
Show HN: I made an RSS News Reader that prioritizes topics you care about - eugenv
https://www.zuperlist.com/
======
eugenv
Hello HN,

I've been working for a while on an intelligent RSS news reader. At its core,
it works just like any other RSS news reader: you subscribe to the sites that
you want to follow and you get delivered everything published there. The
difference is that the news aren't sorted chronologically, they're sorted by
how close they are to your interests. Zuperlist also remembers when you open
the web app and separates the news by these moments. When you open it, you see
what's new and noteworthy since your last visit. Another nice feature: related
news are grouped together.

There are some ways to bypass the recommendations engine:

\- you can mark specific sites as highlighted and see everything published by
them, before anything else

\- you can mark specific topics as highlighted and see everything that matches
them. For example, mark Bitcoin as highlighted and see everything about
Bitcoin in a separate block, regardless of recommendations

\- everything that doesn't match your interests is still available at the
bottom of the news feed, where it's categorized by topic and by site

There are also some measures taken against creating a perfect filter bubble:

\- you get a quick glimpse at the most shared news, even if they don't match
your interests

\- you get a few recommendations from sites you didn't subscribe to

\- from time to time you're shown a few items from a topic that's outside your
interests

Sure, it's not perfect yet, but it works ok. I've been using it during the
development and I love it, although I may be a bit biased :)

If you're intrigued by the idea, give it a try and let me know what you think.
The zuperlist.com site works on both desktop and mobile, so there's no need to
install an app.

~~~
tschellenbach
Is the code open source? Would be cool to learn more.

~~~
eugenv
No, it's not open source at the moment.

~~~
craftyguy
that's too bad.

------
tschellenbach
Very cool. A little while ago we created Winds, an open source RSS reader that
uses machine learning to figure out what you're interested in. It's leveraging
React/Redux, Stream and Algolia. An updated version is in the works:
[http://github.com/getstream/winds](http://github.com/getstream/winds)

And the Hnews discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12932429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12932429)

------
blakesterz
Looks neat, one thing I love about my RSS reader still is it doesn't try to
guess what I like. I have all my sites in there, many of them are blogs, and
while most of them focus on a topic, they also post random stuff that's just
interesting. I'm afraid of losing that. It's like what Facebook and Twitter do
"for" me when they pick and choose what I see there.

It's like browsing the shelves of a library vs. using Amazon's
recommendations. Sometimes a recommendation from some algorithm is fine,
sometimes it's cool to just browse the shelves.

My feed reader is still one of my favorite things because it shows me random
stuff I had no idea I'd be interested in because the sites I've picked are
already doing a good job. I'm afraid if something else filters out the things
it thinks I don't like then I'm going to lose out on some really interesting
things. This is exactly how I found Hacker News, I had no idea what this site
was before it just turned up in my feed reader a few years ago.

(I'm way old school when it comes to my feeds probably)

~~~
eugenv
I understand. That's why I added the feature to bypass the recommendations
engine for some feeds, so that you could still see everything published by
favorite blogs. That way the recommendations engine can only watch high-volume
sites.

------
desireco42
I really like that you are clear about what is free and how much it cost. Plus
I welcome the idea. It is successful in China and it is needed.

~~~
eugenv
Thanks for the feedback! Well, I hate it when some sites show you a large
monthly price and in a corner it says "billed anually." So I wanted to be as
clear as possible.

------
baldfat
Sad that RSS has been dropped by so many news sources. It was awesome during
the heydays of Google Reader.

------
blocked_again
The website looks really cool. Do you use some service for fetching RSS feeds
of parse it all by yourself?

~~~
eugenv
Thanks! I use a python lib (feedparser) for parsing the RSS.

------
kuwze
Reminded me of this[0].

[0]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-24/in-
battle...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-24/in-battle-for-
talent-one-startup-founder-tries-unlimited-pay)

------
jaux
Do you plan to have a desktop version?

~~~
eugenv
No, I didn't plan to have a desktop version until now. But anything could
change, based on feedback :)

------
newman8r
am I able to download all the RSS links so I can put them into my own reader?

~~~
eugenv
Yes, you can export the list of subscribed sites to an OPML file that you can
later import in another RSS reader.

