Shooting at Bubbles - Latest Comments in Aggregator Overload

Re: Aggregator Overload

StevenHodson — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:55:20 -0000

I realize that Nick and in a pinch it does the job even though it will technically open in another tab of an existing open browser. So in the end you still come back to dealing with tabbed interface.

Like I siad it's an off the wall thought that probably wouldn't even be used ecpet for cranky old farts like myself :)

Re: Aggregator Overload

nbradbury — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:46:16 -0000

You can sort of do this already - just right-click on the post title in the newspaper, then choose "Open in New Window" to open it in the external browser.

I always have my external browser on my second monitor, so this works well for me.

Re: Aggregator Overload

StevenHodson — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:12:31 -0000

I decided to include my idea in a post today (Feeling Adrift) but it basically boils down to having an option to display the selected post of the feed in a separate form/window - reading the post will probably explain the why better.

Re: Aggregator Overload

Jay Andrew Allen — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:06:05 -0000

I simply see it as the downside of such services being cheap and easy to build. It's a good thing, in the long run: the competition will eventually subside, and we'll be left with the best of breed. That's already happened among social networking sites, with a small number of sites dominating (MySpace, Facebook), and a few others filling niche needs (like Gaia/Zaadz).

Myself, I use three apps: Google Reader, Facebook, and Twitter. Anything else is a colossal time suck. When Internet apps stop making my work in this world useful, and instead BECOME my work, then I know it's time to pull back on the techno-horse.

Re: Aggregator Overload

nbradbury — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:00:53 -0000

Sure, feel free to email me.

BTW, while I do like link blog aggregators, I consider them less of a destination than I do as a way to find stuff that you might've missed (see http://nick.typepad.com/blo... ).

I wouldn't want to try to keep up with an endless stream from a link blog aggregator, but I might want to know when a few of my friends have paid attention to an article I haven't seen yet. LinkRiver appears to be starting to tackle this problem - will be interesting to see how that service evolves over the next few months.

Re: Aggregator Overload

aviv — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:45:30 -0000

I have nothing against any of these new services, and I truly admire the talented and motivated entrepreneurs behind them. That said, I stick to a comment I made on Mashable a day or two after ReadBurner launched - the concept itself is fatally flawed.

Louis, I think that the gap you're talking about was left unfilled by Google intentionally - by now they must know there's little value in using shared items alone as a rating mechanism.

This becomes more evident as services such as ReadBurner and RSSmeme gain in popularity and add more and more linkblogs. The result is mediocre mixture of stale Techmeme headlines, irrelevant and silly Digg-style posts, random one-size-fit-all del.icio.us-like content, and of course, duplicate and redundant content.

Re: Aggregator Overload

Benjamin Golub — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:23:46 -0000

You don't have to join them; some of them (mine) find you: http://www.rssmeme.com/ crawls the web looking for Google Reader link blogs. If you've joined one of them and are actively sharing then you'll eventually make it onto RSSmeme too.

Re: Aggregator Overload

StevenHodson — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:05:37 -0000

You are right in that it is good for us to be able to see data being harnessed in different ways but there comes a point when a person just can't absorb anymore and just wonder how long it will be before it happens with link blog aggregators as well.

Re: Aggregator Overload

StevenHodson — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:04:00 -0000

LOL .. btw Nick if you follow the comments I have a feature request for FeedDemon but if possible would like to talk to you about via email .. I'll be writing about what brough the idea about a little later.

Re: Aggregator Overload

Louis Gray — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:59:57 -0000

Nick's absolutely right. By adding your post to my link blog, it then goes to many services - ReadBurner, RSSMeme, Shared Reader, FriendFeed and LinkRiver, to name a few. They all are interesting and worth watching. They're all filling gaps that Google has left open thanks to their own lack of innovation in this space, which is surprising. It is partly due to this gap that I am rooting for the underdogs. They can't all win, but I like their ideas, and appreciate them looking at a new way to harness the data.

Re: Aggregator Overload

Nick Bradbury — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:56:23 -0000

And of course the first thing I did after reading this was to add it to my link blog :)