Core Data

I just launched a new service called "Top Feeds" that generates RSS feeds from the content of the top feeds in each category on the site. Go to any category on chordata.info and click the subscription button near the upper-right corner of the page to subscribe. As the top feeds in a category change, you'll automatically get content from the best available sources.

While the exact formula I use to pick the top feeds in each category is confidential and subject to change, I can tell three things about it:

1) It has nothing whatsoever to do with sponsorship.

2) It's not simply sorted by average rating, like the category pages.

3) It is heavily influenced by the ratings you give the feeds. So if there's a feed there that doesn't belong, rate it and some more deserving feeds from the category, and help improve the top feeds feed quality.
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I've just finished a mini-makeover of Chordata, adding member profiles and a few design tweaks.

In your profile, you can enter a link to your homepage and a "bio" (or whatever you want to say to people), and if you choose, you can display a list of RSS and Atom feeds you've submitted, and a list of the feeds you've rated. The list is of course sorted with the highest rated feeds first, so it acts sort of like a "recommended feeds". You can individually mark any feed or rating "private" to prevent it from being displayed in your list.

As for designed changes, the header was revamped to remove some of the less-relevant menu items, add some more-relevant menu items in a new sub-menu, and use less space. On on the individual feed pages, I've added a link to the submitter's profile. Of course it only shows up if the submitter has a public feeds list and hasn't marked that particular feed submission private.
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We've reduced the price of our "Linkback" service, which links Chordata's feed directory to your website as if you had your own directory. The service replaces the default "Jawfish" subscribe links that are displayed in the feed pages with links that point back to your site for visitors that come to Chordata from your site.

The new pricing is as follows:

1 Month: $11.97 (formerly $30)
1 Year: $119.97 (formerly $300)
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I've implemented two changes to the category pages on Chordata: paging and nofollow links for low rated feeds.

Yesterday I added paging so that only 20 feeds show at a time. This will result in faster load times and less probability of really long text in one cell of the table making the whole page look out of whack. On some of the more popular categories, this is a big improvement.

Today as I was approving feeds (and rejecting some), it occurred to me that sometimes I'll approve a somewhat dubious feed, giving it the advantage of the doubt, and I probably let some splogs through. But I really don't want to reward sploggers by giving them PageRank. So what I've done is update the category page so that it automatically adds 'rel="nofollow"' to the link pointing to the feed page for any feed rated low enough to get sorted below the unrated feeds.

...now if we can just get more of the junky feeds rated down!

In another note, I'm back on the job of reviewing feeds (I'd been swamped for a while with paying work, and had let a lot of them pile up on the waiting list). I've decided to put in at least 15 minutes a day, which should be enough to chip away at the pile over time. Some days I may get in the groove and do more...we'll see.
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I recently upgraded my feed reviewing code and got caught up on approving new submissions. Then I started reviewing previously deferred submissions, and felt anew the pain that Ice Rocket (or some of their customers--I'm not certain who's to blame) has caused me. I must have rejected a couple hundred feeds about digital printing, all submitted to the "Business" category. Add to that perhaps thirty car parts and motorcycle feeds with titles that didn't match their content. At least those were submitted to the right categories. It used to be that all Ice Rocket generated feeds were submitted to the "Business" category, no matter what they were about. Sorry folks, but if you're going to submit feeds for your customers, you're going to have to do the work of getting the category right, or have them do it. Many an Ice Rocket feed has been rejected in part because it was, in such bad company, submitted to the wrong category. It's just way too much work to recategorize that many feeds.

Okay, I've vented. Back to work. Reject. Reject. Reject...
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One thing about Chordata has been subconsciously bugging me for a while, and today I recognized and fixed it: the sort order in the category pages. The problem was that all rated feeds were appearing before all unrated feeds. That's great for the highest rated feeds, which appear first, but I wanted the low rated...okay, I'll say it--crappy feeds to sort of fall off the bottom. So today, I updated the sort order. Now, any feed whose average rating is less than 2.1 falls to its proper place at the bottom of the list.

Now if we can just get more of the feeds rated...
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I suppose an RSS and Atom feed directory really isn't complete without its own weblog and feed, so here it is. I'll announce site news here, and perhaps comment on RSS and Atom from time to time, though Info Bite is more likely to see those entries. And stay tuned for an occasional peek into the future of Chordata. I've got some interesting plans...

Okay, I'll spill the beans on one of them right now. In a few months (sorry, I've got a number of other higher priorities), Chordata will launch an online feed reader. I've tried a number of Windows-based feed readers, and have glanced a little at other web-based readers (and have heard bad things about one of the big ones, which I won't name), and so far, I haven't found anything that could even pretend to rival NetNewsWire's user interface. If you're not a Mac user and haven't seen NetNewsWire, honestly, you don't know what you're missing. The Chordata feed reader won't be a clone of NetNewsWire by any means, but I will be building it with the benefit of having seen a truly powerful yet user friendly feed reader interface in action on a day to day basis. I'm really looking forward to getting it up and running and setting up accounts for a few family members. I haven't been able to coax them into the syndication age yet, but I think the Chordata feed reader may be just the ticket.
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