Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

I Want a Real Blog Aggregator

Posted on Feb 19, 2008 by Stephen

I love Google Reader. I love Friendfeed. I even like Plaxo Pulse. But here’s what I want: A one-stop blog aggregator that lets me do everything for everywhere in one place. I want integrated socialization, and especially threading and integrated commenting. And I think we can do it! Read on for a recipe for the perfect blog aggregator!

Feed readers are great. I can sit down in the morning, open Google Reader on my iPhone or PC, and catch up on my favorite news sources on my favorite topics, from Apple to enterprise storage, to the Red Sox. It’s like my own personalized New York Times.

But I want more socialization! I’ve been loving Friendfeed since I can see what (a few of) my friends like and dislike, and even their comments. And I love Friendfeed’s friend-of-a-friend feed, since it lets me find other new friends to disagree with! It’s like reading the New York Times with my buddies at a nice local coffee shop!

But I want more interaction! See, by reading blogs in Google Reader, I miss out on the comments, and I am far less likely to comment myself. And we need to be able to watch blog-to-blog threads.

So here’s what I want: A reader like Google Reader with social features like Friendfeed and integrated comment reading and writing.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Implement blog post threading per Ryan Tate’s excellent in-reply-to suggestion.
2. Import post comments and display them on demand within the feed reader.
3. Use OpenID (where supported) and cached logins (everywhere else) to let me add comments to the original blog within the feed reader.
4. Add multiple feed sources (like FriendFeed) and de-duplicate links and posts so I see a nice, clean, integrated stream from everyone.

Now, Louis Gray tells me that AssetBar is heading in this direction. And I’ve tried it – although it’s getting better, it’s still not what I want. Like every other thing I’ve seen, it lacks threading and integrated blog commenting.
Note that the integrated commenting I’ve postulated are very different from the comments appearing on FriendFeed and AssetBar! Comments on these sites exist only in the “walled garden” of that particular application. I’m talking about a more correct implementation that puts the comments in the source blogs themselves, capitalizing on the fact that most blogs use a few specific platforms (WordPress, TypePad, Blogger) with integrated logins, and many support OpenID commenting.

That’s what I want. Who will give it to me?

Update:  Frederic at The Last Podcast proposed the same commenting idea a month ago!

Tags: AssetBar, Friendfeed, Google Reader, Plaxo, RSS, social networks