A
project I'm moving off the back-burner and into the public domain is a project I called Google Reader Network.
Google Reader battles for #1 on my daily use tools, along with Gmail. I live in there each and every day. I depend on it for my information intake.
So my Google Reader network is very important to me. I started looking for ways to maximize my RSS intake, and it involved cultivation of my Google Reader network. I would follow people for very different reasons than I would on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.
I wanted people who would read things and route new stuff my way. Example: My GF Audrey works for ReadWriteWeb and she monitors Mashable, Techcrunch and other major sources of aggregated tech news. Why do I need to follow these? She will star and share the best of. Network efficiency.
I will depend on my network to route common information my way, I will specialize in specific areas such as cloud computing or application programming interfaces (API).
So I wanted to find other Google Reader users and enhance my network, here is what I did:
- Pulled all my shared RSS feed into database.
- Pulled all users who liked anything I liked.
- Pulled their profile.
- Aggregated users by topic and by their like count.
If a user liked two or more posts I liked they would show up in an email at the end of the week. I could then click and view their profile. If I liked them...I would follow.
This allows me to build in an automated and manual layer for adding users to my network. It has worked well. I've added some very interesting users to my network and increased my Google Reader network...in a way that adds value to ME!
I have had an EC2 + RDS setup for this harvest data in real-time and storing. Then sending me emails each week. I can't afford to have this setup if I'm not moving it forward. I may just turn on for my own purposes each month. If you are interested in this project, let me know.
