It has been an exciting week for the team here at Feedspot. Last Tuesday we finally launched in private beta and just a few hours later we were lucky enough to be profiled in TechCrunch. We are pleased to say our projections for new signups have been easily surpassed. Naturally we’ve used the beta period so far to learn more about how users prefer to use our product and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Our inbox and Twitter feed has filled with encouragement and excellent suggestions from eager RSS devourers.
After reviewing the feedback so far, it’s clear to us that a lot of people are looking for a new, more social feed reader. This is great news because it means we’re filling a void and on the right track. Since a lot of our beta users signed up via the aforementioned TechCrunch article, most of our members could be described as early-adopters and power-users. That means they aren’t shy about letting us know exactly what needs to be fixed and how to improve going forward. That has been great for us because we thrive on feedback and are working hard to make Feedspot the best feed reader available.
List View
We are very excited to introduce the option to toggle between expanded and list view. With the addition of list view, readers can now scan more headlines above the fold and quickly navigate throughout the most important unread articles. Try out the new list view by simply clicking the icon shown here:
Bug Fixes
- New accounts - There was a slight issue with the username creation aspect of new accounts. New usernames must be a minimum of eight characters long (letters and/or numbers) and several people were unable to get past this hurdle because our form did not specify that requirement. Lesson learned: Make your forms user-friendly with helpful notes along the way!
- Twitter sharing - Initially, some users were experiencing difficulties with the Tweet button functionality and the pre-worded message appearing garbled with code. This has been repaired.
- Discovering followers - When someone you follow begins following someone new, you can now click through to view their profile as well. This will make finding other interesting Feedspot users even easier.
Upcoming Features
- Find your friends from Twitter and Facebook.
- Invite email contacts from Gmail. Yahoo. Hotmail and AOL
- Create folders for organizing feeds (add, delete, rearrange, etc.)
We hope you enjoy these new features and you can trust that we’re hammering away every day to improve your social reading experience. If you’re loving Feedspot so far, please share with a friend via Twitter, Facebook or send them to us directly: https://www.feedspot.com/fs/invite?c=techcrunch
This post contributed by:
@Will Lang - A Power Feedspot user. He is Internet Marketing Director at Amerizon Wireless . Follow Will Lang on Feedspot