Jim Murphy hinted in his comment on yesterday’s post about aideRSS that cool stuff was coming soon, like really soon.  Well I bugged Melanie until I got something.  It’s a cool something too: a proof of concept of an “engagement score” for blogs and posts.:
What we really want to figure out is engagement. We want reassurance that we’re not just shouting into the void. Who are we reaching, and what do they think? But most metrics out there only represent individual slices of information, and they only give you numbers, not stories. AideRSS changes that. Source: Storytelling ROI: social engagement …read more

Coming in on a motorcycle, Jim Murphy is the new VP of Development for aideRSS.  Have to wonder what’s on his docket for his first 90 days:
Though he rode into town on a motorcycle rather than a spirited palomino, as our new VP Development, Jim won’t be wasting any time applying his know-how, creativity, and discipline to planning, operations, and support here at AideRSS. Source: There’s a new sheriff in town… – AideRSS Blog
Now that you’re whistling the tune from Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, let’s think about where things are going and maybe come up with our own suggestions.

Over the …read more

One of the best results of Web 2.0, social media, and blogging isn’t the CBO (Chief Blogging Officer), but the Community Manager.  A person who’s job isn’t to mollycoddle or placate people, but to listen and help users.  Waterloo-based aideRSS, let us know that another community manager has joined the ranks:
My name is Melanie Baker, and I am AideRSS’ new Community Manager and social media relations person. My background is mostly in web, marketing, and QA, with some writing and editing on the side. I’ve worked in tech since the early dot-com, in environments ranging from sub-10 person start-ups to …read more

Ilya emailed me this morning that NewsGator Online had added aideRSS PostRank to their sort options.  The cool thing about this is that you don’t need a plugin to use it.  So unlike the GoogleReader version, you don’t have to use Firefox to take advantage to PostRank within NGO.  Also, while this is limited to the top 1000 feeds on NGO (wonder if I’m in there), they have this available when you click any folder including your all feeds view.  This makes for some pretty powerful filtering.
Let me show you how things look for my 900 feeds.
First just headlines sorted …read more

The information firehose is something that we all suffer from nowadays. I won’t even use the incremented number of Web x.0, that’s just foolish marketing, but we are beginning to try to tame the information beast by pulling more together. Is that the right course and will it save us?
If services won’t save us, will better applications?
Erick Schonfeld bemoans the state of information overload in his latest post on Techcrunch:
I need less data, not more data. I need to know what is important, and I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts …read more

You all know that I’m a huge fan of aideRSS and have been using it religiously since I found it.  Today, no kidding, they’ve announced their Firefox extension for Google Reader that allows you to filter your posts with PostRank right there in GoogleReader!
Although you can consume any AideRSS PostRank enhanced feed in your RSS reader of choice, there is administrative burden maintaining your feeds outside of where you consume them. We wanted to provide a superior user experience that didn’t require leaving GoogleReader to manage the filtering of your RSS feeds.
The GoogleReader Firefox extension is the latest AideRSS weapon …read more

Matt  Cutts made his 2008 predictions and wants a “best of” RSS solution:
An RSS startup will add the ability to take a normal RSS blog feed and produce a “best of” feed that picks only the most popular/controversial/interesting items. You will be able to say (for example) “I want only about three Valleywag posts per day. Pick the best ones for me.” This new offering will cause some controversy across the blogosphere about fair use and copyright. But most bloggers will ultimately decide that they’d rather have the extra “lazy readers” than not have them at all. Source: My 2008 …read more

Like Marshall did with his coverage of DEMO recently, I’ve used aideRSS to make a “best of” feed for Affiliate Summit West 2008.  Right now it just has my feed, some general searches are coming soon (they are queued right now).  As I find bloggers who are covering ASW08 I’ll add them directly (yes Steph, I’m adding you in a moment).
Steph is already in Vegas, I however am still in Vancouver. Hmm, looking like boarding might get going soon….
But you have to see these pics I took today.  Yes, they really were on the ferry to the Mainland…

I think Marshall Kirkpatrick is one of the few people I can safely say consumes more RSS on a regular basis than I do.  My 775 feeds pales in comparison to his 1000+.
We both, however, are passionate, users and evangelists for RSS.  Services that provide information, but not in RSS…not even on my radar.  I try to avoid them like plague.  Like me Marshall uses an offline reader (NetNewsWire for him, FeedDemon for me, both by NewsGator–Marshall have you tried their mobile tools?  You really should).
Regardless Rick on Techvibes highlighted something that I would gladly pay money to see-Marshall talking …read more

I got a ping from FeedHub last night that they are adding a Firefox extension and a raft of new features.  Frank Gruber got the post up today, which is good because I’m still trying to find all my brain cells from blowing my nose all the time from this cold:

The FeedHub update will tackle:

Streamlining Feedback Interactions – They have added thumbs up / down buttons on every post to let you rate its relevance and launched a FeedHub Firefox extension.   
Relevancy Improvements – Now is leveraging Wikipedia for the taxonomy of its category memes, and a new meme that …read more