Users of the available everywhere desktop service Netvibes gained the ability to share items of interest with others; it’s plugged into ReadBurner as well, which led us to ask, “What’s that?”
“We are drowning in information, but starved for knowledge.”
— Megatrends author and future-speaker John Naisbitt
Sometimes other people, our friends or acquaintances, know us well enough to suggest something of interest that really applies to us. The word of mouth of centuries ago, guys hanging around a trading post, changed only in the way it’s delivered to others.
We heard about Netvibes back in the day, when sites like it, Pageflakes, and Goowy were making their debuts. Virtual desktops, with all of your information, available wherever you are.
That’s fine for information coming in, but what about getting it back out to someone who might want to see it? There’s always email or instant messaging, of course, but with Netvibes’ new sharing feature, another option exists.
Adam Ostrow of ReadBurner tells us his site picks up the most popular shared items from Netvibes, as it has done for feeds in Google Reader. ReadBurner users see what’s getting enough attention to merit sharing by others.
With Netvibes move to a new platform called Ginger, the service added the ability to share items. After creating a public page at Netvibes, people can enter that Netvibes username at ReadBurner’s Add A Feed page.
Now, when sharing from Netvibes, just as it works from Google Reader, ReadBurner picks up on those tidbits, and surfaces them for more readers as others share them too.
One can see the beneficial cycle emerging. More sharing equals more opportunities to be seen by ReadBurner’s audience, which could lead to more sharing, etc.
We would like to see Netvibes make the sharing aspect of their service a little more straightforward. “Add to public activities” doesn’t flow off the tongue quite like “Share this” does (mouseover a link in Netvibes, then click the star to add it to activities and share it.)
That little fix may be a nice boost to ReadBurner’s readership. We like the human-vetted aspect of ReadBurner a lot, as it addresses Naisbitt’s call for a life preserver in the sea of information. Knowledge is a good thing, especially when it’s delivered conveniently.
