Beyond RSS, an opportunity

Posted by Fred Oliveira on February 9, 2009 | Comments (9)

It has now been a little over a month since I stopped using my RSS reader, instead focusing on Techmeme, Hackernews, Twitter (you can follow me here) and occasionally visiting my favorite sites. If you haven’t read the original post where I reasoned why you should stop using an RSS reader, you should probably do so now before jumping to my conclusions.

I have survived – it is official. I haven’t used a feed reader for over 30 days, and I can’t say I miss it. I have more time to work, the important news still reach me, and whenever I want to dip into a stream of inspiration (something I used my feeds for quite often), I visit specific sites I know will freshen me up with new ideas.

o_chute_5Here’s where my plan failed, though (not completely, mind you): there’s still important people who’s thoughts don’t end up on Twitter, Techmeme or Hackernews. The hidden gems are still hidden, somewhere around the blogosphere – and there’s no external curator (automated or human) to provide you with that information. With that, here’s a bit of history and the description of what I believe to be a great opportunity:

An opportunity in hiding

A few years ago (around 2004, if memory serves me right) I started working on ways to solve this problem, but never really delivered a solution. I had written the plans and the algorithms for a site (and rss feed-based service) where people would read based on their interests using a recommendation system. Work came in the way and that vision was never fully realized.

I believe there is still an untapped opportunity here. People have little time and thirst for knowledge (anyone who works in the information business can attest to this). There’s people whose recommendations make a valuable, filtered and curated reading list. We need the service that joins these two together and gives us the definitive reading list. A filtered, personal, vertical-less Techmeme.

Why no-one tackled this problem efficiently in the past puzzles me. There’s been attempts, of course, but they somehow all ended up either failing or just heading in the wrong direction. How Google (to state the obvious) hasn’t dedicated a big slice of their research to this area, I don’t know. But I wish someone did, because unfortunately work is still in the way, and I (as I’m sure, many many others) still need this tool.

Footnotes

I always say this, but now I mean it more than ever – I would love your thoughts. If you have any, please leave a comment or send me an email directly (fred at this domain). I would also appreciate it if you could share this post with your friends and colleagues, in hope that someone reading may get the sudden urge to work on this problem.

Image in this post is part of the concept art for what I believe to be one of the most innovative games in the last few years, Katamari Damacy.

Comments on this post

I totally know what you mean. Once upon a time, there was a great rss reader called SearchFox (i know, the worst name for a reader, but I digress…). It analyzed the contents of your feeds and suggested feeds according to your consumption.

It wasn’t perfect but it sure as well could have got to where you’re aiming at. The sad thing, though, is that it closed down ages ago. — http://andr3.net/blog/post/73 — It could’ve gone far.

That said… I can totally get the need for an aggregation service based on a recommendation engine… whoever picks it up, just make sure you let me feed it my APML and extract it when I’m done. ;)

I totally agree, and I add more:

IMHO the problem is us, the geeks. We’ve built powerful RSS readers using the wrong approach: looking at the RSS feed as the feature and centering the user experience and the application’s logic around it. RSS is not a feature, it’s just a transport, a cool technical detail. Content, relevance and speed is what really matters, and none of the readers I know provide me this when you have +500 feeds, 90% of them mostly echoing each other or stating trivialities which I get from twitter anyways.

I don’t know if filters or recommendations from collective intelligence will cut it but there’s certainly an opportunity to change the paradigm and break the rules here.

Hi Fred,

That recommendation system you talk is administrated or is it democratic?
Let’s suppose this aggregator isn’t democratic, who has the authority to say “this post doesn’t cut it”?
And if it is, in the long run wouldn’t it be like our rss readers (bloated with blogs/articles we thought interesting at the time) because everyone thinks found a good article?

What I am trying to say (and the purpose of your post) is: the quantity of information we face daily is beyond our ability to monitor and sometimes, understand it. But is building another aggregator a solution?
And isn’t this the so called Web 3.0? Semantic and smarter machines giving the information we need?

One way or another, I’m also “loosing” a lot of time with my daily dose of information and I guess, so is everyone. (unless you unsubscribe all your feeds :) ).

Keep ‘em comming! It is always good to read your articles.
Bruno

A few weeks ago there was some news about daily perfect (http://thenextweb.com/2009/01/22/skype-founders-launch-news-site-predicts-interests/), seems like they’re on the right track. I too gave up on RSS but not entirely: I go through the feeds once every two days or, mostly at present, during the weekend. I quickly scan the headline and if anything catches my attention I star it for later reading.

Anyway, I understand there’s a project at SAPO’s Labs that may go in the right direction, lets all keep our fingers crossed.

I think the root problem has been mentioned here and is frequently commented on elsewhere; until RSS is more widely adopted, I can’t foresee any further developments. With Google Reader set to dominate, I can’t see that changing.

If RSS is the de facto filtering method, then its adoption by more internet users is critical. There’s plenty of opportunities in this field thats for sure.

Alltop (http://alltop.com) is probably the one thing closer to what you seem to envision, though it’s certainly not the same. The point it differs the most is certainly regarding what Bruno asks above: should this system be administrated or democratic? Wouldn’t it perhaps be interesting to start with templates, such as Alltop’s pages and then mold them towards something closer to one’s personal interests?

A different direction is something we’re working on at the company I work for, but I can’t share right now. I do hope to able to discuss it in some time. : )

Kind of late on the comment, but here goes: I do agree that Techmeme and Hackernews are a great alternative to RSS – but only on those particular areas.

Most of the feeds I subscribe are, for instance, friends’ blogs. And these updates don’t usually end up on Twitter – and most certainly not on Techmeme :)

Yes, there is a problem, but I don’t think quitting on RSS all together is the solution. You might even find yourself overdosing on Twitter updates as well. For me, cutting down on the number of feeds has been working fine. Filtering is the problem; something like PostRank might be part of the solution – haven’t used it for an extended period, but it works great if you only want “top” content from a feed.

Fred,
Check out my friend Caleb’s site Toluu.com its a recommendation engine for RSS.

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