Toluu Just Got Better: New Feed Page Views and More!
June 11, 2008 – 9:02 am
Many of my regular readers will be familiar with Toluu because I have linked to it quite a bit, especially in my RSS Reset articles. Toluu is a useful, unique utility that allows you to build a portfolio of RSS feeds that you subscribe to, and then using a matching algorithm, receive recommendations for feeds that you might like and other Toluu users that have similar tastes as you.
My use of Toluu has grown these past few weeks to the point where it has become a permanent addition to the list of useful sites I hit almost every day. So imagine how pleased I was to hear that Toluu was going to add some great new features today!
New Feed View Tabs
Caleb is the primary developer for Toluu and he’s been hard at work improving the service. The big update is definitely the new feed page views. Whenever you click on a feed (you can find mine here), there are now some additional tabs you can view:
The tabs are mostly self-explanatory. Recent gives you a chronological view, starting with the most recently article. Popular uses some Toluu magic to bring the most popular articles up to the top. Finally, Subscribers lets you see who is currently subscribed to that feed in Toluu (I will ignore the fact that only three of you are subscribed to my feed through Toluu! For shame!)
In addition to the tabs are the ability to add a feed to your RSS reader, recommend a feed, and add a feed to your favorites. These options haven’t changed.
Speed Improvements
Caleb and company have also improved the speed on the contacts page. Caleb says that it is now 3 times faster getting the list of contacts for your perusal.
In order to get to your contacts list, log in, and then on your profile page you will see a list of contacts on the right side. Simply click on the word Contacts or View all and you will get there. On an interface design aside: I just noticed that the word "Contacts” isn’t underlined – I will make the suggestion that it is to hint to users that it is, in fact, a link.
Benefit
These changes aren’t just cosmetic, they add real functionality and use to the site. Caleb is all about enabling people to find interesting new feeds out there to read, and making those feeds easy to add to your reader. To that end the new tabs add a new dimension to the feed browsing experience. The Popular tab gives you a quick way to take a look at a selection of the best articles from a particular feed, and the Subscribers tab will enable you to find other followers of a feed that you may not have noticed before. Once you add those people as contacts, you get to peruse their selection of feeds and find some great stuff!
I encourage you to go out and re-visit Toluu, sync up your OPML, grab the bookmarklet (found on the OPML import page) and make use of the new features!
25 Invitations
Don’t have an account yet? Not a problem! Caleb has hooked me up with 25 extra invites to use the service. Please comment below with your email address or email me at phil (at) scribkin.com and I’ll be happy to send an invite your way!
Tags: Bookmarklet, feed, new features, rss, toluuRelated posts
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Caleb, do you see this? :)
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Caleb
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Would love an invite if you have any spare.
Cheers!
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Great discussion of the new features just launched. I am so glad to have seen you really integrate Toluu into your daily workflow. These new features are really aimed, as you pointed out, at helping people find more interesting feeds and people.
Your point about the 'Contacts' header link/underline is well taken, and is going on our list of UI tweaks to make. We are working to refine the UI every-time we work on a new page or an existing page. The tab system was introduced a few weeks ago with the Activity page and has been carried through to the Feed page now.
PS I am sure your subscribers will increase, you just have to invite everyone you know reads the blog :)
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