Google has launched Friend Connect to perhaps aimed at a Global Social Network. Already thousands of sites have added the widgets and are using them.

While users are using the widgets and posting their activities, currently the FriendConnect System helps update these only on Orkut and Plaxo. It doesn’t provide either an RSS or a method to post these to other sites.

Well for users like me, who love to have all their web activities to be streamed this is a show stopper. Thankfully, we have the option of creating a Mashup to address this challenge.

Mashup in the context of web is defined as: “A web application or site mixing content from multiple sources”

So let’s get started. What you need are the following:

• A Yahoo Account for use with Yahoo Pipes, a mashup creating tool
• A Plaxo Account to capture the updates from Friend Connect
• And of course registrations on FriendConnect enabled sites

Here’s how you can do this in 9 steps:

Step 1: Open the FriendConnect Setting, add Plaxo and check “Publish my activities on other sites”. Click Done. This will enable your activities to be streamed to Plaxo and be visible on Plaxo pulse.

Step 2: Log in to the Plaxo site and navigate to http://www.plaxo.com/rss. Click on “Enable” next to option “Me” as shown below. This will activate a link. Copy the URL displayed.

Step 3: Log in to Yahoo Pipes and click on “Create pipe”

This will open up a Pipe Layout.

Step 4: Select Sources->Fetch Feed and in the URL add the URL copied from Plaxo.

Step 5: Select Operators->Filter, and connect the Fetch Feed to Filter as shown in the figure.

Step 6: Now Change the Settings on Filter to “Permit” items that match “all” of the following. Under Rules add “item.title” contains Friendconnect.

Step 7: Now link Filter to Pipe Output, as shown in the figure.

Step 8: Click save and voila! you have created your Mashup!

Step 9: On the Run Screen, click on Get as RSS, copy the RSS URL

That’s it… You have your RSS of FriendConnect activities. You can use this to feed it into FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook, Lifestream and any other tool which supports RSS import.

My preference is Twitterfeed.com feeding to Ping.fm, which updates lot of social networking sites at one go.

Get a flavor of how to get the web working for you? Welcome to Web 2.0.

Enjoy!

Popularity: 48%

Podcasting, all you wanted to know. The term comes from a combination of the words iPod (a personal digital audio player made by Apple) and broadcasting. Even though the term is derived from the iPod, it is not limited to iPods.

As blogging has enabled almost anyone with a computer to become an author or a reporter, Podcasting allows virtually anyone with a computer to become a radio disc jockey, talk show host or recording artist. Podcasting is an extension of blogging using the digital audio technology, not to mention its counterpart, video podcasting. Most of the content on the internet is offered free and users need to pull the audio files from a source and consume it through their computers, iPods, MP3 players etc.

Contrast to a radio source,Podcasts are not required to be ‘tuned into’. Instead, they can be downloaded on demand or even subscribed to via an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, which automatically downloads the podcast to the computer. The technology is similar to that used by a personal video recorder that lets users set which programs they’d like to record and then automatically records those programs for later viewing.

Podcast Essentials

Tools:

Being very cost-effective, you only need a PC with soundcard, Microphone, speaker / head phone & audio recording software free or open-source ( e.g. audacity or PodProducer)

Topic:

Decide on a topic, can focus on professional issues, industry or a product

Capture:

Record or capture the podcast on the chosen topic, keeping in sight the length, professionalism and content.

Podcast:

Host them on your website or on the internet and test them. (ensuring accurate naming), and create your newsfeed for your podcasts, which are RSS files describing the podcast that contains information and are linked to the MP3 files so created.

Invite:

Invite your audience to tune into-it, using various methods as RSS etc.

Forrester podcasting report says just over 1% use podcasts. Podcasts have hit the mainstream consciousness but have not yet seen widespread use, with most interested in existing radio and other Internet radio channels.

Companies and individuals that are interested in using podcasting as a medium for their audio should focus not only on downloads but also on streaming audio as a means to get their content and ads to consumers / users. Podcasting has brought millions of music lovers nearer to the promising community of singers & musicians. The day may not be far when your daily scoop of Gita, Ramayan, Quran etc. is podcast to you!

Image Credit: Graham Stanley

Popularity: 15%

A recent article in IBN Live exposed the conversation between Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and her accomplice, Ramnarayan Singh, which is clear enough to the whole world that it was she who planned the attack.

If you read the “caught on tape” carefully, she doesn’t seem to have an iota of regret of the blasts in Malegaon and Modassa. She confirms that the bike used was hers. Sadhvi goes a step further when she asks her accomplice as to why the no. of deaths was so less.

What followed was the usual political fallout

1. BJP first shies away from getting associated with Sadhvi
2. Uma Bharati dares BJP
3. RSS steps up its support to Sadhvi
4. BJP seconds RSS
5. BJP, RSS claims that the arrest of Sadhvi is a political conspiracy 

We have seen these kind of dramas earlier in the cases of Shibu Soren, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Pappu Yadav, Chandraswami – the Godman et al. All of them became national figure – Alas! For the wrong reasons.

I have a concern and I hope the appropriate authorities are listening. Our Indian judicial system needs an overhaul. In the case mentioned above and many more such cases, the Indian judiciary seems to have been losing its stand. Here is my message to the Indian lawmakers as well as the judiciary system 

• You don’t see audio tapes, transcripts as proofs
• You don’t take circumstantial evidence into cognizance
• You don’t believe the eye witnesses
• You don’t consider solid material proofs provided by the police or investigating authorities as “proof” enough

 What else do you need?

You are not worried about the dead and their families. Have you ever thought what would it be like if you had to lose one of your own? 

You don’t care about the blood and sweat given by our Jawans or Constables to nab the criminal and in many cases even preventing attacks. 

No wonder why goons like Raj Thackeray, Pappu Yadav, Arun Gawli flourishes in a country like ours. No wonder most of the politicians get away with crime. 

Time you changed. Time you brought guilty to the docks. Time you gave justice to those who suffered and those who will suffer.

Popularity: 11%