NewsCloud's Community Starter Blog

Classifieds and Lending Library Feature in Beta Testing

You can try our new Classifieds and Lending Library feature now in beta testing at The Needle, our Seattle prototype site. We've added these features to enhance the NewsCloud platform for attracting readers to our news communities.

The Lending Library allows people to share physical goods with their neighbors, friends or any Needle reader (i.e. you can share items with everyone or choose to share only with your Facebook friends). Adding books, DVDs and other items is quite easy with our Amazon product lookup - just type in a keyword or ISBN/ASIN # to quickly add the item. You can also post items to sell or offer them for free.

The Lending Library is a feature that NewsCloud had provided in an earlier Facebook application that is now moved over to our open source platform. 

We'd also encourage you to watch Rachel Botsman's Ted Talk on the emerging collaborative consumption model on sharing and swapping physical goods.

We think we've designed a Classifieds system with Facebook integration that beats CraigsList (which doesn't allow for lending physical goods). Please give us your feedback.

The NewsCloud open source platform is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

A New Open Source Preview Release and Community Support Area

We've got a new open source PHP-based preview release on GitHub. There's a simpler installation process, a generic design skin for your application and some cool new features. The first four developers to successfully install it and post feedback on the installation process will receive a $25 iTunes Gift Card. Learn more.

We're also expanding our open source community support online:

• Use our new open source developer community at http://support.newscloud.com, hosted generously for free by the great folks at TenderApp.com. It's a great place to share questions about the code, request features and tap in to our developer community.
• We have a new blog exclusively for our open source developer community at http://opensource.newscloud.com. Be sure to follow it and follow us on Twitter for updates.

Stay tuned in 2010 for ongoing announcements related to our open source Facebook application work.

WordPress Plugin for SurfShare

We've added a WordPress plugin for bloggers who want to try out our SurfShare micropayment platform. If you are interested, visit the SurfShare WordPress Plugin Page for more information and download.

The SurfShare Inbox Finds the News Headlines in Your Twitter Stream

Is finding the news within the clutter of your Twitter stream harder each day?

Since many tweets don't include any news - and the ones that do don't include clear headlines or easily discernible URLs which might indicate its source, the SurfShare inbox sorts through your Twitter stream and displays the actual headlines of news stories in an easily readable form.

 

You can sort them by date or popularity. If multiple friends have tweeted the same story, they appear together. 

As you read stories in your inbox, SurfShare tags ands them to your history so you can easily find them later.

You can also add your SurfShare Inbox RSS feed to your favorite feed reader e.g. Google Reader:

 

Please give it a try - but be patient with us as SurfShare remains in early alpha testing. Please share any bugs or feedback with jeff at newscloud dot com. Try the SurfShare Inbox. Bloggers, add SurfShare activity badges to your web site.

New feature for Facebook: Raise awareness for Polar Bear survival!

We've added a fun new feature to our Facebook framework - give it a try at one of these two sites:

1) Hot Dish - a climate change news community in partnership with Grist:

Raise awareness for Polar Bear survival Get your Polar Bear ON!

2) The Needle - a Seattle based community run by NewsCloud's founder: Support Referendum 1 on Facebook & tell the American Chemistry Council to get out of Seattle!

Here are a couple of examples...

 

NewsCloud launches Hot Dish: a climate change news application on Facebook

Yesterday, NewsCloud launched a new Facebook application called Hot Dish in partnership with Grist.org, the leading online environmental news source. Hot Dish allows Facebook users to read, discuss, post and share news about climate change, the most serious issue facing our planet.

16- to 25-year old U.S. residents who participate in the Hot Dish Action Team can earn points through online and offline actions and compete for rewards. Top eligible participants can win a grand prize trip for two to the Arctic from Quark Expeditions, an Amazon Kindle 2, a "green" Apple MacBook and much more. Prizes will be awarded each week through May 3, 2009. Please read the official rules for full eligibility details.

The Hot Dish application is part of a study being conducted by University of Minnesota researchers to find new ways of engaging young people in current events inside social networks such as Facebook. The research is funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The research results will be published later this year. The software behind Hot Dish will be released to the open source community at the end of the project.

Visit the Hot Dish application on Facebook

I hope you'll check it out and share it with your friends. We'd love to hear your feedback!

Integrating ReCaptcha Was Easy

I've added ReCaptcha for NewsCloud registration and the Social Media Toolkit registration (as an option). Integration was quite easy. It seems like a great web service which helps reduce spam and digitizes texts for the future.

Try NewsCloud Mobile

Try the beta of NewsCloud Mobile for your cell phone or portable device.

Follow NewsCloud's Top Stories on Twitter

NewsCloud's top stories are now regularly posted to twitter. Follow NewsCloud on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: breaking news, newscloud, twitter

Improved comment notification emails

We've improved the comment notification emails that you receive when readers reply to stories and comments that you've posted.

Now, you can read the new comment in the email without visiting the NewsCloud site. Also, if you don't like a particular comment poster, you can click a link to ignore them. We'll stop notifying you when readers you've ignored reply to your stories and comments.

And finally, all the links in the comment notification email are now instant login which means you don't have to sign in with your password each time you want to reply to a comment.

Technorati Tags: comments, notification emails