles. note that the classic forums button is still available on the configuration tab of toolbar options.
• changes the video, people (aka matches) and dtumblethru icons.
• supports search results decoration on more sites.
• adds a keyboard shortcut for tagging
• automatically enables the tag button if you apply custom tags.
• improves the autocomplete list for the search / tag box.
• adds an optional menu for domain channels (aka stumblethru).
• fixes a bug (#535) where the browser’s location bar could be cleared half a second after the toolbar is rendered upon browser start.
• improves synchronization of topics.

the update is good in that it further streamlines stumbling form your browser but i do think its about time that they fixed the stumble buzz aspect of the stumbling experience.

Technorati Tags: stumbleupon, toolbar, update, buzz, social media

late yesterday night i was browsing reddit when i noticed a preference setting that either i had never paid any attention to before or that didn’t exist until recently. the option i’m referring to is the ability to display a ‘reddit toolbar’ atop links you click on from reddit.

once you’ve activated this option, every time you click a link from reddit, the following toolbar will be displayed at the top of that page:

so what’s so great about the toolbar?

the toolbar improves your reddit experience in two ways. first, when you click on a link from reddit and read an article, you don’t have to go back to reddit to rate the page. second, the site you’re visiting doesn’t need to use the reddit widget in order for you to vote on it (though i would still recommend the widget because not all your traffic comes directly from reddit).

but there’s more

if voting is completely removed from the main reddit site and pushed just to the toolbar, visitors can be forced to at least visit the content page before they vote on it. so in a way, it paves the way for a system where reddit can limit (to a great extent) blind voting (up and down) of stories and get a much truer sense of the community’s preferences.

you’re right if you’re thinking ‘this is exactly what stumbleupon does’. the reason why i like the implementation on reddit is because of the neglect with which stumbleupon treats its main ‘index’ page. stumbleupon’s index is located at stumble buzz but not only does it not display enough content to be useful (on reddit you can display up to 100 stories on the page at once) but it is also often full of days old content and isn’t as highly trafficked (the index page) like most social ‘traditional’ social sites (i.e. digg, propeller, reddit).

Technorati Tags: reddit, stumbleupon, digg, propeller, social news, toolbar