Laurie McGinley: “Cullect is so smart that it doesn’t need APML.”
Following up her initial impressions, Laurie McGinley just published a flattering review of Cullect entitled: Cullect, Simplify Your Reading Life
A couple of my favorite bits:
” I only have time to read three posts, I can be assured that reading the first three posts in my Cullect reading list will be satisfying and relevant to my interests.”
“Now that I have had a chance to play with it, I see that Cullect is a service that is worth paying for. It will allow me to collect articles, read them on my own schedule and feel assured that what I am reading is relevant to my interests.”
Thanks Laurie.
You made my day.
Step 1. Make a Great Product, Step 2. Charge for It.
Live from this past weekend’s Startup School, Phil Crissman sent me this via Twitter:
Thankfully, David Heinemeier Hansson posted the video to his blog this morning.
Buckets, Context, Folders, Reading List, Potahtoes
As of this writing, I have at least 10 ‘buckets’ or reading lists for feeds: tech news, friends & family, podcasts, economics, feeds I’m test-driving, minnesota design blogs, ruby on rails programming blogs, my twitter feed, etc.
There’s somewhere around 300 feeds all together, but that number doesn’t mean much because I never see them all at once. I just see the whatever subset is in the river of news reading list/bucket I’m interested in at the moment.
Do I read all of them everyday? No. Nor do I feel any pressure to (i.e. aggregate unread count).
When I’m in the mood to see what’s new or important in any one of those buckets, I simply load up the url. If I stop looking, no harm, no foul. It’ll be there and the important stuff will keep bubbling to the top.
“It is relaxing to read in Cullect.”
Laurie McGinley has been putting Cullect through the paces this week curating Reading List 204, I asked her how it was going. Her full email reponse is below (emphasis mine):
“I am giving Cullect the most challenging test I can think of: show me photos I really like.
Most photo blogs don’t have a ton of text and I generally don’t care what the text says. So far I like the photos Cullect is pushing to the top.
I find myself reading slowly. I like that.
I’m in the habit of j-j-j-jaying in Google Reader. That tends to put me on edge a little.
I can tell that I am slowing down a little more every time I login to Cullect. It is relaxing to read in Cullect.
I really like how smooth the interface is, but it was too challenging to get set up. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen you gracefully zoom about the interface that same day, I think I would have given up.
There are a few things that could be more
userpeople friendly like:
- How to import an OPML file
- How to import an OPML file if you don’t have access to upload yours to a server
- It would be nice to see what the reading lists contained before I click on them. The numbers don’t mean anything to me. I would like to be able to name my reading list.
I haven’t explored much beyond my own reading list, but I am still very engaged and playing”.
Laurie’s impressions are consistent with what I hear from other people that have immigrated to Cullect: a more relaxing feed reading experience with room for improvement.
Cullect is Down - 16 Apr 2006 10:30 PM CST
While wrapping up some routine server maintenance this evening, I zigged when zagging was better. Now, Cullect is completely down.
I’m sorry.
As I write this, I’ve got a ticket in with the people who know how to make it better.
Historically, they’ve made it better very quickly.
UPDATE 17 Apr 2006 - 12:00 CST
After a good night’s rest, some breakfast, and some great help from Joyent, Cullect came back online this morning. I finished up the maintenance routine and it’s back to it’s usual self. Enjoy.
Cullect.com Members Support: EFF.org
The first monthly subscription with feed support came through the other day. I contacted the intended recipient (http://centralstandardtech.com) and they asked me to forward the donation on the Electronic Frontier Foundation and I happily handled the transaction.
While I expected some people would request the money to continue along, I didn’t expect it to be the very first feed supporter. A pleasant surprise.
As I’ve mentioned before, supporting a feed through your monthly Cullect subscription bumps up the importance of that feed in all the reading lists. So, Central Standard Tech got the boost (CST is an aggregator, making this even more interesting) and EFF got the bucks.
Makes me happy to see this working.
To make your favorite feeds more important, enter their URL in the ‘Your Membership Rate’ section within http://cullect.com/profile.
Cullect is Not a Comment Silo
You’ve probably noticed, Cullect doesn’t ask you to create a new account to use it. It assumes you write on a weblog (or Twitter, or Tumblr) and that you want to continue.
This means when you read something worth writing about in any Cullect.com reading list (whether you’re a curator or not) it’s easy to publish to your weblog (or Twitter, or Tumblr).
Now there may be cases where you’d prefer to write a comment on the article’s originating website rather than your own. Some feeds publish the url for each article’s comments in the comments tag. This is the ‘Comments’ link sometimes available in an article’s footer. Click that link and you’ll be sent to the article’s comment form.
Whether your reaction is published on the original site or your own, Cullect tries its best to connect them. Making it easy for everyone to follow the conversation, wherever it lives. It just doesn’t live here.
Evil Genius; Feed Stats Widget Sighting, Call for Support
Dave added the Cullect.com Feed Stats widget to Evil Genius Chronicles yesterday (right below his Google Shared Items widget). This is makes me super happy, because, as you can see, a number of Dave’s posts are recommended reading within Cullect. His widget effectively shows one of the promises and intentions of the Feed Stats widget - creating a ‘Best of Your Website’ as determined by the members of Cullect.com.
Also notice the $0/month donated by 0 patrons in his widget.
We need to change that. Join Cullect.com and forward a percentage of your membership to Dave. It’ll make him even more important. The easiest way to do this: click the ‘Start a New Cullect.com Reading List with Evil Genius Chronicles‘ link in Dave’s widget.
Tech~Surf~Blog: Another Cullect Feed Stats Widget Sighting
I just a tweet from Graeme Thickins:
According to the widget, as of this writing, Graeme’s Tech~Surf~Blog is in 6 reading lists, with 1 recommended post. Look for the ‘Tech~Surf~Blog at Cullect.com’ Feed Stats widget right below the ‘Technorati’ badge in the right column.
If you like Graeme’s writing and haven’t become a paying member of Cullect.com yet, then click the ‘Start a New…’ link in Graeme’s widget. Tech~Surf~Blog will then be pre-populated in the ‘Support You Favorite Blogger’ field.
Fear of an Evil Genius
If you’re watching your server logs for the Cullect.com robot you’ll notice v1.2 is code named ‘Fear of an Evil Genius’ to commemorate Dave Slusher and a feature he inspired (a feature I’ve developed, tested, and am still gun shy about flipping on).
This project has gone through many iterations. Dave saw screenshots of the very, very first. He’s challenged my thinking on the project throughout, and I greatly appreciate that.
Thanks Dave.