RSS Feeds posts

Filed under: Web services, Microblogging

Subscribe to Twitter's new lists as RSS feeds

by Jay Hathaway Nov 2nd 2009

If you're loving Twitter's new lists feature, but you're finding yourself a bit overwhelmed by following so many new people, there might be a better way to try out a list. One Twitter user has put together a list-to-RSS script. All you have to do is pop a list's URL into the site and drop the resulting feed URL into your reader. This way, you don't have to check the list on the web, and you don't have follow everyone on it.

Be warned, the list-to-RSS site has run into some rate-limit issues with Twitter's APIs, so you may have to check back periodically if it doesn't work for you on the first try. Meanwhile, if you're still looking for some good lists to subscribe to, may I recommend the Download Squad team list? Sebastian has also collected some great list recommendations and a step-by-step guide to using lists in an earlier Download Squad post.

Tags: lists, rss, rss feeds, RssFeeds, twitter, twitter lists, TwitterLists

Filed under: Internet

Regator takes a bite out of the blogoshpere

by Christina Clark Aug 8th 2008

There are certainly plenty of blog directories and Digg type websites that tell you what the most popular or "best" news of the day is. Regator wants to join the fray.

Regator is a combination of a lot of different methods of news aggregation. Actual people do a lot of the work, reading through and finding blog posts they think are interesting to read. Those posts are sorted into almost 500 channels. Users can also submit items of interest and move things up the food chain by viewing, commenting and rating sites. The What's Hot list is then created with algorithms based on what users are looking at.

I found some really interesting stuff I hadn't seen so far in my daily web surfing by going into the Beijing Olympics Channel.

You can also use Regator as a feed reader, to make audio playlists and to share with friends on Facebook, etc. by registering for a free account.

If you don't already have a favorite place to find news or you're looking for a change, this might be something to check out. And, if your blog isn't on Regator, you can nominate it for coverage.

Tags: news aggregator, NewsAggregator, rss feeds, rss reader, rssfeeds, rssreader

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Blogging, Productivity, Web services, Freeware

FeedRinse - clean up your subscribed feeds

by Jason Clarke Mar 17th 2007

There has been a lot of talk about Yahoo!'s new Pipes service, and for good reason. Pipes allows you to mix and match RSS feeds and make something that suits a very specific purpose. But as much as Pipes was made for the non-developers out there, the barrier to entry is still a tad high for some of us. What about the rest of us that need to massage an RSS feed a little bit, but for whom Pipes is not a good answer?

If you're trying to scrub a feed and filter it down in some manner, have a look at FeedRinse. This free web based service will let you import RSS feeds, set up some filtering rules, and it will spit out new feeds that you can subscribe to that give you your data after the filtering rules have been applied.

For example, for you TechCrunch might be Mike Arrington only. So now you can have an Arrington-only TechCrunch feed. Or maybe you really like Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing - now you can subscribe just to Cory.

Or maybe you love Download Squad, but can't stand my posts. FeedRinse can help you there, too. Just set up your feed to block all posts where the author is Jason Clarke, and you're set to go.

Tags: feed filtering, FeedFiltering, FeedRinse, RSS feed filtering, RSS feeds, RssFeedFiltering, RssFeeds

Filed under: Blogging, Productivity

Strategies to clean up your rss feed subscriptions - Readers Sound Off

by Jason Clarke Feb 26th 2007

Ugh. I'm buried under unread RSS feeds. Right now if I look down at Google Reader Notifier (a Firefox Add-In), I see that I've got 1927 unread items in my subscriptions.

I thought I was being responsible; I've got my feeds split up into logical categories, including one called "Now", which is the stuff I told myself I would always stay current on. Google Reader won't tell me exactly how many unread items are in that folder, but it's more than 100... that's for sure.

While there's nothing you can do about it if life simply gets too busy to stay current, there should be a way to pare down what you're reading to a manageable level. In fact, Google Reader's Trends page will show you what you are (and aren't) paying attention to, who hasn't posted in forever, and which feeds simply bury you under too much content. One click on the garbage can for any of the feeds in here will unsubscribe you.

That helps.

But it's not enough.

I still need help determining what is and isn't important to be following. I'm currently subscribed to almost 300 feeds, and that's after some heavy pruning. I need to be down around 100, but it depends on the feeds themselves; if they're relatively low traffic, I can carry many more.

So - Download Squad readers, Sound Off! Tell us how you mercilessly keep your feed subscriptions lean and mean. Hit up the comments!

Tags: information overload, InformationOverload, overwhelm, RSS, RSS Feeds, RssFeeds, subscriptions, techniques, tips, tricks

Filed under: Internet, Blogging

Ask.com adds official blog feeds to web results

by Ian Smith Feb 16th 2007

Ask.com has started including official blog feeds in their search results when you search for popular brands or web site names. The feed listing displays the last three or four posts on the website's official blog at the top of the results page, along with a link to the blog itself. The feed even appears above the sponsored listings.

When you search Download Squad, for example, you'll see our last three blog posts on the search page. Likewise a search for 37signals turned up a feed for their Signal Vs Noise blog, and searches for del.icio.us and reddit turned up their official company blogs. A search for digg, however, returned only popular front page links and no mention of Digg the Blog.

The one blog I was disappointed not to be able to find was the Ask.com Blog itself. The post detailing the flatline in office productivity when a particular Google product failed is enough on its own to warrant more prominent placement on the Ask.com network.

All and all I like this feature. Ask.com has been trying to push the innovation envelope for two years now and they have created a long series of Class A products along the way. Ask.com's blog search functionality is easily the best and most complete of all the major offerings, and it is great to see this feature find its way into other areas of the Ask.com website.

Tags: ask, ask.com, blog search, BlogSearch, rss feeds, RssFeeds, search, search results, SearchResults

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Bloglines Mobile: Now with Skweezer

by Amber Rhea Sep 22nd 2006

While we're on the subject of mobile RSS readers... Bloglines announced yesterday that its Bloglines Mobile service now features integrated Skweezer technology.

What's Skweezer, you ask? Well, on its own, it's a free, platform-independent web service that optimizes page content for mobile devices. The benefit of Skweezer technology being added to Bloglines is that you won't have to specifically go to the Skweezer portal when you want to force a particular site to be friendly to your mobile device. When you visit a page via Bloglines Mobile, Skweezer compresses and reformats the content on the fly. Bonus: Skweezer can also translate content into more than a dozen languages.

Tags: Bloglines, Bloglines Mobile, BloglinesMobile, Greenlight Wireless, GreenlightWireless, mobile, RSS, RSS aggregator, RSS feeds, RssAggregator, RssFeeds, Skweezer, syndication, XML

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Mozilla, Yahoo!

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Fixes Add to My Yahoo! Problem

by Joe Beaulaurier Aug 6th 2006

Have you ever tried to click on the "Add to My Yahoo!" button while in Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Search results pages or some other Y! property only have have it say the feed is invalid? That's a big WTF moment for me that has happened time and time again. Very frustrating.

I recently installed the new Firefox 2.0 beta 1 release and noticed it can subscribe "web feeds" (aka RSS feeds) to your RSS reader (either Bloglines, iGoogle/Google Reader, My Yahoo or a program on your computer) when you click the RSS or XML button on the page or the one that appears via auto-discovery in Firefox's address bar. Go to "Tools - Options... - Choose Feed Reader" to configure.

I didn't think much about this until I encountered another WTF moment. I clicked on the RSS icon in my address bar and viola! It was accepted when the "Add to My Yahoo" button attempt was refused. Sweet!

You could say Firefox does Add to My Yahoo! function better than Yahoo! does.

Tags: add to my yahoo, AddToMyYahoo, beta, firefox, rss feed, rss feeds, RssFeed, RssFeeds, web feed, web feeds, WebFeed, WebFeeds, yahoo

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures

Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party

Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

Download Squad bloggers (30 days)

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Jay Hathaway	102	5
2	Lee Mathews	72	21
3	Sebastian Anthony	63	226
4	Brad Linder	35	2
5	Jason Clarke	23	0
6	Grant Robertson	6	2
7	Dolores Parker	6	2
8	Nik Fletcher	5	0
9	Victor Agreda, Jr.	5	1
10	Matt Heerema	3	0
11	Paul O'Brien	2	0
12	John Burke	2	0
13	Download Squad Staff	1	0

More Tech Coverage

Control Shift It's all about the experience
Somewhat Frank Perspectives on tech as it fuses in everyday life
Switched Gadgets, web news and commentary
Urlesque Exposing bits of the web

Download Squad