Last month, NewsGator's Walker Fenton, General Manager of Media & Data Services, and Sean Ammirati of mSpoke (a NewsGator partner), were invited by Professor Andreas Weigend, an expert in data mining and E-business, to a discussion at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

There the three of them discussed, in front of a class, the atomization of online data (such as RSS), the impact of Twitter on traditional media and businesses, the way "conversational media" is developing, and other topics.

In particular, Walker spoke about how NewsGator collects relevant attention streams/data; for example, every time someone clicks, rates, shares or interacts in any other way with content on our system -- whether through widgets or RSS feeds -- we collect this data.  And Sean spoke about how mSpoke then uses this data (which we share with them) to help power NewsGator's various Related Content offerings  for publishers -- covered here, here and here on this blog.

If you're interested in widgets, attention data, RSS, and ways data can be repurposed online, you'll want to check out the video above (click on it to play).

Enjoy!

Many of you know that there are lots of different things going on at once at NewsGator!  As Walker Fenton, GM of NewsGator's Media & Consumer products told SexyWidget's Lawrence Coburn last week:

There are a lot of moving parts in NewsGator.  It’s probably easiest to distill the three main things we do: first, and probably what we’re best known for, are RSS-solutions and readers (such as NewsGator Online, FeedDemon, Netnewswire, Netnewswire for iPhone etc.); however, we’re also heavily involved with social computing and RSS for the enterprise – in specific, adding significant tools and functionality to Microsoft SharePoint through our NewsGator Social Sites product (which you could think of as Facebook for the enterprise), which is a behind-the-firewall social computing platform.  

The other side of the company is generally referred to as “Media & Consumer” and we focus on ways to help companies extend their brand’s reach, exposure and content, through syndication, in multiple different ways.  We have several products that help companies do this, such as our social widgets, our related content offerings, our custom-built, branded iPhone applications, and something we now terming “NewsGator Publisher Suite,” which includes a host of tools that allow companies to syndicate their content, increase brand exposure, enhance revenue (such as our new “AdBurner” program, which is a pre-packaged, integrated ad placement service that can cover a company’s entire ad inventory in widgets, related content, or iPhone applications.)

Now, a site called Social Networking Watch has interviewed our CEO, J.B. Holston, about the goings-on at NewsGator.  While their discussion, unlike the one online between Walker and Lawrence Coburn of SexyWidget, is more focused on our enterprise offerings (than content syndication), it is still a worthwhile read.

Check it out here.

Lawrence Coburn of Sexy Widget interviewed Walker Fenton, GM of NewsGator's Media & Consumer Products.  As he says:

NewsGator is a company that sort of snuck up on me in the widget space.  One minute I knew them as an RSS Reader, and then seemingly overnight, they have established themselves as a leading player in helping companies leverage widgets to extend the reach of their content.  Curious to learn more about them, I sent them over a few questions about their business.Walker Fenton, General Manager for NewsGator's Consumer and Media Products, was kind enough to conduct this email interview with me.

Check out the very informative interview here for a unique, behind-the-scenes look at what's going on at NewsGator and where we're headed in the future!

Newspaper & Technology has just published an interview with NewsGator's President & CEO, J.B. Holston.  The interview covers a range of topics related to the (online) newspaper industry.  Here are a couple of the key points he makes, as I see it.

On how newspapers can maintain or even add to their online readership base:

"Newspapers will maintain and grow readership as long as they are true to their sustainable competitive brand advantages — in particular, presenting curated content that is timely and relevant to a local audience. More sources highly curated; richer media; broadest possible syndication and distribution; and ease with that which are available to readers are all vital. Finally, local, local, local; newspapers are the trusted brands for collecting, curating, and disseminating the news that matters to and from my locale. Make it as easy as possible for me to get and interact with that, and I’m yours."

On related content:

"The most significant recent trend has been around related content. What related content products allow publishers to do is to associate and promote content that is related on their  site. Audiences will be encouraged to discover additional content through implied intention — meaning if the end user is reading an article about Hillary Clinton, they will be shown additional articles about Hillary Clinton, whether they live in the politics section or the entertainment section of the paper. Our experience has shown that showing related articles drive significantly higher interaction rates."

Needless to say, the entire interview is quite elucidating and explains a lot of the reasoning behind what we're doing here at Newsgatorwidgets.  You can read the entire Q & A here.

NewsGator's VP of Media and Consumer Products, Jeff Nolan, is a busy guy.  Yesterday he was live blogging from the "Future of Social Web" event -- if you missed it you can check it out here -- and today I have an video of Christine Lu of The China Business Network interviewing Jeff. In this short video, he gives some interesting observations about China's evolving technology sector.  Check it out.