What Do You Want In A Web-Based Aggregator?

posted on 2005-10-04 at 21:55:55 by Joel Ross

That's the question Jim Lanzone asked?Richard MacManus?of Read/Write Web, and now he's got a thread going where you can list out the features you want to see.

If you're using an online aggregator, or have thought about using one, then this is a good place to get your feedback heard. The higher ups?at?Bloglines and Rojo are listening, and I'm sure others are too. I can't imagine that Newsgator, who is very active in the blogging community and watches what's going on, isn't also going to be watching this too. I mean, come on, they even come over to my little blog whenever I mention them!

Anyway, I don't typically use an online aggregator, but I've been reconsidering that stance recently - the other day, I was away from my laptop, and wanted to read some feeds. I could have used Newsgator Online, but it doesn't give me a few things that I get when I read feeds locally. When I'm reading feeds, I always keep one eye open for stories to use in the next RossCode Weekly, and I flag them for later using Outlook's flags. I've also used FeedDemon, and it has the same flagging type capabilities. From what I can see, Newsgator Online (or the others) don't offer that same ability - I'm not talking tags - I'm talking about being able to use private follow ups that I can go back and look at later. And I don't want a limit either. For example, right now, I use four different states: Unread, to read later, RCW, and To Blog. Each has it's own meaning to me, but to others, they wouldn't care. I would have more, but Outlook's flags aren't unlimited either.

I guess I should probably go put something about this in the comments, huh? And if you have features you want, add them! Let's make our online experience just as good (or better) than the offline experience.

Categories: Software