ResearchBuzz

Somehow when I spent so much time reviewing sites that allowed you to filter RSS feeds, I missed Feed Rinse, which is available at http://www.feedrinse.com/ . And I find when visiting the site now that the service is free, so there’s no time like the present…

To use Feed Rinse you’ll need to register, which requires only a user name, e-mail address, and password. Once you’re registered, you’ll be asked to set up a feed. You can set up one feed at a time or import an OPML file. The site says the free version is limited to five feeds, but since the whole service is free now, I’m not sure what that means.

Anyway, let’s use an example. I’m going to put in the RSS feed for lolcat site I Can Has Cheezburger?. Once I’ve put in the feed Feed Rinse allows me to set up rules.

I can allow feed entries to appear in the feed based on keywords, or block feed entries from the feed based on keywords. I can also block or allow based on the start or end of the feed. I can also narrow the restriction down to body, title, tag, or author. So if I wanted to restrict my lolcat feed just to those pictures with invisible items, I could generate a rule that allowed only those lolcats that have invisible in the title. You can set up one condition or several (block several keywords, allow only a group of keywords, etc.)

Once you’ve set up your filters, Feed Rinse implements them immediately. When you click on the RSS symbol next to the feed name, Feed Rinse gives you the option to get a feed aimed toward several different readers: Google, Bloglines, etc. (There’s a plain one for “other” — I could never get that one to display.)

I liked how easy this was to use, and how the filters were powerful but implemented through a set of simple pulldowns. Recommended if you have a few feeds you want to filter.

You know, just because I’m not posting every day doesn’t mean I don’t think about search engines obsessively. Just because I’m spending more time playing with a pallet jack than a keyboard doesn’t mean that I don’t have endless discussions with my husband about which search engine should buy which company (well, at least until his eyes roll back in his head. I usually stop then.)

So I’ve been devoting a lot of brain cells to the Google/FeedBurner rumors. Turns out they were true; FeedBurner confirms that it’s been purchased by Google; the blog post is a lot more interesting than the FAQ. (And has a sadly corporate giant-company ring to it; I can imagine FeedBurner answering the “What are the terms of the acquisition? How much did Google pay?” question with “Oh no you didn’t! Sorry, we’ve written it all down in our Hello Kitty diary and thrown away the key.”)

In a way this was absolutely unavoidable. FeedBurner is one heck of a company; SOMEONE was going to acquire it if at all possible . However if I were someone trying to make a living off my blog this might make me uneasy. I might see selling RSS ads to FeedBurner and putting Google ads on my site as making sure I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket. And then Google goes and buys the other basket….

What surprises me, after a little poking around, is how much FeedBurner/Google integration there is already. Feedsparks is a Google homepage gadget that shows trending for one or more Feedburner feeds with arrows to note trending up and trending down. The Google Code repository has several FeedBurner-related projects, though most of them do not specifically integrate with Google.

Blogosphere reaction has been interesting, with Andy Beard looking at both sides of the question, Search Engine Land filling in a few blanks, and Brad Feld, an early investor in FeedBurner, taking a look at it from that point of view .

What’s left right now? Putting aside the fact that it’s just about time for a new crop of gotta-see sites to come up, I’d say Technorati and IceRocket. There are sites like Zuula and Sphere that are interesting but just haven’t been around long enough. I don’t know why more people aren’t using IceRocket. Its blog search is quite good and the trending tool is awesome.

Feed43, the Web service that uses regular expressions to create extremely-customized RSS feeds of much coolness, is back providing a free service.

I will take all the credit for that — the free service was brought back about four days after I paid for a subscription.

To keep up with Feed43, you can read their blog at http://feed43.blogspot.com/ .