Nick Bradbury

Perfect Attention (With a Little Help from My Friends)

Back in the summer of 2007, I wrote this post about how aggregators should be able to find articles that interest you by paying attention to what people like you are reading.  It's a very simple idea – after all, if 10 people you know all like the same article, then there's a pretty good chance you'll like it, too.  But as is often the case, the simplest ideas often take the longest to implement.

Using an aggregator like FeedDemon ensures that you'll see stuff that interests you because you usually only subscribe to feeds you find interesting.  But there are tons of feeds you don't know about that may interest you, so there's a good chance you're missing a lot of articles you'd enjoy.

The traditional approach to solving this problem has been to show you the stuff that's interesting to everyone (even "mainstream" news sites like CNN show the popularity of each article).  But I personally hate this approach because it shows me so much stuff I don't care about it.  For example, a lot of people may find the latest antics of pop culture icons interesting, but I couldn't care less.

I don't want to see articles about Britney Spears, I don't want to know how many women Tiger Woods slept with, and I don't care if Kanye just made an ass out of himself.  But I do want to know if Google has an interesting new service, or if Microsoft released a new development tool, or if someone declared that RSS is dead (again).  And I also want to know when someone has written a great response to an article that interests me.

So knowing what everyone is paying attention to doesn't interest me, but knowing what people like me are paying attention to is very interesting.  I've tried to tackle this in FeedDemon for quite a while with little to show for it, but when Google Reader added the ability to follow people, I knew it was the "secret sauce" to finally solving this problem.

Long story short: the next build of FeedDemon will include articles from people you follow in Google Reader, and these articles will help fuel the "Popular in My Subscriptions" page which until now has shown only the articles that are popular in feeds you subscribe to.  I've been using a build of FeedDemon with this feature enabled (here's a screenshot), and it has brought me tons of interesting articles that I would otherwise has missed (many of which I've added to my Shared Items feed).

PS: I should add that if you only see stuff that's interesting to people you follow, then there's a risk that you'll end up wearing blinders and miss "general interest" articles that may be relevant to you.  For this reason, FeedDemon also looks at the feeds you're subscribed to and figures out which articles in those feeds have been "liked" the most by everyone (not just people you follow), and it interweaves those articles into the "Popular in My Subscriptions" page.

How To: Add Support for goo.gl and fb.me to FeedDemon's Short URL Preview

One of my favorite features in FeedDemon is the short URL preview, which displays a balloon tip containing the long URL when you mouse over a short URL, like this:

FeedDemon has built-in support for over two dozen URL shortening services, but new ones seem to appear all the time.  Today, for example, Google announced their goo.gl shortener, and Facebook recently rolled out their FB.me shortener.

Both of these services will be supported in the next FeedDemon 3.x release (coming soon), but if you don't want to wait, it's easy to add support for them right now.  Just look for the file ShortUrl.xml in FeedDemon's \Data subfolder, then open it in your favorite XML editor (I use TopStyle 4).

The domain of each URL shortener is listed in this XML file as a separate <service> entry, so supporting goo.gl and fb.me is as simple as adding two entries to this file:

After you save the changes, the next time you run FeedDemon it will automatically expand short URLs from both fb.me and goo.gl.

You can add other URL shorteners the same way, provided that they return the long URL in the location header after doing a HEAD request.  Almost all shorteners do this (including youtu.be), but some redirect to an HTML page before redirecting to the actual long URL, and some use their own HTML page containing an IFRAME which hosts the long URL.  These services can't be supported.

FeedDemon 3.0.0.45: Recommendations and Faster Synchronization

FeedDemon 3.0.0.45 is now available, and as you can see from the screenshot below, it now offers recommendations.   Powered by Google Reader's new explore feature, FeedDemon's recommendations report shows a single view containing feeds and articles recommended for you.  If you'd like more details, Digital Inspiration has a nice overview of how this feature works.

This new build also offers faster and more efficient synchronization, especially when you have a lot of synched tags or are using a slow connection.

If you have any questions or comments about this new release, please stop by the FeedDemon 3.0 Support Forum and we'll be happy to help out.

FeedDemon 3.0 Introductory Pricing Ends October 31

Just a quick reminder that the $9.95 introductory pricing for the ad-free version of FeedDemon 3.0 ends on October 31.  Starting November 1, the price will be $14.95.

The simplest way to purchase a serial number is from within FeedDemon itself - just select "Purchase/Enter a Serial Number" from the Help menu.

Introducing FeedDemon 3.0

It's been a long time coming, but the final release of FeedDemon 3.0 is finally here.  If you're using FeedDemon 2.x or a pre-release of FeedDemon 3.0, simply install the final release on top of the previous version.  There's no need to uninstall first.

As most of you know, the biggest change in the new version is Google Reader synchronization, which replaces the now-defunct NewsGator synchronization that existed in previous releases.  The first time you run FeedDemon 3.0, you'll be asked whether to convert your NewsGator subscriptions to Google Reader.  The conversion may take a few minutes, but I think you'll like how much faster synchronization with Google Reader is once the conversion completes.  If you tried an older pre-release of FeedDemon 3.0 and found sync to be slow, then you really should get the final release.  Sync is much faster now.

With Google Reader synchronization comes the addition of some handy new features, most notably tagging and really simple sharing.

FeedDemon 3.0's tagging goes a step further than you've probably seen in similar features, because it suggests tags based on the article's content and highlights tags you've used before if they seem appropriate for the article.  Here's a screenshot which illustrates this feature in action:

FeedDemon 3.0 makes adding an article to your Google Reader shared items as simple as possible – a single click is all it takes.  Plus, you can drag-and-drop hyperlinks and browser tabs into your shared items, so you can share almost anything you find on the web.  You can also easily add a comment to your shared item.

In addition to Google Reader synchronization, FeedDemon 3.0 greatly improves the way Twitter feeds are handled.  Author names, hashtags and @replies are automatically hyperlinked, and mousing over a short URL shows you where it really goes.  You can also subscribe to password-protected Twitter feeds in FeedDemon, which is something you can't do in web-based RSS readers.

But my favorite new feature has to be the faster, sleeker, more informative user-interface.  FeedDemon 3.0's new subscription home shows an overview of your feeds, and highlights popular articles and YouTube videos in the feeds you're subscribed to. 

And FeedDemon's popular newspaper view has been simplified, so you can quickly see what you want to read without an overload of toolbuttons getting in the way.

One of the features in FeedDemon 3.0 I've seen highlighted in several blog posts (including this really well-done one by Amit Agarwal) is the ability to easily create keyword search feeds, which has actually existed for quite a while.  Just enter a keyword and choose a search engine (Bing, Google, Techmeme, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), and FeedDemon will subscribe you to a feed containing the latest search results for that keyword.

 

There's a whole lot more I could talk about (such as FeedDemon 3.0's new SQLite backend, which makes everything much faster than before), but I figure if you made it this far, you've heard enough :)  If you really want to know everything that's new, check the release notes for a detailed list of changes.  Suffice to say, I consider FeedDemon 3.0 to be the most significant release since the very first version, and I hope you're as pleased with it as I am.

ANN: FeedDemon 3.0.0.39 Pre-Release

Looks like I'm going for a personal record in the number of pre-releases before the final build, because FeedDemon 3.0.0.39 Pre-Release is now available.

If you're using an earlier FeedDemon 3.0 pre-release, just stop by the FeedDemon Beta Site to get v3.0.0.39.  As always, if you run into any problems with this build, please let me know by posting in the FeedDemon 3.0 Beta Forum, and be sure to include the build number (3.0.0.39) in your subject line.

Thanks!

ANN: FeedDemon 3.0.0.32 Pre-Release

FeedDemon 3.0.0.32 Pre-Release is now available.

If you're using an earlier FeedDemon 3.0 pre-release, just stop by the FeedDemon Beta Site to get v3.0.0.32.  As always, if you run into any problems with this build, please let me know by posting in the FeedDemon 3.0 Beta Forum, and be sure to include the build number (3.0.0.32) in your subject line.

BTW, if you haven't used a recent build, you may be surprised to discover that you can now purchase a serial number to get rid of the ads.  For the record, we never planned to offer a paid ad-free version – we were blown away when so many people asked for one.  Because of the demand for a paid ad-free version, we've partnered with eSellerate to make it possible to purchase a serial number that will turn off the ads.  If you don't mind the ads, no worries – FeedDemon will remain free (and we won't make the ads more annoying later on, just to "force" you to pay).  But if you really hate the ads, there's now a way to turn them off.

ANN: FeedDemon 3.0.0.27 Pre-Release

FeedDemon 3.0.0.27 is now available from the FeedDemon Beta Site, and you'll definitely want to upgrade to it if you're running an earlier pre-release.

For one thing, it offers completely redesigned synching with Google Reader which corrects many of the issues customers have been reporting in our support forums.  There are a number of other additions and improvements, too, including a new "quick tag" feature and support for WP.me in the short URL preview.

As mentioned in my previous post, NewsGator is shutting down their synchronization platform at the end of the month, so at startup FeedDemon now offers to convert you from NewsGator sync to Google Reader sync.  The conversion process may take a few minutes while it adds your subscriptions to Google Reader and syncs your pre-existing flags, but once it's done FeedDemon will be synched with Google Reader.

As always, if you run into any problems with this build, please let me know by posting in the FeedDemon 3.0 Beta Forum, and be sure to include the build number (3.0.0.27) in your subject line.

BTW, there's also a new FeedDemon 3.0 Frequently Asked Questions page – it's pretty bare-bones at the moment, but I'll update it over time as I get more feedback about the new version.

The End of NewsGator Sync: What it Means for FeedDemon Customers

Today NewsGator announced that their consumer synchronization platform will no longer be available as of August 31, 2009.  Rather than re-hash the announcement here, I invite you to read it on NewsGator's official company blog.  There's also an FAQ which addresses most of the questions about this announcement.

So how will this impact you if you're a FeedDemon customer who relies on NewsGator sync?  Honestly, this shouldn't have much impact on you.  FeedDemon 3.0 still offers syncrhonization - – but instead of synching with NewsGator, it syncs with Google Reader.

The first time you run FeedDemon 3.0, you'll be asked whether to convert your NewsGator subscriptions to Google Reader subscriptions.  Once the conversion completes, FeedDemon will sync with Google Reader instead of NewsGator.

If you're among the few customers who created synched clippings in FeedDemon, your clippings will no longer be synched after the conversion, and the RSS feed for your synched clippings will no longer update.  However, prior to the end of NewsGator sync, we'll provide a way to redirect your synched clippings feed so that anyone subscribed to it will be unaffected by the change.  Most of you will want to redirect to your Google Reader shared items feed (here's mine) since FeedDemon 3.0 includes the ability to copy articles to your Google Reader shared items.

What does this mean for the future of FeedDemon?  For the record I want to make it clear that FeedDemon's lifespan won't be cut short by this change.  FeedDemon (and NetNewsWire, for that matter) continues to have a very bright future.  I'm excited about being able to take full advantage of the power of Google Reader sync.

The Google Reader team has been making some interesting moves lately which enable me to take FeedDemon where I've long wanted it to go.  If you're a FeedDemon customer, I think you're going to love where FeedDemon will take you now that it's tied to Google Reader instead of NewsGator.

Bing Search in FeedDemon

Now that Microsoft’s Bing search engine is live, I figured I’d create a "search definition" for FeedDemon to simplify subscribing to Bing search feeds.  Here's how to use it:

1. View this page in FeedDemon, then click here to install the Bing search definition
2. Click the Subscribe button, then type the keyword you wish to search for and click Next
3. Select "Bing" from the list of search engines and click Next
4. Select the folder you want to place this feed in, then click Next
5. Click Finish

After installing this search definition, you’ll also be able to search Bing directly from FeedDemon’s address bar.  Before you can do this, though, you’ll first need to select Bing as your search provider from the search button at the right of FeedDemon’s address bar, like this:

Note that FeedDemon’s address bar supports all of Bing’s advanced search keywords, including the feed: keyword which enables finding RSS feeds about a specific topic (ex: type feed:fitness to find fitness-related feeds).

Update: FeedDemon's automatic error reporting shows that there's a bug in older versions of FeedDemon which may cause a file access error downloading the above file when not logged into Windows as an admin.  This bug was fixed in FeedDemon 3.0 RC2.