If you don’t read frequently updated websites using a feed reader, you really should. I assume most of you are probably reading this outside of adamduvander.com, but if not, go learn how to get automatic updates from a feed without having to visit the site. Nothing will simplify your online life more.
I’ve used a number of feed readers over the last five years, starting with Bloglines and moving on to NewsGator recently giving in to Google Reader. I don’t think any of them have the perfect interface. Until today, I didn’t think I could describe what that would be.
A feed reader should look like email. At least, I wish I could use my feed reader in the same way I use email. I keep my inbox clean, I filter out the stuff I don’t ever want to see (spam) and I save non-urgent messages for later.
In a feed reader, I want to be able to glance at the latest content and tell the reader one of the following:
- Delete it
- Read now
- Read later
- Never read anything like this
Many readers are able to get close to this, but they have a problem with the last one. Too much noise in the signal can keep a lot of us from adding more feeds. There needs to be a simple way to mark the type of content you don’t want.
As an example, there is a blog I read that has great content, but also has a daily feature that I never enjoy. I would love to get the feed from that blog without that daily feature. I’m a geek, so I could create a Yahoo! Pipe to do what I want, but I shouldn’t have to.
The filtering technology should be within the reader. Wherever possible, it should be automatic, the same way my email program learns what I consider spam.
For many people, the email analogy will fall flat. Your email might be overflowing. You might be overwhelmed at the thought of another inbox. In that case, you appreciate the problem of information overload. The answer shouldn’t be less information overall, but instead smart processing so that we only see the part that matters.
Amen.
I heard rumblings a month or so ago that Google was developing an API to eventually allow programmers to write interfaces and extensions for Google Reader. I hope it’s true, because there’s definitely a market for all sorts of crazy filtering/enhancements.
I’ve never tried it before, and I’m sure you know this already, but Mail.app is also an RSS reader. I doubt it works as you’re describing, with intelligent filtering. Cross your fingers for Snow Leopard? 🙂
I was thinking about something similar but a little different where there was just a dial where I could turn down the noise when I was feeling particularly busy. So, instead of getting all the posts from a individual that I subscribe to, I’d just get every 5th one for example. It’d let me still keep up on them, but maybe a little less. You could even have per subscription dials as well as the big overall one.
Interesting perspective. To me, the difference between the feed and the email is that the source of the feed may never go away. I view the feed as infinite, just rolling along, and when something’s passed my view, it has passed beyond the horizon. So I don’t like when my feeds are deleted, on occasion I like to go back to them, though in most cases I can identify those in advance and set the keepers aside.