A year into the service's head to head fight with Google Reader and others to make an advanced RSS reader, the Shyftr team has essentially thrown in the towel on their first plan, changing course to let you filter your own content and receive specific news you want to see, with less of that you don't. Their new RSS filter tool, which debuted today, lets you create any number of filters, by author, by title, or by keywords, from a wide number of preselected blogs, or those you add yourself, and roll your own RSS feeds.Today, when you subscribe to an RSS feed, it's essentially an all or nothing bet. By subscribing to my site, for instance, you are going to get every article I write about Apple even if you love Windows. You are going to get additional posts by the other writers on the site. And you can't dodge posts on Twitter and FriendFeed, even if you're sick of hearing about them.
Shyftr is looking to help, and even comes loaded with some example filters to get you started, including: LouisGray.com Posts from Louis Gray: http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/sux0ju/Browsers (Chrome + IE + Safari + Firefox): http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/gycxxn/
TechCrunch Posts from Michael Arrington: http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/4x545a/
iPhone Titled Posts: http://alpha.shyftr.com/i3qzmd
But the fun comes when you start to make your filters, such as:
Posts from Mashable and VentureBeat Without Twitter In the Title: http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/qiroqp/
Posts on LouisGray.com That Were Not By Me: http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/bjzbpo/
Posts that Start with "Porn": http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/al35fd/
Posts by Om Malik on GigaOM: http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/dp2drb/
Posts that mention "Robert Scoble": http://alpha.shyftr.com/f/fq8dgb/
Setting Up a Filter that Avoids Twitter and Facebook
Over the last few months, Shyftr has been making significant changes, ditching the reader, and building a customized newspaper (like MeeHive), powered by your favorite topics and sources. But the new RSS filter takes personalization to a new level. You can find the new approach at http://alpha.shyftr.com and you can find the filter tool here: http://alpha.shyftr.com/filter/
Shyftr-Powered RSS Filters for LouisGray.com
And the fun doesn't stop there. The company has set up new "Publisher" accounts, targeted at multi-author and multi-site blogs, to help authors distribute personalized feeds, by author, by topic and by site. I can see mega-blog sites like Mashable, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and CenterNetworks looking into this option, as I will be, and I've been supplied with a handful of invites from those who are intrigued.
You can check out the new Shyftr at http://alpha.shyftr.com. Start your own filters here: http://alpha.shyftr.com/filter. You can also start with a set of pre-loaded tech blogs here: http://alpha.shyftr.com/filter/popular/