Scott Hanselman

aideRSS - Now things are getting smarter

December 19, 2007 Comment on this post [9] Posted in
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Scott Hanselmans Computer Zen - AideRSS - Windows Internet Explorer This is clever. AideRSS is an smart RSS filterer gives just the Good, Great, Best or Top 20 posts given any RSS Feed. How does it measure quality? Well, since it can't really measure quality it infers it indirectly by creating a metric based on the number of del.icio.us bookmarks, diggs, Blogger references, Technorati references, Google BlogSearch reference, IceRocket references and a few others.

Of course, this assumes your blog is being read because it's interesting and these external references are a quantitative metric that implies quality. There, of course, are lots of great blogs with great content that haven't been discovered yet, but this is still a pretty neat way to apply these metrics.

So what do they do with these numbers? They create alternative feeds that you can subscribe to in lieu of the blog's main feed so as to just read about the "great posts" or "just the hits." Sounds like a great idea, but then you'd miss all the posts about my kids!

Here is one of their active widgets showing me the percentage of my posts that don't suck (so say their metrics. ;) )

Check it out. (Yes, "well recieved" is incorrectly spelled in their Javascript widget. If it's not anymore, it's because they fixed it.)

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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December 19, 2007 17:40
These are the kind of sites/tools that simply blow my mind get me excited about technology. AideRSS uses various api's and websites to first pull all of your posts, then to retrieve the number of comments, Google searches, Diggs, ect.

It's amazing to think that by simply typing a blog address into their tool, you are quickly supplied with some very neat statistics, all without touching your blog. AideRSS is doing everything from the "outside" which is incredible! Compare that with FeedBurner or Google Analytics where you have to do something to your blog/site to get it to work properly. Simply amazing.
December 19, 2007 19:49
This is the perfect solution for Engadget, TechCrunch, and blogs that have a >50 post-per-week velocity.

I want to read 100% of the posts on a blog with <15 velocity (i.e. Hanselman, ScottGu, Atwood, Spolsky, etc).
December 19, 2007 19:49
Hmm, somebody didn't close out their bold tag!
December 19, 2007 21:37
Scott, thanks for the coverage and typo catch.

PWills, you can control the level of filtering on a per blog basis (different then from the screen shot above). So you choose to apply no filtering to Scott's blog for example but only allow the Great Posts from Engadget.

Closing my splog tag now :-)
December 20, 2007 3:55
Allow me to</strong></b> close the bold tag and ask why your feed is so ridiculously huge?
December 20, 2007 9:52
I have been subscribing to your blog thru aiderss on the "good" filter for 6+ months now. ;o)
December 21, 2007 13:35
I wouldn't be surprised to see this kicking G Readers butt! Cool concept well executed. Ta for the heads up.
December 24, 2007 1:28
Scott - apparently the html tags in your blog posts "flow" through to the next post. Tim didn't close out his bold tag so everyone following him is bold.
December 31, 2007 22:25
I'm still looking for a replacement for wTicker (a great RSS reader whose developer went AWOL 1.5 years ago). This is a step in that direction.

wTicker allows me to give TiVo-like "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down" to blog posts, and using a Bayesian algorithm like many spam blockers, prioritize my blog reading.

The really cool thing is that it's based completely on my own tastes. This feature of AideRSS is cool, but it's got the fundamental assumption that the popularity in the grand scheme of thinks matches my own personal insanity well enough to predict my interest.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.