This is where the Christmas e-card went wrong ...

My mailbox is overloaded with Christmas wishes, mostly standard e-cards or links to cool movies. Nothing wrong with that, but when such a standard animated card comes with a disclaimer like this at the bottom, I once again realize that lawyers are not helpfull in makting this a better world:

Important Note: This E-Mail is confidential, it must not be read, copied, disclosed or used by any person other than the above named addressees. Unauthorised use, disclosure or copying is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. Xxxxxxx (U.K.) Limited and Xxxxxxx Group Limited disclaim any liability for any action taken in reliance on the content of this E-Mail. The comments or statements expressed in this E-Mail are not necessarily those of Xxxxxxx (U.K.) Limited, Xxxxxxx Group Limited or any subsidiaries or affiliates of either company. Xxxxxxx (U.K.) Ltd. Registered Office: Xxxxxxx VAT No. GB Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx Group Ltd. Registered office: Xxxxxxx, Registered in England No. Xxxxxxx VAT No. GB Xxxxxxx

So basically, company Xxxxxxx is NOT wishing me all the best for 2009 or what? And by copying this phrase, I may be acting unlawfully?

Well, all the best to you all and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as we tend to say around here (in't Vlaams dan wel)!

Slim down those RSS feeds

Geeks - like me - can't stop complaining on how hard it is te keep up with RSS feeds, but still we keep singing the praise of this 'diamond in the rough'. In the rough because the mainstream public still has not picked up RSS feeds, dispite the efforts of many mainstream media (e.g. newspapers) who include a newsfeed on their site. Most news sites even have several 'thematic' feeds.

But I have not subscribed to any of these. My RSS reader is filled mainly with individual blogs. One blog that has been in-and-out several times is TechCrunch. Great news, but way too much to consume if you're not spending 50% of your day keeping up with the latest on innovation, startups and social media stuff. It looks like they're slowly adopting the mistakes mainstream media make ...

So why don't I subscribe to regular newspaper feeds? Because they copied their paper/website logic to RSS feeds without adapting it to the medium. As a result, you get long lists of news articles with no difference between front-page news and a small article at the back of the newspaper.

I see a number of solutions:

1. Make a manual sort of are the most important articles and put it in a separate feed.
2. Make a feed based on articles that have been read online a certain number of times (e.g. the top 20%), or do the same based on user ratings.
3. Make feeds based on personal editor picks, could be journalists or users.

Mr. editor in chief, please help RSS to become the success it deserves to be.

Startup Geography in Belgium

Crunchvision shows a geographical view on where startups are located worldwide. It's interresting to see that in Belgium the local spread is somewhat counter-intuitive. Brussels is obviously n°1 with 15 startups but Gent is a close next with 9. However the ever-hip-and-trendy city of Antwerp ties with the innovative region around Hasselt with both 3 startups. Nie pleuje!

The "mapeed" feature on this map is great (French startup). When zooming out, the different flags on the map are aggregated into labels that show the number of startups in that region. This means you can zoom in and out and get a relevant view on every level. Unfortunately the detailed information when clicking on one startup flag does not show up, so I can't check which ones exactly are shown here.