I had a very useful recent conversation with Scott Rafer, CEO at Feedster, who took the time to explain its capabilities to me, a non-technical person. If you already know Feedster this post may not have new stuff but if you have not used it this overview may be a useful introduction to a high powered search tool. Feedster only looks at information in RSS feeds that are specific to single items within a web page such as a blog post whereas most search engines such as Google look at the entire web page itself and not at the RSS feeds. This allows for great precision in the search results.
In addition, Feedster focuses on current stuff. It is ideal for people who are already knowledgeable about a topic and want to keep up with the latest stuff in domains that are rapidly changing such as politics, news, sports, technology, etc. It does not provide the top ten for all time for novices, an approach that often could describe other internet search engines. Feedster’s search engine hits over a million sites about every 45 minutes to find the new stuff. It now documents new items for over 15 different types of internet sites such as traditional news (e.g., BBC New York Times) and blogs,
Because of the proliferation of RSS outside the blog world, Feedster recently launched a blog only search for those who want to limit the targets. As Scott Rafer said in the press release:
“Feedster’s harnessing of RSS is changing search and the expectations of Internet searchers,” said Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster. We launched blogs.feedster.com in response to user demand to offer blog search results separated from the news and e-commerce information in our system.”
Feedster also offers an array of blogs to address different needs. Scott Johnson on Feedster has been the main voice of Feedster since its beginnings. Other blogs include Feedster Hacks, run by Steven Cohen which offers insights to the developer community and posts hacks sent to Steven. Feedster Support is the vehicle for user support and answer questions emailed to feedstersupport@feedster.com. In addition, individual employees have their own personal blogs which are listed on the Feedster web site.
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