Ever since my computer crashed I’ve been trying to piece back together my online activities when suddenly Irealised that I spent far to much time reading information thrown at me from RSS Feeds, Facebook feeds, Twitter feeds, Thunderbird feeds, and Google Reader Feeds, not to mention following links from blog posts. It’s just all too much!
I spent a few days away from the Internet to try and get back in touch with reality only to be greeted by hundreds of unread feeds and many more e-mails. In my search for a solution I stumbled upon BlogRovR. It’s a nifty little Firefox plugin that displays relevant blog posts from your subscribed feeds based on the site that you’re currently surfing. Sound confusing? Let this ‘ere YouTube vid do the talkin’:
I’ve been using it for a few days and it’s quite alright, though I haven’t completely ditched Thunderbird and here’s why:It works best if you’re subscribed to lots of feeds
The plugin displays the relevant information from feeds that you’re subscribed to. So, if you only read a few very topic specific blogs expect to only get a little bit of information displayed. I think because of when you first sign up to BlogRovR it gives you the option to sign up to up to 80 popular blogs so that you have more chance of finding more information. I’m currently subscribed to 156 blogs and once I get through all of my bookmarks I expect it to grow to 400.
You still have to surf the web in order for it to work effectively
This plugin wont replace traditional feed readers. Whereas Thunderbird and the like deliver content direct to you, BlogRovR requires you to be surfing the web before it does anything.
BlogRovR doesn’t automatically display the latest posts
If you want to be displayed information relevant to the page you’re viewing then BlogRovR is great, but if you want the latest headlines stick to your traditional feed reader. But then again, if you use both you can see other posts relevant to the ‘new’ one you’re looking at…
It’s oh so new
I’ve subscribed to lots of comics and Flickr photostreams but so far I’ve not had one of these displayed by BlogRovR. I think this could be to do with a combination of how people tag images and how BlogRovR interprets this. Maybe people need to add better tags and descriptions? We’ll see. Two suggestions for improvement would be:
- Have an inbuilt search function
- On the homepage include the ability to put subscribed blogs into categories and then the option to share the list of blogs under category, thereby adding a more social aspect to it.
Summary. Don’t ditch Thunderbird yet. Instead install BlogRovR and unsubscribe from about 300 of the 400 blogs you’re subscribed to.
Hi Antonio,
Jean Sini, BlogRovR CTO, here. Thanks for mentioning our service! You nailed it right on the head: we’re not meant to replace your regular feed reader, but complement it instead. BlogRovR works in the background, as you browse, to bring in context stories related to what you’re reading, from your favorite blogs. I like your suggestions around search (right now, you can search, from our homepage, the collection of your subscriptions) and categories. You may have noticed we’re already allowing you to share your subscriptions, but your suggestion of sharing by category is great. Thanks!
Thanks for getting in contact, wasn’t expecting it at all! It’s a great plugin and has saved me a lot of time so far. Keep up the good work!
you’re welcome, Antonio. The more feedback, the better.