ResourceShelf has not only been an admirer and user of Findory, a personalized and now mobilized news, weblog, and podcast recommendation tool (also searchable) since it first launched a couple of years ago but we also appreciate the work and writing of its founder and CEO, Greg Linden.. He has made us think quite a lot about the importance of ease of use if a search or information service is going to reach the masses, something that Findory does well. Those of us who geek out over search and information retrieval frequently forget that we are not like most users. Most people will take what they can get (or just forget it if they come up empty) and not use a resource to its potential. It needs to be easy. Findory is simple to use but that does not keep it from being both powerful and useful.

For those of you with API development, a post on Greg’s blog (Hat Tip, Nathan), alerts us to new features that are now available using the Findory API.

He writes:

The new version of the API is much more powerful than the old. For example, you can access recent articles for any source, articles that match a keyword, or articles by subject. With this, you could build your own news site or feed reader on top of Findory instead of writing your own crawl…You can even get related articles for any article or source. Combine that with your reading history, maybe throw in some filters, and you can generate your own recommendations… In fact, there is enough here in the new Findory API that, with a database for caching data and for remembering reader’s histories, you pretty much could build your own version of Findory with it.

Again, if you have the skills to work Findory’s enhanced API is worth knowing about. If you don’t have these skills, Findory is still a site/search tool/recommendation tool that you should know about. Its ease of use makes it an excellent resource to share with users during demos.

Source: Geeking with Greg

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 6th, 2007 and is filed under Databases, Directories, and Guides, News Search, RSS, Search Tools, Software and Web-Based Applications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.