I have been using Feedly as my RSS feed reader since Google shutdown Reader (which prompted me to use single product companies for all my important apps, e.g. Dropbox, Evernote, etc.). Whenever one tweets an article from Feedly, "#Feedly" is added. Two thoughts occurred to me today after a tweet:
- I suspect the people who use Feedly are better read and likely more intelligent than the average Internet user. Therefore, the feed "#Feedly" might be a high quality curated feed. Perhaps we just need to have a choice of Feedly tags--#Feedlybusiness, #feedlypolitics, etc. --to really create value through curation. Wonder how Feedly feels if I create the tag #Feedlybusiness but do not use Feedly to find the articles. Is this a form a of copyright infringement? Are hashtags all "open source"? Could blackmailers expropriate a hashtag?
- The executives at Feedly have created a very good product, so I am going to assume that they track the number of "#feedly" tweets generated by the application. I would suspect that the number of such tweets are a measure of app engagement that the executives use in presentations with investors or when they want Twitter to make a special change in their app. Given that this info has a value, maybe I should be paid to use the #Feedly hashtag and not edit it out (which I normally do). Why should I promote Feedly without economic consideration unless, of course, it is in my self-interest to perpetuate Feedly.
Not having to endure another disappearance as was the case with Google Reader has a value to me, but for now I think I am just going to edit out the #Feedly hashtag from my Tweets.