River of News
Dave Winer is working on a new RSS aggregator. I don’t know much about it yet, but I am eager to see and learn more about it because, if the past is any indicator, it will be innovative and highly influential.
Dave has been very consistent in his championing of the “River of News” model for aggregators where posts (titles and bodies) from more than one feed are included in one continuous display.
As you may know, BlogBridge today doesn’t have that feature - but not for philosophical reasons - merely resource reasons. I never bought the either-or polarization on this topic.
I agree with Dave Winer:
“Some people need both forms of readers. It’s like the difference between a spreadsheet and database. Both are good for numbers, but they’re good for different things. ” (from Scripting News)
But really I would say that in fact we should be thinking not of two forms of reader, but actually, simply, two kinds of views, each useful in different situations. To continue the analogy: sometimes I want to view my database in a tabular display and sometimes form-by-form.
This is the plan with BlogBridge - we will add the ability to see every article in a single guide in one continuous display.
BlogBridge users: any comments on the priority of implementing this?
Technorati Tags: aggregators, blogbridge
I could have also said there are word processors and outliners, and while WP people always say they’ve added outlining “as a feature” they never really do, because it’s not possible. In the same way it’s not possible for one aggregator to do both.
Pito, you could download the OPML Editor and install newsRiver.root and use it. Imagine trying to do Visicalc without ever having used it.
It’s really sad that so many people are willing to spend years writing code, when they could learn a whole new way to do it by just spending a few hours using someone else’s software.
Comment by Dave Winer — January 2, 2006 @ 11:04 am
Dave, I agree that I’ve not seen a good implementation of an outliner feature within a word processor, but I don’t necessarily conclude that it’s fundamentally impossible.
And I downloaded the OPML editor a while back, and of course I used the radio aggregator a long while back, but I didn’t realize your new aggregator was available for trying already. I will definitely check it out.
Comment by Pito Salas — January 2, 2006 @ 11:56 am
I like the “River of News” as available in NetNewswire. There, you can see a list of all unread news by date or author. More importantly, I usually use this within a group, or guide. This is handy when each feed may only have one or two articles. I can see the whole list without “spacing” down thru each article.
Comment by Milhouse — January 2, 2006 @ 1:26 pm
I was already using BB as a “river of news” - a smart feed that just listed all unread items, in expanded view form. Worked like a charm! That’s how I use just about any aggregator - I live in the “unread items” section. Can’t be bothered to poke around in each feed or guide with 500 subscriptions. Just gimme all the updates in one place.
Dave didn’t really innovate or invent the River of News - every aggregator I’ve tried has been capable of doing that for some time, going waaaay back to Amphetadesk or Feed On Feeds, and up to (and including) BlogBridge, NetNewsWire, Vienna, Bloglines, etc…
Comment by D'Arcy Norman — January 2, 2006 @ 3:32 pm
Almost forgot - the Starz feature in BlogBridge kicks the pure-vanilla “river of news’” ass. Letting me prioritize items in the river before I begin to dip in - that’s brilliant.
Comment by D'Arcy Norman — January 2, 2006 @ 3:33 pm
Yea I’m a little confused by this. As a part of my guides I have one called “50k Feet”, and this serves as my high-level aggregator. In it I have Smart Search Everything 4*, 3*, 2*, and Search: Everything I’ve Missed
With those views present I can read every article contained within BB w/o having to go to the specific guide itself.
So with that in mind, what are you all planning to do differently? Inherently create one of these tiers for the masses that don’t explore?
Here’s to a healthy and growing 06!
-a
Comment by Andy C — January 4, 2006 @ 8:55 am
Andy and D”Arcy, You’re right of course. I was hesitant to call that model of use of a SmartFeed truly a “river of news.”
I would call it a little more than ‘a tier for the masses that don’t explore’ but you are partially right - you can achieve something pretty close today.
The only delta over what we have today, to the user, would be that when a guide was displayting “RON” there wouldn’t be a “Feed” pane, so that you’d get some more width on the screen for your articles.
Comment by Pito Salas — January 4, 2006 @ 10:57 pm
Yea, you can call BB’s the Panama Canal of News (PCoN)
since we control all the floodgates to and from.
I’m sure a RON has its place. When I look at my Everything I missed search though there are 500+ articles in there. I don’t like that view since its overwhelming signals but perhaps others need it.
Comment by Andy C — January 5, 2006 @ 10:42 am