Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on October 06, 2006 by CyberNet.

Free For All Friday

With Google revamping and polishing up Google Reader recently with a new look, some AJAX, and new features, I thought I’d point out a reader that has been around for a little while and uses AJAX technology nicely.  Feeds 2.0 strives to give you a more personalized reader which is something that makes them stand out above many others as a truly personalized Web 2.0 RSS Aggregator. Getting an account is free, however they’re currently in private beta (plans to go public soon).  I sent a request for an account and got my invitation in less than 12 hours, so it appears the private beta isn’t all too difficult to get involved with.

– A Personalized Experience –

Feeds 2.0 is all about personalization, and they do it well.  They use a learning “engine” that over time learns what you like and what you don’t like. By clicking on an article to read it, you’re telling the engine that it’s something you’re interested in.  A simplified way to do this if you’re in a hurry is to click the heart that accompanies each article. Using an algorithm, they analyze what you’ve read and liked, but also what you’ve read and marked as non-interesting or ignored to determine what articles should be recommended to you.

– Features –

One feature in particular that I like is the tag cloud which gives you an overview of the most dominant words in the post.  When a word is found multiple times throughout posts, it is considered more important and will appear larger in the tag cloud. If you were to click on a word in the tag cloud, it would pull up posts that have the related word from the tag cloud in the article.

When organizing your subscriptions, you’re able to create folders which can be collapsed or expanded.  There’s also the option to view all of the unread posts, and posts that have already been read. The AJAX that has been incorporated into Feeds 2.0 makes for quick and easy transitioning from tab to tab to manage your reader and all of the settings.

By far, the best feature of Feeds 2.0 is the personalization engine they’ve incorporated.  There are lots of feed readers out there which make you wonder why you’d  need to try yet another one, however this reader is different.

You can sign up for the private beta on the Feeds 2.0 home page.

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