How do I create a page full of feeds?

December 18, 2007 2:22 PM

Are there any simple sites that will help me combine a bunch of (RSS) feeds into a new page?

I'm gonna be teaching my mother (and eventually other teachers) how they can blog and use wikis etc. I'll also be teaching her how quickly share links with others using del.icio.us or Google Notebook, and share interesting items from Google Reader/Bloglines. The problem is that all these things produce different feeds, and it'd be nice if she could have a page that she can set up that combines all the feeds into a single dynamic page that's constantly updating as she tags new stuff. All the different tools are useful in their own way - a blog for her own thoughts/opinions, Notebook for sharing pages and snippets, Reader for sharing other blog posts, but none have a simple way to combine together to form a 'super-feed'.

I realise there are many many ways to do this:
yahoo pipes
feeddigest
simplepie

But I need something with the simplicity of all the other tools I've mentioned. There has to be no setup, it's got to be free, and hosted. I thought I might be able to use Google Pages, or blogger, but neither let you pull in a feed and combine it with other feeds as new content.

I look forward to hearing if anyone has found something like this - I don't even know what phrases to Google with.

posted by joshnunn to technology (18 answers total)

Google Reader is pretty good at doing this... no? Plus, now you can "share" each item worth sharing and produce a separate page with all of your shared items.
posted by nitsuj at 2:27 PM on December 18, 2007

Netvibes ?
posted by iamabot at 2:28 PM on December 18, 2007

Pageflakes?
posted by Joleta at 2:35 PM on December 18, 2007

PageFlakes
iGoogle
posted by HotPatatta at 2:39 PM on December 18, 2007

I know you specified 'no setup' but if you're already running Wordpress, the Feedwordpress plugin is exactly what you're after.
posted by tapeguy at 2:50 PM on December 18, 2007

Netvibes!
posted by baphomet at 3:41 PM on December 18, 2007

You're using Google Reader already; any reason it won't suffice for this too? You have to enter each RSS subscription individually, but all your subscriptions are viewable on a single page and it's pretty clear when there's new content. Is the problem that each feed is (mildly) individual instead of just one massive aggregate?
posted by Nelsormensch at 4:28 PM on December 18, 2007

Nelsormensh: Yes, Reader can share feeds, but I want the feed from reader PLUS the feed for Notebook, PLUS the blogger feed all on a seperate page (that someone can then subscribe to).

tapeguy: this is what I want, but hosted so my mum/a teacher/anyone else doesn't have to set anything up themselves, but can have their own central page to share with anyone interested. Kind of a poor-man's feedwordpress.

Everyone else: Is the page I create publicly shareable from any of the tools you've mentioned? Can a netvibes/pageflakes/igoogle page be shared with the world at large?
posted by joshnunn at 4:58 PM on December 18, 2007

Looking at Pageflakes now. It looks promising...
posted by joshnunn at 5:05 PM on December 18, 2007

Pageflakes... kinda sorta no. It seems it'd be tricky to use for first timers, and the layout isn't 'bloggy' enough for what I'm trying to put together.

The closest I can come is maybe creating a shared Reader page with the couple of feeds and the other Reader feed (looping back upon itself almost), but it seems inelegant, and the page that reader produces is ugly and squashed.
posted by joshnunn at 5:37 PM on December 18, 2007

I believe you can do that with iGoogle. You can set up tabs, each with its own feeds and widgets. Then you can share the tabs.
posted by HotPatatta at 9:08 PM on December 18, 2007

HotPatatta: Nope, you can share the tab with friends, but you can't make it public.
posted by joshnunn at 10:25 PM on December 18, 2007

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're trying to do, but it sounds like friendfeed might be right. It's still in private beta, but it only took about a week for me to get an account when I signed up. It creates a single public feed showing things you've wishlisted on amazon, shared on google reader, posted to del.icio.us, posted on a blog, etc etc etc (you choose which services to add to the broadcast).
posted by jacalata at 12:29 AM on December 19, 2007

Thanks jacalata, friendfeed's probably the closest yet, but the links lack detail. I really want to re-blog stuff as I find it without having to fire up blogging software to do it, but rather bookmark/del.icio.us/clip it when I find it, and have the feed of that service combined with my other feeds.

I think I may have established that this does not exist in a form that is:
a) easy to setup
b) similar to a classic blog
posted by joshnunn at 1:24 AM on December 19, 2007

Um, the link you have put in redirects me to a porn site.
posted by jacalata at 1:32 AM on December 19, 2007

But anyway, I don't know anything that does quite what you need, no. Good luck searching/creating!
posted by jacalata at 1:33 AM on December 19, 2007

Hi there,

First of all, check out www.tumblr.com - might be exactly what you're after. She can also use that as her regular "blogging platform" as well as pulling in content from del.icio.us and so on - I believe it lets you import any kind of feed.

If that doesn't work, you can probably use different simple tools to get the result you're after. Try googling "combine RSS feeds" for tools that will combine all the feeds into one single feed, and then something like "publish RSS feed as html" for something that'll spit the combined feed into a web page. (I've used Feed Digest before and it works just fine.) The only thing about using a couple of separate services is the increased likelihood of something falling over and refresh/lag time (as the tools won't be constantly polling the RSS feeds, so it will take a while for new content to appear.) But you can of course educate your mother about this, it's just the natural reaction of nervous newcomers tends to be "I've done the thing, why isn't it showing up yet?"

But, frankly, I think Tumblr will do everything you need! Good luck...
posted by so_necessary at 8:57 AM on December 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yep. Tumblr. That's the thing. Simple, straightforward. Creates a nice page to visit. Yep. You win them all.
posted by joshnunn at 9:15 PM on December 19, 2007