I am slowly making the shift from monitoring specific blogs in my Google Reader to monitoring specific keywords Web-wide. I am also increasingly in need of a service that offers RSS flexibility, i.e. that lets me customize the output feed through a variety of operators. When I heard about RSS Mixer, it sounded like something worth checking out.
RSS Mixer is in Alpha mode right now. It enables me to blend separate feeds into one single feed. The first interesting feature is the design of each feeds’ profile page:
I really like that the media feeds are separated and directly accessible through a media player (I can listen to them while reading other feeds). I can also embed the media feeds player and post it anywhere on the Web: very interesting idea. Overall, this is a very nice user-friendly way to display a feed’s content.
The sharing option is also pretty sweet: create a page of the feed for mobile access, embed the feed as a desktop widget, as a Web widget, or simply email it. The widget wizard makes it possible to create Apple, Yahoo!, Vista or Google widgets. The Web widget is Flash, and only the dimensions are customizable.
This is a good start for a service in alpha. As a suggestion, in the output feed, items should not be grouped by feeds: they should be sorted by pub date. Unfortunately for me, RSS Mix is not for managing RSS content, but I think it has a potential to become a nice place for power readers of online news to connect.