Kristin Scott

My head is beginning to spin with all the social networking, blogging, RSS stuff with feeds and reads and whew! And here comes yet another. Shyftr, which means “Share Your Feeds Together,” is a new “social RSS reader.” What’s different about it is that this feed reader combines RSS feeds you read (or other media stream feeds you follow) with a social network. Some laud the new service or at least see its potential, such as like Louis Gray and Robert Scoble; others, such as Tony Hung of Deep Jive Interests says it crosses a line.

I just subscribed to it, so I’ve not yet got an informed opinion. But it seems Shyfter is attempting to not only aggregate, read, and organize all the feeds people read, but allow you to share and comment on the feeds in one central location.

Considering all the various websites, media streams, blogs, social networking sites, and then all the feeds that connect us to all the above, and of course, the numerous feed readers (how many feed readers are YOU subscribed to?), it might be a worthwhile endeavor. We’ll see . . .

My only complaint so far is that in order to subscribe feeds, you have to have the rss or atom feed url, which is a pain in the ass. I’d like to see them add some kind of search engine that hunts down the needed rss or atom feed once you’ve indicated the website. Bloglines has this feature, which I like very much — keeps me from having to hunt and peck and click into infinity searching for the right bloody url.