Aggregator Artistry? Can there be such a thing?
Mar 9th, 2005 by jimmoore
Some of us have begun to believe that there can be artisty in the programming of aggregators.
This is especially true if the aggregator allows filtering of feeds to
focus down on a particular topic. And it the
aggregator allows tagging or categorizing feeds in an
ad hoc manner.
And if the aggregator lets you publish your aggregator display and make it available to the public.
John Palfrey, Nick Caramello and I decided a while back to create an
aggregator with these features, and make it free to users (ad
supported) and totally web based. The aggregator is
available free in very rough beta. Perhaps we should call it a
“true beta.”
Our explorations in “aggregator artistry” are very preliminary, but some of
the early experiments have been fun and informative even as they are quite
simple.
Here are four samples you may find intriguing:
http://world.newsilike.com is a kind of melange of world
news–including entertainment, sports, as well as politics and so on.
And it keeps up with Dave Winer on podcasting, by filtering his
scripting news feed to look for pod articles.
http://politics.newsilike.com is the creation of Berkman director John Palfrey. Right, left, you have it.
http://sports.newsilike.com has just been begun, but it
already has something really fun. We filtered a
number of sports feeds for “Spring training” and then assigned the
results to the Spring Training category. See the results at
http://sports.newsilike.com. Who ever knew those sports writers could
be so bright and hopeful!
Finally, http://entertainment.newsilike.com has a nice little feed from Daily Variety. Juicy.
These aggregators are just the beginning, we think, of a fun new
activity: Creating and sharing public aggregator-driven experiences.