The thing about useful stuff is: The next iteration of RSS Readers

The next iteration of RSS Readers Sunday, September 30, 2007

Like huge numbers of people, I switched to Google Reader and it'll have to be a killer app to get me to switch. That doesn't stop me from looking though, particularly if that app can both help with the prioritisation of posts; let me unhook from "dull" feeds easily; discover interesting new feeds or posts that it detects I may find interesting or which friends/colleagues use.

There are a few such apps around.

One recommended by Read/Write web is FeedEachOther covered here. They highlight some key features

It recommends feeds "similar" to the ones you're subscribed to. Recommendation engines are a key way to leverage the network effect of distributed nodes of knowledge - ala social apps online. Big value there for discovery of high value information sources.
Sharing notes and items. It's like a combination of Google Reader's shared items feature with commenting - the only thing better would be to post comments inside from FeedEachother back out to the blog posts being read by feed. That would be great.
Comments are readable. This is really cool; if a blog post you're reading by feed has comments, with a single click FeedEachother will fetch and display them inline with AJAX.
Multiple kinds of relationships are possible. This is a socially oriented service - so you're supposed to make friends with other users and share information with them. Unlike many other social services, though, FeedEachother lets you designate a contact as a co-worker, family, friend or member of any other group you create. Shared items can then be sent to one group instead of to everyone.
OPML sharing. When you find people whose shared items you admire - you can download their OPML file of publicly visible feeds in one click. That's awesome.

Another option is AideRSS, which claims that it uses PostRank to score, filter and track performance of RSS feeds, thereby improving your efficiency.

I'm also trying out FeedHub at the moment albeit this may take some time before it evidences its worth, as it needs "learning time" to uncover what does and doesn't interest you. This one creates a feed that can be incorporate within Google Reader or any other RSS reader, only linking back when you want to give it a "thumbs down" on particular content it serves up.

Labels: rss