Filed under: Internet, web 2.0

Tiinker - Intelligent news aggregator

TiinkerIf you are looking for news items based on your interests, you might enjoy Tiinker. Tiinker allows you to rate news items from feeds and automatically finds more items based on what you liked and didn't like.

It works like this: as you go through news items and vote on them, Tiinker goes about learning what kind of news you would like more of. Give a post on technology a thumbs up and Tiinker will remember that you have a thing for tech.

At first glance it might look a bit like Digg - but you will quickly realize that it isn't, as the only social aspect to the site is a collection of the most popular posts. The only variable that affects what stories are dished up is what you have given a thumbs up or down to in the past. Also, you are unable to introduce new feeds into the system, and can't get recommendations by cross-referencing what you've liked with users who have had similar tastes.

Nitpicking aside, the idea behind Tiinker is nice. If you like a customized news portal that adapts to your tastes the more you use it, this is it. But, if Tiinker can figure out a way to include some more social features such as ranking RSS feeds by popularity and allowing users to add new feed items, this could grow into something of a personalized meme that tracks the best stories for the things you are interested in. Until then, Tiinker isn't bad as long as you don't mind some of the limitations.

[via Lifehacker]