Re: [syndication] Aggregating and displaying feeds

[Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>]

On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 11:07:58AM +0100, Julian Bond wrote:
> Let's say you're writing YAFA (Yet Another Feed Aggregator!). I think
> there's some conceptual design thought about how you display the results
> from multiple feeds. I want to try and get away from displaying the
> results sorted by feed and sort them by relevance, age and subject
> instead.

Just to present a contrary view (as this seems to be a very popular
approach ;) -

To me, it's most useful to keep channels in categories, as their
authors write them. The identity of a channel is part of its context,
and it's harder to mentally switch context constantly if they're all
mixed up.

Also, I tend to use RSS to keep up with Web sites that I'd normally
have to browse manually. My style of use is more effective when I can
move from channel to channel; i.e., I want to make sure I see
everything, not just a weighted selection.

That said, relevance scoring, etc. are cool. UI for aggregators (in
the organisation of feeds, navigation of them and presentation) is
critical.

Cheers,


-- 
Mark Nottingham
http://www.mnot.net/