FFToGo, for those not familiar with the service, acts as a mobile client for FriendFeed, were as currently FriendFeed itself does not offer its own mobile service. FFToGo was designed by Benjamin Golub, who some readers would know from the interesting meme tracker RSSMeme.

Having code like this available in the public domain encourages overall development in the area by demonstrating to others how it is done, or in this case, how the FriendFeed API can be used to deliver data in and out. The code is hosted on the Github repository here, with the majority of the code for FFToGo appearing to be in Python.

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1. Jaiku To Live On: Open Sourced on Google App Engine
2. FriendFeed Launches iPhone Interface
3. FriendFeed proposes new feed update protocol

The Newsgator integration sees NewGator “clippings” (a bit like shared/ starred items in Google Reader) count towards ReadBurner share counts, meaning the service now meme tracks from a broader number of people, in theory delivering better results.

ReadBurner has also added a “lightbox feature,” so when a user clicks on stories, the story loads in a lightbox on ReadBurner, but notably the lightbox shows the content from the source on the source. It’s a great feature but more importantly it demonstrates a way to deliver an easier, more intuitive user experience without the need to resort to copyright theft. Everyone wins, no one loses.

The thing I like about services such as ReadBurner and competitor RSSmeme (who also is expanding out of Google Reader tracking alone..note I found this link on ReadBurner) is the decentralization of the tracking away from a central short list to a broad cross-section of the community. The real difference is in the results delivered: a broad section, with less dominance by an arrogant few. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly more egalitarian, and that’s always a good thing.

Related posts:

1. ReadBurner Gets Digg Like Features
2. NewsGator Launches AdBurner: Wide 2.0 Ad Service
3. FriendFeed Adds New Service Support