Library clips

Steve Rubel points to the new Technorati authority slider, although he would like to call it Popularity Slider, and so would I.

I won’t add to this discussion, as my relevancing and ranking comments have been made in an earlier discussion initiated by Mary Shelley.

All I’ll say is that Authority doesn’t equal Popularity.

The thing I like about the slider is that now you can view results by less popular or linked to blogs/posts, whereas before it defaulted to maximum popularity…this is good for the long tail.
Now when you are searching in Technorati, you can see what the popular people are saying about a search term, as well as the lesser known people…good going Technorati.

If you haven’t checked out Technorati Explore, it shows the latest posts from Blog Finder topics

…you can also search within these expert topics via Technorati search.

So the next step is to view Technorati Explore and Technorati Tags, by not only date, but also by popularity…slide away!

So far

TECHNORATI SEARCH
Search blogosphere by date, or popularity
RSS feed
Chart
Mini

Search within a URL.
Link searches (by date, or popularity)

Search in blogs by topic experts (sub-set of the blogosphere), via date, or popularity
(lacks RSS feed)
(lacks chart)
(lacks mini)

TECHNORATI TAGS
Browse blogosphere by tags, via date only
(lacks popularity)
(lacks searching within a tag/s)
RSS feed
Charts
Mini

TECHNORATI BLOGFINDER
Browse blogs by claimed topic experts, via date, or popularity
(lacks RSS feed)
(Doesn’t really require a chart, or mini)

TECHNORATI EXPLORE
Browse blogosphere by claimed experts , via date
(lacks popularity)
(lacks chart)
(lacks mini)
RSS feed

TECHNORATI POPULAR BLOGS
(Doesn’t require a date view)
(lacks RSS feed)
(Doesn’t really require a chart, or mini)

TECHNORATI PROFILE
Search within a blog
User tags

There are no OPML URL’s anywhere!

The new Attensa Online is a great light weight RSS Reader, it’s only new, so no doubt there will be some power features coming later on.

What I like about it is the different ways you can view your feeds, and marking read/unread…it attacks these simple features better than any reader I’ve seen so far…although it does lack a clippings folder at the moment.

MANAGE

Can’t manually sort order of feeds

Can have sub-category

Can only import OPML files

Built in feed directory, or add manually

Lacks a check all feature, I loaded in an OPML then it asked which of these feeds I wanted for subscription, I wanted all of them, but had to check every box, apparently this is being seen to.

Synching, across it’s range of RSS Readers, like Newsgator

READING

River of News or by feed

The different reading views of Attensa is where it shines

2 PANES

- Title index
(clicking on a title will launch to the native post)

- Excerpt index
(clicking on a title will launch to the native post)

_ Full-text
(read the full post within Attensa)

3 PANES

- Title index
(clicking on an item will show full post in the 3rd pane underneath)

- Excerpt index
(clicking on an item will show full post in the 3rd pane underneath)

Also the 3 pane view has a choice of the post in the 3rd pane showing the RSS version of the post, or the web version (actual native post).

I really like that I can read from the actual blog post within my RSS Reader (if you don’t mind the load time).

READ/UNREAD

When you click on a post is greys out (this marks it as read).
You can also mark all posts as read.
You can even delete a post or all posts.
To mark a read post as unread again just tick it.

If you right click on a title you can you can mark a post as read, unread, delete it, or email it.

You can also right click on your subscriptions and folders: mark all read, mark all unread, delete articles, delete subscription, or delete category.

At the moment I don’t see any personalisation, or clipping features, but it is a great start.

The important thing is organising my feeds, viewing them, and marking them, and Attensa covers the basics much better than Rojo or Bloglines.

The gripe with Bloglines, is that it doesn’t have a River of News, and instead of marking a post as unread you have to tick it to keep it new (this is a kind of a round about way of doing this)

Also when you want to mark the feed you are reading as unread (Mark as Unread), it will keep all the posts unread, whereas you might of read at least some of them.

Read here for my Rojo woes.

Bloglines has great feed management, Newsgator Online is OK, and Rojo is just a super RSS Reader, but it does have many fundamental flaws…and Attensa has the best views, marking features, synching and right click action (just like Newsgator Online).

LACKS

OPML URL import

RSS feeds for folders, and whole account

Searching

Tags instead of folders, so feeds can live in multiple places

OPML URL for each folder or the whole account

No personalisation
(Recommendation, relevancy, etc…)

Threading

Key Navigation

Clippings

Don’t really need flagging, as you can keep a single post as unread, although flagging is good when all flagged items are kept in a folder

What I like about Rojo is that you can skim all you subscriptions, flagging as you go along, then goto your flagged folder and read in peace (what I mean by peace, is that there is no skimming, you can enjoy the seamless experience of reading every single article…you have already done the hunting and gathering).

I really think Attensa Online will have a great take up with new RSS users, as it is similar to the email view, and very intuitive to use, and it is not overloaded with too many features.

Check out the forums, where’s the feed…also I’m notified of replies to my posts, but what about new posts.

I’ve converted to Rojo from Bloglines, which I’m so far happy about when looking at the power features, the only thing is that Rojo has some fundamental issues which I hope are seen to…it needs to have the simple functions in place so my reading experience can be less frustrating.

Check out my Rojo post about it being a great power RSS Reader.

So far what I’m happy about is river of news reading, and using tags (feeds can live in more than one tag), and also the flagging folder…I also like the instant collapse/expand for all or each item/s.

Issues

These just cover the fundamental features

…but I’ll just quickly add that OPML export doesn’t work, and I wish it had it’s own URL anyway, and what about at the tag level (Reading Lists are the in thing).

Also I’d like to Print a feed or tag in one easy click

…and what about some key navigation.

OK, that’s it, back to the basic features.

- Lacks manually sorting feeds or tags

I’d like to put my most read tag at the top of my subscriptions.
Also I would like to order the feeds in this tag, so my most read feed is at the top.

- Lacks Reading posts by oldest first

Reason being, if I don’t read Rojo for a couple of days or a week, I have a stack of posts to read…reading these by newest doesn’t make sense as I sometimes don’t understand a post because I haven’t read an earlier post

- Lacks keep “Mark as Read”

When reading a subscription I understand you can manually mark it as read or have this automatically happen when you click off that feed.
But what if I’m reading a feed, and I decide I haven’t got time to finish reading it, I’d like to be able to “mark all new”…I feel I’m already committed.

- I want to mark all posts on a single page as read
(in Rojo, if a feed has more than 100 new posts, it shows them in pages)

Sometimes I don’t read Rojo for a week

If I read by feed tag there may be 5 pages of posts for a feed tag, I might only get through 1 or 2 pages, so I would like to mark just those pages as read (either manually or automatically when you click to the next page…if you did it manually it would probably take you to the next page anyway)

If I read by a single feed, there may be sometimes 2 or more pages to read, if I only get through the first, I would just like to manually mark just this page as read, and I’ll read the other page later.
At the moment my only option is to not mark the feed read at all, and later on I will have to go through all the posts I’ve seen again…or automatically mark the feed as read, which means I will have to remember to go through read posts for the feed one day, if I remember (to see the ones I actually didn’t get a chance to see).

I also agree that if you are on page 5 of a feed or feed tag, marking read (manually or automatically) will also mark posts that arrived during your reading…you will never know they existed…that’s a worry

…I think marking a page as read will solve all these problems.

[ADDED: re-naming folders]

BlogBridge have now added a code to place your Reading List on your blog sidebar…if you don’t use BlogBridge for your Reading Lists, try OPML Renderer, OPod, or Bitty Browser…these last 2 can even read the feed content.

Similar to Diggdot.us is DiggLicious, see the latest in Digg and del.icio.us in real time…powerful.

Or see them separately at digg spy, and LiveMarks.