Znitch - custom RSS feeds made easy
I'm the first to admit that without RSS I couldn't read all the material I do every day, I just couldn't fit it in. But with new technologies come new arguments – full versus partial text, adverts in feeds – and now custom feed provider Znitch are warning that as more people move to aggregated readers it's the small bloggers that are losing traffic.
Low posting frequency and subsequent low fame are apparently leaving some bloggers "under the syndication radar". Znitch offers what, on the surface, amounts to keyword searching funnelling specific results into a personalised RSS feed.
"Instead of being inundated with a high volume of personally irrelevant posts from a handful of your favorite blogs, [Znitch] cherry picks content for you to read from an infinite number of blogs"
Now, NewsGator for one already offers what they call "Smart Feeds" that search the web for a specific search term, but with their free online account you only get one search at a time. Znitch is offering as many as you want – they expire in seven days unless you register – and they can be targeted at specific sites. Looking for a particular car part on an enthusiasts bulletin board? Znitch can search for the relevant keywords and save you visiting it multiple times during the day.
The only way to see how well these things work is to try them out, so that's just what I'm going to do. I'll let you know how it goes!