I love RSS feeds. They're like a sweet addiction. Information is like a drug to me, and I can never seem to get enough. And with sources in my RSS feed list like Lockergnome's RSS Resource (a blog about RSS feeds, and yes, I subscribe to the RSS feed for that blog...), I am adding to the information I receive through RSS at an alarming rate.

I've also tried out a half-dozen readers, finally settling on Bloglines for the moment simply because it's handy no matter where I go (my personal list is here, for anyone crazy enough to want to sort through it - it's not very well organized right now).

My biggest problem is quantity. According to Bloglines, I have many thousand posts unread because it's been a while since I looked through the whole list. I am sure (in fact, it's a niggling kind of certainty) that I'm missing out on all kinds of cool stuff simply because I don't have time to sort through it all nearly as often as I'd like.

The truth is, I need an intelligent RSS reader.

I need a reader I can use for, say, two months, that will watch my every move. That will take a look at the items I actually click on for more information and make a note of common keywords. After a month or two of "learning" what I like and what I don't, I want it to start sorting things for me, somehow bringing the best information on the topics I'm most interested in to the forefront, maybe bypassing the need to go directly to each and every feed. And while it could be based in part on the feeds themselves (I already do this, and so do you - reading some information sources more often than others because they have something that appeals to you), in truth I want it based on keywords, topics, what the post is about.

I'd like the ability to also browse the whole list as usual, of course. But a custom view based on my past decisions and interests would be HUGELY useful for me in sorting through the volumes of information.

Additionally, if there are topics that several of the blogs have all commented about (i.e. a Big Piece Of News or Heavy Meme is moving through blogland again), it should also rise to the top, grab my attention.

If there's something Really Big (as defined by me, in a setting, somewhere) and I haven't been checking my feeds for a few days, it should even e-mail me or pop up or notify me in some way that I need to wake up and get with the program.

I don't see how we're going to solve the information load, long-term, without this kind of intelligence. My poor little brain is going to go pop one day. :)

posted on 2003.10.25 at 07:45 PM

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