News aggregation sites aren't anything new to us. There are sites like Techmeme, Popurls, Techsted, Alltop, and more that get the job done. So when we took a look at Smashing Feeds we weren't all that excited about it, until we discovered something that the other sites don't have: Twitter and FriendFeed link aggregation.
Smashing Feeds happens to be just like any other news aggregator. It uses the Google AJAX feed API for feed creation and management to aggregate news from a ton of various sources. It doesn't require users to signup, but it's not customizable and the UI isn't something we're goo-goo gah-gah over. The aggregated news coverage sites are separated into categories such as Technology, Business, Productivity, Web 2.0, and more. None of these sections are new, but their "Tweet" section is a definite eye catcher.
The 'Tweet' section of Smashing Feeds has a host of Twitter and FriendFeed related news. This section sports links aggregated from FriendFeed with usernames included in the headlines, links to what seems to be random tweets from Twitter, the latest links to make it on TwitLinks, Intwition, Tweetmeme River, TwitBuzz, Twemes, and the Techmeme Firehose Twitter stream. Basically, you can get the hottest and most popular Twitter links from various services all on one page.
Bouncing from site to site that aggregates the hottest or most popular links on Twitter can be a chore. Users usually end up just picking on site and sticking with it. The 'Tweet' section of Smashing Feeds solves this problem. However, the randomness of some of the aggregated sites are weird. Why are random twitter messages and FriendFeed messages being aggregated as news? I'd suggest they stick to the sites that do most of the aggregation for them and aggregate those sites for the 'Tweet' section. Beyond that, Smashing Feed isn't offering anything better than the competition.
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i visit SF once in a day and i like this site as it has limited quality blog feeds rather than mashing up with many. It is similar to techmeme, however techmeme filter common stories and display them. Tweet is really good section for hot news but needs to improve the feed resources.
Posted by: Varun | June 15, 2008 12:47 PM
You do know about http://twitterati.alltop.com/, right?
Thanks,
Guy
Posted by: Guy Kawasaki | June 15, 2008 2:01 PM
Living in downstate Illinois, not many places have cable, and even fewer places can tune in WGN. Over the past few weeks I've been watching the Cubs on MLB http://cubs.mlb.com/ for pitch by pitch coverage (sweet app) - then I'll read up on all the news at Feedables - http://cubs.feedables.com - theyve had a Twitter aggregator for weeks now and during the game its interesting to see fan comments real time.
Posted by: Frank T | June 15, 2008 8:30 PM
BTW news aggregator. Do you know http://www.twitterpark.com ? Is in alpha status but running.
Posted by: LeserEins | June 16, 2008 12:17 AM
Site has nothing new to offer, however it is good that it has limited good blog feeds.
Posted by: John | June 16, 2008 11:56 AM
@John : It's true... it is good to scan latest news from limited good resources, rather than have so many blogs like alltop.. where it is difficult to decide which to read and which to ignore
Posted by: Ritesh | June 17, 2008 4:07 AM