Toluu & Social Median

Here are two more RSS’esque readers for you to ponder both of which are truly web 2.0 power tools because they harness the power of the crowd. Toluu likes to learn from you while Social Median has a fresh take on how you select articles.

Toluu

Ok so I cheated a little bit, Toluu isn’t a stand alone RSS feed reader, it actually plugs into your existing feed reader and opens a host of social aspects to your reader. You essentially are sharing what you read with others and they share with you what they are reading. It is a great way to discover new articles that are filtered to be something that you are interested in and approved by people who have similar interests as you.

Toluu does require that you be able to download your OPML file (a file that has all your existing feeds in a list) from your existing feed reader and upload it to Toluu. This is not difficult and there is plenty of documentation on how to do this for almost every feed reader. A good feature if you are just starting or have already imported your feed list and just need to add another feed to both is a bookmarklet (a bookmark button that you easily drag into you easily drag onto the bookmark bar of your browser) that lets you add feeds easily to both your existing RSS reader and Toluu simultaneously.

All of this is great if you have contacts but how do you get contacts? Toluu has a great feature called “matches” that

In short Toluu’s strength lies in it’s ability to harness the power of your contacts to help you filter what you read as well as help you discover important information that you may not have found otherwise.

+ Very social, allowing filtering and discovery from your circle of contacts
+ Not really all that much to do just upload your OPML file and your already going
+ It learns as you and your contacts filter, the more activity you have the more it learns what you like and dislike
+ Doesn’t try to replace your current RSS reader, just enhance it

- You already need an RSS feed for it to work
- Not a traditional layout for RSS feeds so it takes time to get used to

For more information on Toluu check out this article.

Social Median

Unlike many RSS feeds Social Median only gives you articles from your areas of interest that other people have recommend and not from a specific website, its all filtered and voted on so you get only the best articles. Instead of having an application or a website that you go to to get your articles they are sent via email at specified times of your choosing. This makes reading articles less linear and more explorative and social. Is one better than the other? Really its apples and oranges and dependent on your preferences and if you are me you will use both styles.

Social Median really focuses on the social aspect of RSS feed reading and that is a tricky endeavor because when it is socially based it relies on the crowd to help the cream of articles rise to the top. If the crowd doesn’t exist the tool is essentially useless and fortunately there is a real good growth trend for social median.

+ Great way to discover articles outside of your regular RSS jaunts
+ RSS coming to you via your email
+ Great filtering based on what others are reading and enjoying
+ Easy way to discover new social connections based on similarities with what you look for in articles

= You will most definitely miss some good articles but also gain ones that you may never have discovered

+ Strength of filtering is based on the crowd

- Not as thorough as a regular RSS feed

Stay tuned for my finally of RSS readers where I show you how to set one up.