AideRSS was one of the first companies I really got excited about. I had (and have) done a lot of thinking about RSS as a market and how you would need to build a technology and a product in that space. When Ilya sent me an email about AideRSS, I loved it.
That glowing review was the first posts on StartupNorth that really generated significant feedback for me. Comments, email and phone calls from VCs and companies who wanted to know more about them. It was fun, and Ilya didn’t disappoint. He continued to build the company back then with Kevin Thomason and they pushed product out the door.
In the intervening year they have secured funding, Kevin has moved on and they are starting to make updates regularly. I have given Ilya a hard time in the last year about focusing on the product, but I did it knowing he could deliver. With a great team behind him now AideRSS has been doing partnerships.
Today they are launching PostRank.com, which is a promotional site for their PostRank system, and they are also introducing Thematic Postrank, their Google Reader Extension and a set of APIs that produce PostRank calculations to developers. This change means that PostRank is no longer just a component of the AideRSS website, but it is now an independent service that other applications will be able to use.
Thematic Postrank is a new service that helps cluster topic-specific blog posts together. I will be interested to see how good this service is. It could potentially be the start of a better Techmeme (my words, not theirs).
They are also expanding the list of sources that they draw from to calculate a PostRank score, adding clicks, views, Ma.gnolia, and Pownce.
Hi Jevon — Thanks for the coverage and your tenacious loyalty and high expectations. :)
We’re working on this being just the beginning. As you note, there’s some amazing opportunity out there, and the “space” is still so embryonic.
Keep the questions and feedback coming and the expectations high. It’s exactly what makes us better.
Hi Jevon — Thanks for the coverage and your tenacious loyalty and high expectations. :)
We’re working on this being just the beginning. As you note, there’s some amazing opportunity out there, and the “space” is still so embryonic.
Keep the questions and feedback coming and the expectations high. It’s exactly what makes us better.
As an outsider follower of AideRSS looking in I think the opportunity here in defining and evolving this space and solving this data volume problem is huge. Thanks for keeping us up to speed Jevon and keep pushing the envelope Melanie.
As an outsider follower of AideRSS looking in I think the opportunity here in defining and evolving this space and solving this data volume problem is huge. Thanks for keeping us up to speed Jevon and keep pushing the envelope Melanie.
AideRSS just got a lot better. I like the Google Reader extension.
AideRSS just got a lot better. I like the Google Reader extension.