More RSS, sort of.

Zite knows me!

Thanks to a post by one of our participants (SkillCollection) I learned about a new iPad app called Zite. While not really an RSS app, it is a content aggregator. I gave it a try and told it what my twitter name is and gave it  access to my Google Reader account. In a flash it created a personalized 'magazine' with articles it thought I might be interested in. What was most impressive was the topic categories it picked up on - see the photo. Pretty spot-on for me.

I further customized it by adding sections on gardening, photography, macintoshes, wine, food, and more. As I read articles and give them the thumbs up or down, Zite will get to know me better and get better at recommending articles. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Flipboard

Though it takes a slightly different approach, another amazing iPad app that serves a similar purpose is Flipboard. It connects with social media tools like twitter and Facebook and turns your stream of status updates and shared links into magazine-like pages of content. What I like most is being able to add a folder of RSS feeds from Google Reader and have a specialized magazine on just the topic of that folder. 

I think Zite may be useful for discovering new blogs, news sites and such. While Flipboard is a good way to sort through all the sources you're already aware of.  I'll be using both of them for a while to compare.