Add tagging to feeds and stories

silopolis · June 13, 2011, 10:06am

Hi,

It would be great if we could add personnal tags to feeds and stories, all the more for untagged feeds.

Thanks

silopolis · June 15, 2011, 9:06am

Good news (again) !

Nic_Windley · November 18, 2011, 9:16am

Any news on this Samuel as I and I’m sure many others will be looking to move away from Greader very soon and your product could be promising.

The ability to “tag” items and create public feeds from those items (which google removed with the new G+ updates) is essential.

samuelclay · November 18, 2011, 4:11pm

Planning it as the very next feature. I’m working on a Site Settings dialog that will allow you to change a feed’s address and site link. In fact, I just finished it last night, but I have two massive migrations that will need to be tested, profiled, and then run at some point this weekend.

Nic_Windley · November 18, 2011, 4:41pm

Awesome Samuel. If you need a beta tester then let me know.

silopolis · November 19, 2011, 12:26pm

Wooooohoooo !!!
That’s JUST GREAT NEWS.
Hardly waiting…

kevin · November 28, 2011, 6:16pm

This would be awesome

Nic_Windley · January 5, 2012, 9:21am

Happy New Year All!

Have you got a release date in mind for these features yet Samuel ?

samuelclay · January 5, 2012, 6:11pm

Turns out Social is a bigger priority than custom tagging and search. Social has about a month left to go (and that’s a release. Beta testing will hopefully be coming within the next 2-3 weeks). This will come afterwards.

dcsohl · January 6, 2012, 3:35pm

Just want to throw my hat in the ring on this. I would far rather use tags than folders. That was one of the real strengths of Google Reader, and I would love to see it here as well.

I think I would rather see Social first, so I’m in agreement with your priorities; I just want to comment here to ensure this is also high priority.

Thanks!

samuelclay · January 6, 2012, 5:04pm

Can tags be nested like folders?

And so you know, you can have a feed in multiple folders. It will update exactly like it should as you read stories and the unread counts decrement.

Nic_Windley · January 6, 2012, 6:32pm

Understood on the priorities.

Tagging something has always been simpler than placing an item in a folder based on other readers / apps, so here’s how I’ve used it.

For example I’d like to be able to place an item into a theme (tag or folder) on my mobile device, desktop or wherever (which is synced with a central feed manager/aggregator) and then produce a feed from that which I can send to other people / places.

Ideally I’d have a mobile app that has a method for themeing items quickly (using tags or folders) as I skim read posts or do it online which updates all tag/folder and associated feeds.

Select a tag was always the simplest/fastest. Open to other options that can help me replicate the above.

samuelclay · January 15, 2012, 4:40am

But you can do all of that with folders, save for the RSS feed part, which is a planned future feature.

How are other people using tags differently than folders work today? Just that you can read all of the stories under a tag or combination of tags? That feels pretty super-user to me. I like to try and cater to everybody, in that any feature I build I expect to be used, or instantly useful, by most users.

Nic_Windley · January 15, 2012, 9:55am

OK if I can do that with folders then great Samuel.

Do I have to physically move (drag and drop) each item to a folder or can I select the folder while reading the item on desktop / mobile for it to be moved to automatically ?

I’m looking to skim read and organise on the fly and I appreciate that the features you pick must be for all, so if this is not possible then I’ll understand.

samuelclay · January 15, 2012, 6:14pm

You should be able to just right-click the feed and move it to a folder. Then add the site to multiple folders as you would any other site (suing the Add Site dialog. Hit the ‘a’ key).

A real tagging interface would allow you to add a site to multiple folders without having to add the site from scratch each time. That may be something I add to the “Move Site to Folder” dialog (copy vs. move).

Nic_Windley · January 15, 2012, 6:50pm

Its each feed item that I’m interested in adding a tag / label / folder, not the whole feed.

Sure, feed will go into folder for general categorisation, but I’m looking to go another level deep.

So, yes feed items may go into multiple tags / labels / folders.

From what you’ve kindly explained Samuel it doesn’t sound like its going to be able to do what I want, which is a shame.

samuelclay · January 15, 2012, 7:27pm

What’s the point in tagging items in a feed? So you can search for them later? You wouldn’t be able to pre-tag items, so it would only apply to read items.

Nic_Windley · January 15, 2012, 8:10pm

I see folder as a way to mange feeds in the reader.

Tags and labels are a way of doing something with them other than reading them.

For examples I may have these feed folders;

DOGS
CATS
BIRDS

However I see an article that I would like to do something with so I tag or attach a label to it so that its like a todo or action.

From this I can generate a secondary feed of those actions / to dos for all of those items that interest me from within the folders.

Does that make sense ?

samuelclay · January 15, 2012, 10:38pm

So it’s for saved stories only, huh. OK, I can add that, but it’s not a top priority. I imagine in a few months time I’ll be beyond social and iPhone training to actually get to pet features like this. It shouldn’t be extraordinarily difficult, but maybe there’s more to tagging than just saved stories. A social element that might fit into the social branch I’m working on.

Nic_Windley · January 15, 2012, 10:46pm

It’s for stories I’ve read / am reading so I’m guessing they are classed as saved stories / feeds ?

Sure, it could be. Depends on what your social features are going to be.

One example of using a tag in a social context might be for articles that you want to tweet out or send to facebook.