Feedheads, the Facebook application that adds Google Reader shared items to your profile, and displays the most shared items and feeds in a way Google still hasn't figured out how to duplicate, is growing rapidly. At its current pace, the application should reach an installed base of 10,000 by end of day Sunday, or early Monday.

As of 10 p.m. PST on Saturday, the total number of subscribers sat at 9,991. (See Mario Romero's stats)


The Graph as of Saturday Night Showing 10,000 Imminent
While Facebook's come under significant fire for its controversial Beacon program, and the vast majority of applications still seem trivial and childish at best, some developers, including Mario, are finding success by leveraging the social network's platform to deliver tools that big companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are not.

Feedheads seamlessly ties in my Web activity with my Facebook profile, breaking through its walled garden. In fact, it not only tracks the feeds I share most frequently, but also has created a tag cloud of those topics I share.


You can see my profile here:
http://apps.facebook.com/feedheads/sharer.php?fbID=589638695

Congratulations to Mario on building a successful application that's gaining real traction and real benefits for users. I'm happy to include myself among the 10,000.

Previous Coverage:
LouisGray.com: Facebook Google Reader App Rebrands As Feedheads
Scobleizer: Feedheads: my Favorite Facebook application

UPDATE: Feedheads, thanks to a boost from this story, and Scoble, reached 10,019 Total Users as of 7:30 a.m. Sunday. Also you can Digg this story to push that number higher!

With 225 feeds filling my Google Reader every day, there have to be some good sources for news across the blogosphere. According to Google Reader trends, over the last 30 days I have read 16,711 items and shared 387 items. The total number of items and feeds is up only fractionally from my last update (in October), while I'm sharing about 30% more items on my link blog. Admittedly, I'm probably being more free with my sharing to get it noted on Friendfeed, which I'm now using voraciously.

But of these 225 feeds, which ones are getting on the Link Blog most frequently?

My Top 20 (and how many shares) for the last 30 days are as follows:

Silicon Alley Insider (27) * Scobleizer.com's Shared Items (27) * TechCrunch (24) * LouisGray.com (19) * WinExtra (17) * Mashable! (17) * Read/Write Web (13) * ParisLemon (11) * GigaOM (10) * Google Blogoscoped (10) * Scobleizer (10) * Google Operating System (8) * Engadget (8) * The Last Podcast (7) * Mathew Ingram (7) * Epicenter (7) * CenterNetworks (7) * Scripting News (6) * VentureBeat (6) * Fortune: Apple 2.0 (6)

Most of these you have seen me mention time and again, especially my fellow B-List Bloggers. But Silicon Alley Insider continues to put out good news, and most days you can see Henry Blodget and others delivering scoop after scoop or making comments on business and tech in a way some of us simply can't, whether we're too Silicon Valley focused or just not in the line of gossip. CenterNetworks and Read/Write Web are also very heavy in the signal vs. noise ratio. Also of note, as Robert's said a few times, his link blog is consistently delivering more relevant news than his own blog, as he's become an excellent filter for the many feeds he takes in on a daily basis. As for the rest, they're all worth visiting. I read every single story they publish every single day.

To get those I cherry pick, add my link blog to your Google Reader here.

The popularity and growth of Digg cannot be overstated. Despite Slashdot's having nearly a decade's headstart, Kevin Rose and crew developed a simple solution that has become the engine to emulate. And while many others have written stories on the "Attack of the Digg Clones", summarizing competition from Reddit and others, I've seen a small handful of niche sites starting up that may or may not gain traction over time. They say 9 of every 10 startups fails, but on the Web, with the cost to start a new project being so low, companies or sites can float along with little traction and not feel pressured to shut down or have a liquidity event.

Here are a few Digg clones you might not know. The more "niche" they seem, the more likely they might be to find an audience uninterested in fighting for a spot among the unwashed hordes. And you probably won't be shocked that all three... are in Beta.

1. DigWin (www.digwin.com)

DigWin launched in beta more than a year ago (See: digWin.com Goes Beta: "Microsofties" Rejoice!), focusing on Microsoft technology-centric news only. Unsurprisingly, the top headlines on the site are typically focused on Microsoft as a company, the Windows operating system, or the surrounding developer community.

Unlike Digg, where it usually takes a few hundred "Diggs" to make the front page, DigWin's low traffic means only 2 or 3 "votes" are needed to be considered the "latest hot news". My first brush with this site was when a reader voted in my story on .PST imports to GMail.

2. BlogsferaNews (www.blogsferanews.com)

BlogsferaNews looks extremely new. In fact, a quick Google Search doesn't land any hits, with the exception of the site, and the owner's Technorati profile. Blogsfera, which I can only assume is Italian for "Blogosphere", also has a primary focus on technology, ranging from Video Games and Gadgets to Internet, Linux and Software.

The site is so new that only a dozen participants have submitted stories to the site, and unsurprisingly, almost 100% of those stories have successfully reached the front page.

Typical vote counts to reach the front page are between 5 and 20. So far, the only story I've ever written to hit the site has 3 votes. (It Could Be a Boring... Slow... Cold... TV Winter)

3. StartupNewz (www.startupnewz.com)

This site's name gives away its focus - Startup News. The site's authors have tried to make it a catch-all of startup news, including commentary on venture capital funding, social networking trends and global adoption of wireless. (See the StartupNewz blog)

In addition to the content submission portion of the site, which, like BlogsferaNews, takes 5-20 votes, the authors also have an extensive photo library from recent Silicon Valley events, including TechCrunch, Office 2.0 and the Churchill Club. (See StartupNewz Photos)

StartupNewz is just getting off the ground. Despite some stories having 20 votes, only 10 users have submitted stories thus far, dominated by the top two users, who have submitted 224 and 115 respectively. That could be a sign you could have an input on the community by getting in early, or that it would forever stay small.

As mentioned, all three sites are in beta. And with the simplicity of starting such sites, there's no doubt there are dozens or hundreds more out there. But as the one-time dominance of Slashdot shows, even the big guys fade sometime. And just maybe you'll be hearing a lot more about these (and others) as people get Digg fatigue and move on.

Thinking ahead to the weekend, it dawned on me that I won't be watching college football this Saturday. With the exception of upcoming bowl games, most of which I can ignore, that season is over. And when it comes to college basketball, I simply don't care. Couple those harsh realities with the fact the Hollywood writers' strike has no end in sight and I foresee a serious lack of entertainment on the boob tube over the next few months.

Despite our having hundreds of channels on cable, our TiVo has already almost been squeezed dry of its content. The dramas we watch on a weekly basis are in reruns and hiatus. Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart are dark. Meanwhile, baseball is but a memory and a hope, and even the BBC America shows have seen their seasons come to an end.

That leaves us with a few options:

1. Find new shows to watch, either new or in syndication, via USA, Bravo, etc.
2. Proactively seek out movies playing on Encore and other networks and record them.
3. Look at Apple's embarrassing lack of video on iTunes and pay for it.
4. Go to movies this winter in the theater.
5. Wrestle away the Netflix account from my wife and get it going again.
6. Leverage BitTorrent to fill our video gap.

Of these, #1 and #6 are the most likely. Maybe I can find an edgy drama we've never had time for to date. Maybe the combination of "free" movies and a wider selection than Apple will make BitTorrent a viable alternative. But I have zero faith that the writers and all of Hollywood will come together and start producing new shows again to keep us busy.

How many more days is it again until Spring Training starts?