Thank You All !

Note: If you're already a Feedster user and you know what it is then you probably don't need to read this and you can move on.  If you are new to Feedster or wondering what's the big deal, here's what people other than myself have to say about it.

You know when people outside BlogLand ask me what I've been doing lately and I say "Building a search engine for 'the changing web'", they look at me and then they ask "Does that pay well?".  My usual answer ranges from "Magnificently!" (sarcastic) to "Not at all" (honest).  Then they ask why.  Well its hard to explain at times but the thing that really keeps me going are comments like these:

The real killer app for RSS isn't any aggregator, though. It's search. Google may be king of the search engines, but Feedster is the shining knight. The other day, when I wanted to look up something that was happening right at that moment, Google had nothing. Google is not fresh, it is deep and smart. Feedster, on the other hand, is extremely fresh, since it reads RSS feeds. I searched Feedster for the same thing and found relevant information on several other blogs that had been posted just the previous day.

When it comes to searching, Feedster and Google are two great tastes that go great together. So if you want to be found, make sure you have an RSS feed that Feedster knows about. And when you want to find something in the blogosphere, remember that Feedster is your friend.

Hats off to Scott and the Fuzzy Group, creator of Feedster, for not just coming up with the great idea, but implementing it so well.

Nosuch

Somewhere I found a link to Feedster, an RSS search engine. I'm going to punt it as the next Google, even though Feedstering things doesn't ring quite as nice as googling them.

Martin Little

Feedster boerjar TA fart ordentligt nu, ni vet det som hette Roogle more under utvecklingen och index RSR rss feed. Ett day nu har the aeven dragit ihop more dagensbilder vilket aer EN specially skoj detalj.

(Can anyone out there translate this for me?  I vaguely think its positive but if it isn't then I'd really like to know)

Tralla.org

Maybe you use one of the new selective blog search engines like feedster or blog link analysis engines like blogdex and technorati, or even a blog extended family tracker like blogstreet. Maybe you see the patterns emerging at a higher level. Blogs are now less interesting than the relations between them. Blogs are things to be aggregated, searched for patterns, ranked, indexed, analysed, those results being valuable to ordinary users as much as academics. What are bloggers tripping out on right now? Check blogdex. Feedster has a lag of about an hour, Google sometimes as much as a month.

Headmap via Ming

Scott just gave Feedster a new blog-image collector--I could hardly wait to get back and check it out--it is awesome!

Betsy

As announced by Scott today, try out Feedster Images.  It's cool.

Jeremy

Scott's Feedster has made the blogrolls quite a bit lately, and while definitely cool, it wasn't something I was following all that much, but, while I was telling him to call AppleCare to get his iBook diagnosed over the phone yesterday, he showed me Feedster Images. 

I think Feedster Images is totally cool... in fact, I'm blogrolling it.

John

Via StronglyTyped, I see that Google now has a web log specific search page. It's not nearly as good an index as Feedster; it misses a lot.

James Robertson

Feedster does it again!!

Library Stuff!!!

Comments like these are why I'm working so hard on Feedster.  Thanks everyone. 

-- Scott

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Feedster Images :: Coming Up for Air -- And I Think the Result is Good

Wow.  I've been grinding on Feedster Images a lot.  It was the "just one more tweak", "just one more tweak" syndrome and my cat Virgil just lifted his paw, smacked me in the head and said "E N O U G H !!!  Ship it ! (and play with me)".  So there you have it -- the cat thought it was ready for release.  How cool is that ?

Seriously, check out the much improved Feedster Images.  Its must more "Big Search Engine Name Here" Images like with:

• Better display -- a grid of images
• Better duplicate filtering
• Better removal of "junk" imagery like icons, buttons, etc

Caveats: Ideally I would have run the batch processing routines for another day or two before shifting to the new version of this script.  When you travel back in time, you're going to see image sizing problems depending on whether or not the image was batch processed yet.  So keep that in mind. 

I also have to extend a great big thank you to Theresa over at Dandelion Wine.  She correctly pointed out that we should be instructing bloggers that it's very bad form to pull images from other blogger's sites directly since it uses their bandwidth.  She's right and I made a 1st pass at that disclaimer.  It may not be written perfectly and feel free to drop me suggestions and I'll see what I can do.

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All Dressed Up But I Can't Quite Take It Out Yet ...*

I pulled a 5:00 am to 7:30 pm coding day yesterday -- pretty much utterly, completely hard core.  It felt great and I've got a nice improvement to Feedster Images for later today.  I'm almost ready to turn it on now but I have to run out to do some errands and I'm experienced enough with web stuff to know this factoid:

Never, ever turn something on and then leave the building.

And then the obvious corollary to this is:

Changing a cron job and then attending a matinee is asking for God to drop that big ass anvil right on your server

So more stuff later today.  I showed a preview of some (but not these) changes to Kalsey and he approved.  That makes me feel great.  When you work from home as much as I do, you're often in a vacuum from the feedback that you get from peers.  Nice to be able to get feedback from time to time.

* Yes I was listening to Meat Loaf this morning "All Dressed Up and No Place to Go".

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