Sharing Feeds with Feedbuddy

August 9, 2007 in Applications by Carsten Pötter | View Comments

Reading feeds has really become routine for most tech savvy people in 2007. Conversations between bloggers usually revolve around the number of feeds they read, which blogs they subscribe to, and which feed reader they use. There is hardly any talk about actually visiting blogs. I don’t think that is a very positive trend because I have some difficulties recognising blogs by their design; usually I just see them in my feed reader. But that’s a story for another blog post. Maybe. Someday.

Anyway, the collection of subscribed feeds constitutes people’s daily reading list. Those reading lists can be exported (at least all feed readers I know allow this) as an OPML file which can be imported by other feed readers. So if it can be exported as a file it can be shared and made public as well. Feedbuddy is a recently launched small German application which supports this.

Features

People can upload their OPML file there. After uploading the file Feedbuddy displays members who subscribe to similar feeds like yourself. Clicking on the number of matches those matches are displayed (e.g. Frank is subscribing to 44 feeds I am subscribing to as well); I can also see all the other feeds Frank is subscribing to. That might help discovering new blogs which suit your preferences. That’s pretty cool actually because blog search engines like Technorati and Google Blog Search don’t have a similar feature. It is also possible to contact other members through Xing, Skype, LinkedIn or their website.

Conclusion

Feedbuddy is a nice little application which is fun. It’s not re-inventing the wheel, though. There are some other apps which let users share their OPML files (e.g. Grazr and Bloglines) or let them import them as a reading list for other users to see (e.g. Ziki). Also Feedbuddy hopefully lifts the limit of uploading just 60 feeds per OPML file. I had to add the rest of my reading list manually. That’s been some hard work and no fun at all last night.

feedbuddy.jpg

[via blognation Germany and pauline pauline]

Tags: blog search engines, Germany, Google, Reading

  • Carsten Pötter
    OK :)
  • thx for your hint to this design issue. We've seen it, too, but been on the barcamp cologne this weekend and so there was no time to solve. But today we're back and by tomorrow eventing this problem should be solved...
  • Carsten Pötter
    BTW, there is a design issue with Feedbuddy which should be solved one way or another. If someone adds all available contact options (Xing, Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook) the link to their website/blog is outside the border. I can provide a screenshot if you want.
  • Carsten Pötter
    Yep, I am aware of the Facebook app (not tried it yet, though) and also that there is no limit anymore. Nice one :)
  • hello Carsten, now there's no limit of feeds anymore. And after a lot of blogposts requested a facebook app, we sat down and did what was wanted:

    There’s a feedbuddy app available in facebook now! (visit http://apps.facebook.com/feedbuddy)

    Of course still beta (alpha?), but already usable :-) Try it out and find more of your feedbuddies in facebook, too!

    Greetz, Marion
  • Carsten Pötter
    Ah, cool that you have lifted the limit. However for some users that's still not enough, e.g. I have subscribed to about 300 feeds (all added last night) plus some more personal ones like Upcoming feeds,... Too many feeds, I know. ;)
  • hi,

    and thanks for your very detailed post about feedbuddy.de. We've actually lifted the limit up to 150 last night, so if you have any feeds left, you can automatically upload them now ;-)

    By the way, a very interesting and actually really new feature is the fact, that you do not only share your feeds, but you get to know other readers and interesting feeds automatically! So it's not only about feed sharing, but feed and buddy matching :-) Find new interesting people and feeds at feedbuddy! Check out anyone :-)
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