Site Update (2009-02-06)

I have rolled out a new update for FeedJournal Reader, improving the GUI and layout. These are the major changes:

• Improved parsing of non-standard feed URLs (Thanks, Robert!)
• Added web and feed URL to the web interface (Thanks, Tony!)
• Repositioned the delete button so that new users won’t have to hunt it down.

In addition, I also updated the blog post links on the feedjournal.com to post to this blog.

New FeedJournal LinkedIn Group

Are you on LinkedIn and love FeedJournal? Now you have a chance to express your love by joining the brand new FeedJournal LinkedIn group! This way you can showcase the FeedJournal logo on your profile page, engage in forum discussions, and connect with other users of the service.

FeedJournal Publisher Does E-Mail

A small but often requested feature has been added to FeedJournal Publisher. It is now possible to define e-mail recipients that will be sent new issues of generated newspapers as attachments. Please try out the new function and let me know how it works.

This feaure is available to all FeedJournal Publisher Gold members.

Master New Media Reviews FeedJournal

Robin Good's Master New Media site took a deep look at FeedJournal today. Daniele Bazzano is writing about his experiences using FeedJournal Reader and Publisher. In a well-researched review he also pits FeedJournal against the competition.

Full Articles from The Guardian in RSS Format

Last week, UK newspaper giant The Guardian took the bold step of introducing full articles in their RSS feeds. This first in the industry is a very welcome move to FeedJournal Reader users, who have struggled to include full news articles in their personalized newspapers. Finally, there is a reliable news source to hook up with to get news in FeedJournal format. Let's hope that more major news sites follow their lead!

All sections of The Guardian are provided as RSS feeds. You find the feed URL in the Webfeed link to the top right of each web page (see image). Alternatively, you can add "/rss" to the end of any URL from The Guardian to get the to the full RSS version of that section. For example, the URL for the World news feed is http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/rss. More information about The Guardian's RSS feeds is available here.

Users that sign up for a free FeedJournal Reader account will automatically see The Guardian's World News section in their subscription list.

If you would like to further filter a feed, I recommend third-party web services, such as FeedRinse to only view articles that contain a specific keyword within a feed.

NAA on Personalized Newspapers

Newspaper Association of America has an interesting article on their site about personalized newspapers. The article is long, but interesting and well worth the read. It obviously focuses on delivering a printed newspaper to your door. While FeedJournal leaves the printing part to you and your own printer, it is great to see the subject being treated in this way. The article is available online.

How would you like to see your personal newspaper designed, printed and delivered?

Finishing September

I realized that I haven't posted during September so an update is due. From FeedJournal's perspective, I hope to be able to post exciting news soon. There are a couple of interesting collaboration projects in the works that could turn out really well. Stay tuned!

On the personal side I am getting ready to play the upcoming online chess tournament T37 for the Poisoned Pawns team. Wish me luck!