:: firstly, in case some readers don’t know, what does RSS stand for? Simple, RSS = Real Simple Syndication. Moving on.
With the wealth of information available online, it can be handy to have an easy way to aggregate and organize this information in one place via subscriptions to news sites, blogs, search results, and other frequently-updated Web sites that syndicate their content – an “RSS reader” can help u do that. Just to be crystal clear, an RSS reader is simply a program that helps a user read their subscribed RSS feeds by aggregating and organizing them in one convenient locations. Although many people choose standalone RSS readers, a Web-based reader is useful for keeping all your feeds (or subscriptions) accessible regardless of what computer you happen to be using (just as long as it connects to the Internet).
is a powerful reader that’s popular in the English-language sphere, and also works well with Chinese feeds. It is widely-used by more technically-oriented Chinese bloggers and netizens, but a lingering uncertainty over whether it will always be ‘reachable’ from the mainland makes local China-based RSS readers a reasonable alternative.
In China, RSS is a more mature area than other Web 2.0 technologies like social networks and microblogs; local RSS readers have been around long enough for several shakeups to have occurred in the marketplace, leaving names like Gougou and Topim nothing more than dim memories.
Here are five of the top Chinese players in the local RSS game:
Zhuaxia (抓虾) ::
Zhuaxia (”Grab shrimp,” a homonym for “grab it”) has been the leading Chinese RSS reader for a few years now. It features an attractive, responsive interface using AJAX technology and a full-text search of all feeds / subscriptions aggregated by the site. Zhuaxia’s administrators keep a blog where they introduce new features and occasionally present interesting observations they’ve made by surveying all the feeds in aggregate – when a worm or virus strikes certain blog providers, for example.
Xianguo (鲜果) ::
Xianguo (”Fresh Fruit”), launched in 2007, is a more recent entry into the RSS game. One of its innovations in the Chinese RSS reader market was to implement keyboard shortcuts for common actions. It has an AJAX interface like Zhuaxia that’s very Web2.0, and it offers a blog post ranking system (vote up / vote down) in the style of Digg.
Feedsky (飞递) ::
Feedsky is a Feedburner-like tool for managing feeds you generate yourself, and for finding feeds that other users generate. Since Feedburner is currently blocked in mainland China, this is a useful alternative. The system keeps statistics about subscription volume and reader activity and supplies a Firefox toolbar plugin. It doesn’t offer any reader functionality, but it supports feed searching by tags and categories.
POTU (周博通) ::
This Web-based reader started out as a standalone software program, which it still offers for download. It features search by tag and category, and supplies OPML files (indices of all feeds on a site) for a number of popular news and industry Web sites.
Feedou (飞豆) ::
Feedou (”Flying Bean”) is a combination RSS subscription / feed reader, collaborative tagger like the social bookmark system del.icio.us , and article / post vote system (like Digg). Other readers have these functions to some extent, but Feedou’s homepage is a list of the top-rated articles of the moment, which can be very handy when trying to keep your thumb on the pulse of online news.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
