Some of you might know I have been building my first web application for last couple of months in my spare time. I am releasing the application right now and as I promised its free and anyone can use it.
Before I describe how the application actually works let me just step back and talk about RSS feeds first. I can from statistics for this blog that there are hundreds returning readers but there is only small group which uses my RSS Feed to get the content. I am guessing it might be because of two reasons. One – you do not know exactly what RSS feed is and how to use it. Two – you know how to use RSS feeds but you do not like to read sites in RSS reader as a plain text.
READ Plus should help you in both cases.
Lets start with the first group. IF you do not know what RSS feed and how it works let me tell you. It is very simple and could be very useful for you. Every blog has RSS feed. RSS feed is basically another way how you can get content from almost any site. Once you put RSS feed from any site to your reader (for example Google Reader) you can be informed about new articles on that site without visiting the site itself. And If you are interested in thirty sites you can put all thirty RSS feeds into your reader and your reader will tell you if there is any new article on any of those thirty sites so you do not have to go one by one to check if there is actually new article on one of those sites. Now you probably asking – but how do I get the RSS feed from sites? Trust me it is easy. Usually you can see links or icons on sites which says RSS or Feed. Orange is usually the colour people choose. But what is even more simple you can see in you browser if there is feed on a site. There is an icon in the address bar, usually at the very end of it. Clicking that icon will give you the link to RSS feed. I will tell you later how you can use this link if you decide to use READ Plus.
Now the second group. You know what RSS is and how it works but you do not like to read blogs and content from other sites on blank page with no design. It is my case as well so I am with you here. There are even blogs which tweaks or completely change design for every single post. Very good example is Jason Santa Maria. But it is still also very nice to know if there is a new article on a site or not because that saves a lot of time.
So here comes my solution for you
READ Plus is location based reader and I will come to location bit later. First of all you can use it as simple RSS reader which allows you to add all your RSS feeds of sites you are interested in. It provides graphical interface where you can quickly flip between articles and pick only the one which grabs your attention. Clicking on read more link will get you to the original site so you can read the article and enjoy the design at the same time. When you finish reading the article you can delete it from READ Plus. You should also delete articles which you are not interested to read so they do not appear there anymore.
As I said I will came back to the point how to use the RSS link which you get by clicking on RSS icon in your browser. Once you register and login you will see button “Your Feeds” in a main navigation. This is the place where all your feeds will be displayed and you will also be able to add new feeds from the same place. Just paste the url to the “Add new feed” input and hit the button. You will see soon your feed name will appear on the right site. Clicking on it will get you the latest articles from that feed. Next time you come to “Your Feeds” page you will see number in brackets after the feed name. The number displays how many articles are in this feed. That is why I was saying that you should delete the articles once you read them so when you have read all articles from you feeds and you came next time to “Your Feeds” page you will see in which feed there is a new article so you do not have to go one by to check them.
Do you have your own blog? Promote yourself.
If you have your own site which provides RSS feed you can use READ Plus to promote your site. The only thing you need to do is to put your feed into your feeds. Latest 100 articles from all users will appear on home page and your dashboard once you log in. But what more you can put your articles on map. Lets say you are from United States and your article is about outsourcing in India. You should put the article to India not to US. All articles will appear on map in your dashboard and every user will see them and be able to click on them and read them. At the moment all articles will appear on the map. Once we have more users I can display only latest articles for this month or something like that. As you can image from this simple example we could all build World News Map. If there will be lots of blogger who put their articles on the map we can could see in one place what is going on in the world. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Do not forget to put yourself on a map as well. All users who specify their location will appear on the home page map. As you can see its not just a reader it is also tool which allows you to promote your content and it will also generate traffic to your site if you put your articles on the map so others could see them and follow them.
Its beta
You may found out that in a few cases you are not able to use particular RSS Feed. It happen to me in one or two cases and I have not find out yet why is that but in 95% cases you should be able to use your favorite RSS feeds.
Questions and answers
I have also set up Get satisfaction page. You can get there clicking on Q&A link in the footer of the application.
Design
Just a few words about design. I have tried to design user interface which feels fresh and brings positive feelings. I have tried to simplify the interface so there is its fully focused on its main functions. On almost every page you have big help button which brings you a more details for that particular page. You might also find out map button which allows you to see the world map in a much bigger size.
Hope you will enjoy it. Let me know what you think.
