AideRSS - smart RSS filtering
After months of development, countless UI iterations, and a very successful round of closed beta trials, I'm happy to say that AideRSS is finally opening its doors to the public. In a nutshell, AideRSS is an RSS filtering service - it gathers user engagement metrics such as the number of comments, trackbacks, bookmarks, etc., for every story in an RSS feed and creates individual PostRank scores based on these metrics.
Once the PostRank ratings are calculated, we offer a choice of filtered RSS streams for use in your favorite feed reader, or the ability to track your feeds directly on the AideRSS site. But a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Take a look at the igvita, Slashdot or TechCrunch feeds through AideRSS - finding the good stuff has never been easier! And if that sounds interesting, be sure to check out our screencasts below for a comprehensive overview of the core features of AideRSS.
AideRSS Introduction - PostRank filtering
In this screencast you will learn the basics of AideRSS - what it is for and how to use it. We introduce the concept of PostRank, the core technology behind AideRSS, and how it can help you find and read what matters. We also cover BlogTrends and show you how to find the authors top stories - you'll get a comprehensive overview of the core features of AideRSS.
PostRank RSS Filtering & Importing feeds
There are two ways to stay on top of the news: 'My Feeds' section of AideRSS, or through your favorite feed reader. In this screencast we cover both scenarios and show you how to filter, subscribe to, and read your top stories in the 'My Feeds' section, as well as your favorite feed reader. Learn how AideRSS can make your daily news reading experience an enjoyable one!
Best Posts Widget - arguably, the coolest feature
You can see a Best Posts widget in action in the right navigation bar of this blog - my top stories for the past year. AideRSS widgets allow you to share and embed top stories from any RSS feed on your own blog or web-site. You can drive more traffic to your site by showcasing your best content, or simply share the news from your favorite source with your readers.
Made from 100% Ruby concentrate
The entire AideRSS project is done in Ruby. The backend code responsible for collecting the data and keeping the index up to date is written in pure Ruby and runs on Amazon's EC2 platform. In fact, AideRSS wouldn't be possible without EC2 as much of our service runs as a distributed system designed to scale on the fly. And as you may have guessed already, the frontend is powered by Ruby on Rails. One thing for sure, developing this project from scratch has been an amazing experience, and a lot of fun!
Comments, suggestions and feedback are all certainly welcome. Let me know what you think!
Ilya Grigorik is a web ecosystem engineer, author of High Performance Browser Networking (O'Reilly), and Principal Engineer at Shopify — follow on Twitter.