As of this morning, there is a new player in the field of RSS feed and news aggregation, with a focus on the social aspects, including sharing, messaging and discovery. Assetbar, inspired by Google Reader, debuted today with high aspirations, and talk of a new platform "to make better tools for what you already do online."Interestingly, at least to me, the Assetbar team is extremely transparent as to where they found guidance for their product's features - and one of the driving forces behind their development was a well-trafficked post I published here back in March about "10 suggestions for Google Reader".
The company writes: "Google's feed reader is popular and well regarded. Nevertheless, any product can be improved, so we started with 10 suggestions to Improve Google Reader. Then we added whole new dimensions," and lays out those dimensions, saying, "by adding better sharing, connecting, messaging, rating and archiving, (a social reader?), Assetbar lets you find the good stuff better, and you're always in touch with the people and topics that matter most to you."
Following my step by step guidance I gave Google Reader six months ago, AssetBar just may have leapfrogged the #1 RSS reader through adding exactly what I had asked for, including:
* More Like This
* Elimination of Duplicates
* Addition of Negative Keywords
* Sharing of Items Without Subscriptions
* Aggregate Reader Statistics
* Integrated Search
* Shared Items Directory
* Integration of Trends
* Expanded Individual Feed Statistics
* Customization
They even listed the items in the exact order I had laid them out in my post!
They call it "Standing on the shoulders of giants". I call it good business, one that's focused on hitting the needs of the power users of RSS feeds and news aggregation. That they call out my post from nine months ago as a driving force behind their efforts is, in my opinion, very cool. You can sign up for a beta account now on their site, or read their blog.