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FeedZa - A Platform to Search, Rate and Review RSS Feeds
(6 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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FeedZa wants people to decide what’s really worth subscribing in the RSS world, just what Digg did to websites, through social opinion.
What is FeedZa, really?
FeedZa is a social opinion site where people can read snippets of different RSS feeds based on various categories like lifestyle, entertainment, sports, technology, regional and many other sub-categories meant to specifically capture the users’ fancy. It also has a voting system where users can vote in favor of a RSS feed or against it. One can even add comments related to a RSS feed with reporting feature which can be used for mark feed links as spam.
How to use it?
FeedZa requires no registration. Just visit the site and start discovering RSS feeds.The feeds are divided into two sections, namely, latest feedz and popular feedz. One can discover content based on categories and sub categories provided through drop-down menu. To subscribe to any RSS feed, just click on the concerned button at the bottom of the snippet and you would be provided options to subscribe it in your favorite reader. The total number of feeds available is given at right-top of the website.
One most important feature of FeedZa is that one can subscribe to the RSS feed of all the RSS snippets given in a category…it could help to save a lot of time as one can review different feeds at the comfort of their favorite RSS reader (browser-less).
How does FeedZa work?
- Their latest feeds are refreshed every 25 minutes while popular feeds are refreshed every 24 hours.
- Any comment posted on any feed is first moderated and then allowed.
- Publisher can submit their feed in only one category but can provide other optional category choices which could be chosen in case the default category is not suitable for their RSS feed by FeedZa moderators.
- FeedZa is currently available only for English blogs and no other languages are supported.
How can it be useful?
Today, many people search for RSS feeds through inbuilt keyword search function given in modern RSS readers but after subscribing, one might feel that the feed is not useful or worth subscribing for some reason. That’s where FeedZa steps in, saving your time for finding useful feeds through public opinion.
Benefits to publisher
This comes as a boon to many a publisher who wants his RSS feeds to be noticed and can get more subscribers. The very fact that the category of s feed is moderated and that reader opinion is given a chance to endorse the quality of a certain feed works as a recommendation for them.
Some Questions…
- There is no search function available which could have made things much easier.
- Voting can easily be tampered with, to give false impression despite strong anti-spamming feature in place.
- A small snippet is too inadequate to choose a RSS feed. At the same time, a larger preview of RSSfeeds could have proven useful though the way they are viewed needs to be modulated.
- People might not be too propelled to use such a service as most RSS readers are well versed with their reading field options.
Final verdict -
This service is definitely worth trying for as one choose there RSS feeds very rarely so why not choose it wisely. The very concept behind the site looks very promising. However, whether users shall buy it or not, is a thing to watch out for.
What’s your opinion?
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Raghav - surely one’s decision to choose which feeds to subscribe to is essentially the same as figuring out which the best sources of news/blogs are out there? Don’t sites like Technorati already fulfill that requirement?
Gautam Kshatriya
gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com
http://www.moneyvidya.com
Hi,
Many thanks for the review - I have taken your points and suggestions on board. I just wanted to take a minute and answer the questions you have regarding FeedZa’s features:
“There is no search function available which could have made things much easier.”
We do have a search box in the top right hand corner however I do agree that our search feature needs improving with added features such as category, date range and so on. Among hundreds of other additional features, this is on the list of things to work on
“Voting can easily be tampered with, to give false impression despite strong anti-spamming feature in place.”
The only way we are going to get around false voting is requiring users to open an account and use our own voting algorithm. These have been completed but we decided to try and build a small community before launching these features. It was a tough decision to make, but right now we are focusing on making the site as easy to use as possible, work on building a small community and obviously getting the FeedZa word out there.
”A small snippet is too inadequate to choose a RSS feed. At the same time, a larger preview of RSS feeds could have proven useful though the way they are viewed needs to be modulated.”
Good suggestions here. We didn’t want to steal the lime light from the bloggers by displaying too much of their content – The aim is to display a little teaser (with the full title).
Once again, many thanks for the review
Chris Osborne
Founder and CEO
http://www.feedza.com
@Gautam
Ever tried out Yahoo’s Buzz or even Digg? I have a feeling that you missed the crux of the concept behind the site. Technorati might be there to track down popular posts but not feeds.
Moreover, how about news sites, category feeds of blogs or even a feed to track your online activity (check out this Yahoo Apps post for more on this)? Do you think Technorati and the likes have the power or capability to track them?
@gautam sites like technorati is a social opinion tools for blogosphere….many people now-a-days rely more on rss than visiting sites either on their cell phones or desktop due to busy schedule …they dont even have time to search for new sites on technorati or digg,etc to get only the rss feeds…..the very concept of rss was to simplify access to information without wasting time retrieving the information….i even predict that there might be a tool like stumbleupon for rss feeds which would give preview of feed in one single page according to preferences and people can decide whether they want to subscribe or not…..feedza is a one stop solution dedicated to rss thats where they can make our life simpler………
@chris i m sorry abt the search function….I misunderstood it for submitting form cos above that field there was link to submit feedz….hope you can do something about that so people do not fall prey to that mistake….. I would still stuck with my point of more description and preview feature cos few lines are very inadequate to make a decision …….all the best for your venture!