or: RSS feeds, meet social networking.

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The first RSS readers in the market were desktop-based, you had to install in your computer to use it. Luckily, right after that, a lot of RSS readers started popping up on the web. Better for the users: it allow us to manage our reading list any place we have internet access, and not just on our computers.
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Sadly, the web-based RSS feeds still inherits a lot of desktop-based limitations, and below I tell how - with only two or three conceptual changes - those services can use the web to build a social network around it, creating a more useful system for the users and bloggers alike.

Reblog

• double filtering: add a “share” button below each post, and educate the users of its capabilites
• promote: make the shared page open by default, and allow users to promote it (invitations, badges, etc.)
• organization: allow tagging, even pre-populate fields if possible
• personal touch: allow users to add personal notes above the reblogged post
• bottom-up popular news: cluster tags in groups, create thematic pages (family, tech, politics, arts) with it. allow RSS feeds. allow rerebloging. rinse and repeat.

Great minds think alike

• favorites: open users’ subscription list to visitors
• reading habits: open reading trends, too
• profile: add subscription list + reading trends in a neat profile page, a la last.fm
• blog metrics: create blog profiles also, with global reading habits
• bragging rights: create blog metrics badges, invite blog authors to the party
• Nobody is an island: !important! mine the now open subscription list + reading trends, suggest new posts and blog subscriptions based on user trends, “people that read that blog also reads…”

Couch potato

for god’s sake, someone please create a remote controlled, full-screen RSS feed app. RSS reading touches the same neurons as tv-zapping, and I’d love to unglue my face from the computer screen, once in a while.

• desktop-based interface for the web-based RSS service, optimized for distant viewing (big fonts + simple, intuitive navigation)
• interface allows for reading, sharing, and basic tagging (if)
• controls multimedia posts (youtube videos, audio posts, etc)
• plugin for popular remote controlled apps: front row, apple tv, windows media player, mythtv

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This idea is free as a bird, go along and create it, and let us know. You don’t have to hire me to help you out (tho that would be nice, and i’d love to), but attribution is obligatory.