Findory FeedReader is Here! Findory FeedReader is Here!

I saw the news on Greg Linden's blog this morning and got overly excited. [Embracing the Geek]. Almost as excited as Greg Yardley did. Could it be something that combines personalized recommendations with the beautiful interface of findory with an aggregator, so that I can stop pretending that I really read 450 blogs in frame-ridden bloglines?  YES. IT IS!

(Sidnote to Bloglines: 1998 is calling and they want their frames back!)

Greg Yardley has a few suggestions which are spot on. I've yet to check out the new findory feedreader. But, I'd like to see the suggestions that Yardley makes too (before I dig in wholeheartedly): 

Visions of intelligent prioritization of the 200+ feeds I read danced through my head like sugarplums on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, when I got to the ‘Findory Favorites‘ page you’d mentioned, I couldn’t figure out how to specify a favorite, other than through clicking around on the provided short-list and hoping the one I was looking for would eventually pop up in the related blog list. Am I missing how to manually add a specific blog to my favorites? I tried to see if Findory would naturally ‘catch on’ by deliberately clicking on every Marketing Shift article published in the past month (would’ve also tested Peter Caputa’s blog, but Findory doesn’t index it yet) but no dice - the two areas of the site don’t seem to be related. 

While you’re here, Greg - even if I was able to add the blogs I wanted to, I’m definitely not about to add all 200 of them one-by-one, so - could Findory please add the ability to import an OPML file to ‘My Favorites’? If you do this, and if your algorithm is good enough to sort the posts in my feeds by importance, I’ll use your service. Especially if you let me spit the sorted feed back out in one nicely resyndicated package for use elsewhere. I’m notoriously cheap, but I might even consider paying for something like that.  And coming from me, that means a lot.

(I'd especially like to see the enhancement where my blog gets indexed!)

Also, I know rojo is doing some of this stuff too? What's the difference, Mr. Greg "I love this feed reader. It's fast, easy to use, and full of the discovery features I know and love at Findory. No one else has anything like it." Linden? 

Comments

[Greg Yardley]

Peter - there's actually a way to 'add a blog' to Findory. It then ends up getting manually reviewed by someone over there (for what? blogginess?) and then you will end up with Findory-indexed goodness.

Thought about adding yours when I added mine but then said 'eh, why take away Peter's fun?' :)

[Peter Caputa]

Thanks Greg. I just went and had my fun for today. I have to wait two weeks, though! What's with that?

[Alex Edelman]

Hi Peter and Greg. Thanks for checking out our new feed reader! I thought I might chime in with some background on why Greg and I personally review blog submissions. Put simply: spam and porn. The vast majority of blog submissions we receive are spam, which would make for a rather unpleasant experience if they were automatically incorporated into our system. And porn, by policy, don't make the cut. As they say, garbage in equals garbage out, so we think these decisions help improve the quality of the personalization. Usually we are able to process submissions in a couple of days, not weeks; we like to underpromise and overdeliver. Thanks again and we're psyched for more feedback!

[Greg Linden]

Hey, Peter. Sorry that pc4media was missing. We just added it. The pc4media page at Findory is now at

http://findory.com/source?source=pc4media&ib=1

Unfortunately, we don't have OPML import set up yet. We're working on it and hope to have it out in a few weeks. For now, you have to manually add each feed by clicking on a source name (e.g. "BBC") and then clicking the "Add Favorite" button. It's pretty quick, just a few clicks and you should be all set up with several good feeds.

On Rojo, my understanding is that Rojo is more of a social networking tool. So, to use Rojo, you list your friends on Rojo, then share interesting articles and feeds between each other. The personalization at Findory works in a similar way, but Findory finds likeminded people for you and shares their interests automatically and anonymously.

In general, personalization is like social software where the network is built quietly for you and all the sharing happens implicitly. I think it has most of the same benefits, but is much less effort for users.

Thanks, Peter.

[peter caputa]

Gentleman, You ROCK!

I am a big fan of findory. Once that OPML import tool is done, I am making the switcheroooooo.

I have outgrown non-personalized rss feed consumption. It is time to find a more sophisticated solution. Rojo and Findory, Here I come.

I read Mr. Linden's blog. I expect to see a big announcement when it is up. Hell, I'll throw a party for it. We'll call it mass rss migration day!

[Greg Linden]

Hi, Peter. We just launched OPML import for Findory! Details at

http://glinden.blogspot.com/2005/09/findory-rss-reader-part-ii.html

I'd enjoy hearing what you think of it.