Postrank had been around for a couple of years; however, it’s been only recently when I learned about their offering. I can hardly list new services I’d enjoy to this extent, I think I haven’t been in such an astonishment since I signed-up for Dropbox, and that’s been… Two years ago, so to speak. And if it wasn’t for the news regarding the latest Google’s acquirement, I think I’d miss an excellent service!
Here’s an excerpt from the PostRank’s FAQ:
PostRank.com works like your personal aide or assistant, filtering and ranking your feeds based on a number of criteria to help you read what matters.
Best of all, you can use PostRank, keep all your RSS feeds, and continue to use your favorite RSS reader with your personalized settings. Simply substitute our customized feed URLs when subscribing to feeds and you’re ready to go. You can also track feeds, find a site’s best content, and browse the archives on our site.
Sounds like marketing fluff, huh? Actually, it’s a wonderful technology. I’ll provide you with a proper description so you get better idea:
Postrank offers a browser add-on for Google Reader, extending the functionality with something RSS readers had been missing ever since the first one came into existence — an option providing the means to filter all uninteresting stuff out of your eyesight. Now this is what I call significant progress!
With PostRank, the never-ending pile of rubbish with an occasional gem (social bookmarking, various news outlets, planet news aggregators, etc — the “frequently updated” category) can be instantly reduced to stuff that matters only. The outcome: something you can actually enjoy. No need to scroll over nine out of ten headlines anymore. It’s a snap now, just select to filter by PostRank score!
The technology behind PostRank’s score system seems to be pretty sophisticated. Their algorithm manages to produce decent results, even for slightly less popular subscriptions. I suppose it’s certainly more advanced than, say, Twitter mention counter; and unsurprisingly — it’s not open source. The Data Services Agreement explicitly prohibits reverse engineering.
Nifty stuff. There’s only so little we can learn.
