Archive for the ‘Beta’ Category

31
Jul

Lazyfeed-RSS by tag w/ invites

Really, REALLY BIG RSS feed button

Image by HiMY SYeD / photopia via Flickr

Lazyfeed is a new entrant in the field of RSS readers, a field currently dominated by Google Reader, NewsGator and FeedDemon.

Unlike the majority of feed readers, though, Lazyfeed doesn’t require you to manually input the URL of every feed you want to read. Instead, Lazyfeed relies on tags, one word synopsis of what interests you.

Say you want to read blog entries about Technology. Enter the tag “technology” in the “What Interests You” field and a stream of articles on that topic appears. Click on the “Save” button and that topic will be added to your saved interests list.

Louis Gray has posted a far better explanation than this on his blog at louisgray.com. Louis provides not just a great overview of the service along with screenshots of its features, but he also mentions how this manner of presenting feeds can add value to your RSS reading. Lazyfeed adds relevance that other readers often lack.

Lazyfeed is one of those services that might be easier to understand by playing with it for a while than reading about it. With that in mind, I’d like to offer the first three people to request one in the comments an invitation to the Lazyfeed beta. There is only one thing I ask in exchange for an invite: within the next month write a review of your experiences and opinions of Lazyfeed on your blog and link back to this post so I can read your impressions. I’m curious to know how other people use Lazyfeed, if it provides a unique experience and offers a better way to read relevant content on the web.

(P.S. If you’d prefer to not post your email address in the comments (I’ll need it to send an invite) you can email it to me directly at jeber (at) jebers.com)

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19
Nov

Just when we were ready to count Yahoo out

They open up their new search tool, Glue, to the Western world and we are impressed.

Extensive beta testing in India, with Indian-centric search results, failed to give us a good idea of the usefulness of this application. It’s just been released here today, and there’s not a lot of content at the moment. But searching for Microsoft gives us a good idea of what the resulting search results look like.

Instead of the typical page of search results pulled from websites, blogs and major news sites, you’ll find results from Wikipedia, stock reports, news, job listings, even Flickr and Google search results. The results are more eclectic than we usually get, and can reveal results you didn’t expect to find.

Just when we were getting used to the no-frills search page that is Google, along comes Yahoo with a bright idea that offers a useful alternative. Glue might prove sticky if the content increases quickly.

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