Comments on: The Double-Sided Nature of RSS

By: Phil Bowell

Phil Bowell — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:52:36 +0000

I think Khoi Vin got it right in a fairly recent post of his. My RSS reader should be able to learn what I like and dislike. It should be able to filter the content I’m subscribed to so the articles I’m more interested in and most likely to read should be pushed to the top. It should help me filter out the chaff.

The inbox method is the best for me of the current offerings, but I would dearly like a feeder that could learn which subjects/categories/etc of feeds I skip, which I read in full and which I actually want to visit the site to read and the filter the “inbox” accordingly.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:15:52 +0000

I agree, RSS should not be treated as email. I havent got round to using a dedicated RSS reader yet, im still using mail and I can’t stand having unread RSS feeds.

By: Mike Cohen

Mike Cohen — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:01:32 +0000

I’ve used NetNewsWire for a long time and I still like it, but I recently switched to Google Reader. I prefer Reader’s sharing features and it’s a lot better on an iPhone than NewsGator Mobile. NNW’s syncing isn’t always completely reliable - I see a lot of duplication between NNW and NewsGator Mobile. With Reader, I don’t have to sync, since both are using exactly the same items.

By: Michael Mistretta

Michael Mistretta — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:16:34 +0000

James,

Fixed. That was the word I was looking for. Cheers.

By: James

James — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:13:59 +0000

Just a little nitpick, but the instances of the word ‘metaphor’ should all be replaced with ‘paradigm’.

By: Hans

Hans — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:09:34 +0000

someone showed me AideRSS yesterday. That seems to be really promising. I tried Times, but I’m still one operating system behind and it does not work on 10.4 (this means I it will happen more and more often now).

To bad that there’s no real solution yet, shouldn’t the cry for a really good RSS reader be really loud? All I want is: really organized (I have that in google reader, but just as an example, I’ve got over 1000 new posts this morning), and I would like it skimmed down (that’s where Aide RSS comes in) and I want the original design, because many of my feeds are picked by design as well (that’s where Times comes in). Someone’s gotta come out with that.

I was thinking I should publish my feeds and read my feeds by popularity Maybe I can higher a few dwarfs…

Cheers, Hans

By: Michael Mistretta

Michael Mistretta — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:05:05 +0000

Chris,

I agree. I was considering for awhile using two separate RSS readers for my two different kinds of RSS feeds. However, something in me dreads having two separate apps to do the task of one. Plus, I use NetNewsWires syncing feature constantly, and would hate to lose that functionality with Times.

By: Henning Stedtnitz

Henning Stedtnitz — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:06:27 +0000

I’ve tried Times, it’s nice, but not for me. I have loads and loads of feeds that I’ve grouped into folders in NewsFire, which is now my reader of choice for its simplicity. All I need to do to improve my RSS “experience” is dump some of my feeds. For example, I subscribe to both Engadget and Gizmodo. If I chose either and dumped the other, my unread count would drop by 40-50%.

By: rmaspero

rmaspero — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:27:20 +0000

I use Google reader for my RSS and love how simple it is, I have played with Times but i think you really need to have limited numbers of RSS feeds for it work well.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:43:23 +0000

“How many times have I come home from a weekend away, only to find the RSS count in the thousands. RSS quickly becomes a burden that is dreaded.” This is only true if you let it. Simplify and prune those feeds.

“There are personal blogs that I enjoy reading every word of, and there are news blogs that I purely use to obtain the latest information from. They are two very different and distinct uses of RSS, and deserve to be treated differently. ” Ian Beck talked about this in his review of Times. Now he uses Times for his favorite blogs and NNW for news sites, similar to what you describe here.

By: David

David — Wed, 14 May 2008 04:12:42 +0000

Personally, I find the “Inbox method” more effective, assuming you wish not to miss any content. I see ‘newspaper’ as something that you’d easily be able to miss something if you don’t watch it every second since it’s always changing.

I don’t find RSS to be flawed, I believe it is just how you decide to use it. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the next post.

By: Daniel Brusilovsky

Daniel Brusilovsky — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:57:52 +0000

I would have to say that NetNewsWire does the job for me… its great!