Add tagging to feeds and stories

idea
#61

me either :wink:

#62

Any update? I’m loving NewsBlur, but the inability to use tags is making me twitchy :slight_smile:

#63

what’s going on with this, totally annoying!

#64

I second this.

Now is the time to really go shopping for a GReader replacement and my hand is itching in my pocket for NB – has been all this time–, but I can’t go without tagging.
It’s too much that I need to sort by subject/topic and then be able to quickly access later to just sit in one big unsorted corner under a starring system.
Also, as cool as the intelligence trainer is, I won’t be using it. My intelligence trainer is, precisely, my own manual tagging, chop chop, sweet and simple.

I see Samuel has been working on this? Waiting for tagging to come in effect so I can test it.

On a related note, another (free) news reader was actually able to import my tagged stories from GReader. The bad news is they’re probably swamped because the feeds simply don’t update. So my tagged articles are saved elsewhere, but feed updates over there are as brand new as two days ago. Awesome. :expressionless:
Just saying, because that’s one more reason to make me wanna ditch their free service in favor of NB.

So, thank you Samuel for listening to our requests. :slight_smile:

#65

+1
Please add a custom tags feature (and also browse stories by tags).

#66

What replacement did you find? I need this functionality as well.

#67

Yes, it is that simple for many of us. Infinitely more helpful that your current intelligence trainer which never uses tags that are meaningful to me.

#68

Articles expire? Why would anyone do that?

#69

Also willing to pay for retention.

#70

I’ll add my simple vision for tagging which is inline with what many people have requested here.

  1. Tag an article with custom tags (multiple)
  2. Ability to view articles by tag
  3. Tagged articles are automatically saved (they never expire)

Some people are also asking for (4) a feed for tags. Many of us don’t need this so if you are looking for an easy solution start with the ability to tag articles without feeds. This should be a trivial design as you mentioned:

“I can think about building this in a way that makes sense and will only take me a day or two of solid work.”

After three years of debate I’m surprised it’s not built yet :slight_smile: Let me tell you a bit about the rationale since you said:

“it wouldn’t be terribly difficult, but I just do not see the use case.”

and

“What’s the point in tagging items in a feed? So you can search for them later?”

Yes, this is precisely the reason, so you can search for them later like saved articles… only organized. It’s the paradigm of browser bookmarks. You could ask, “what is the point of browser bookmarks?” The same point as tagging articles in Newsblur, an organizational reference tool.

From your about page you say:

“NewsBlur is a personal news reader that brings people together to talk about the world.”

and

“NewsBlur is an easy and organized way to read the news wherever you are.”

The assumption you’re making here is that history is not news. You’ve optimized Newsblur for only current or recent events, and perhaps that mission should be obvious in the product name itself. (After all, you could have gone with “InformationBlur” :))

But names aside, let me suggest that the news of today is built on yesterday’s news. How many published articles reference material that is a year old, five years, ten or even twenty years old? Consider articles that cover product, service or industry evolution. Pretty much anything in the technology sector is based heavily on historical comparison. Imagine if those authors had no access to the past. Indeed, what is the point of any news if not to illustrate things are different now than they were before?

I understand Newsblur doesn’t cater to authors (though the blurblog feature suggests some form of authorship is an important part of the product). But your broader mission to “bring people together to talk about the world” is even more compelling in my view. Imagine a world where we the people can only talk about what’s been published in the last 30 days. Perspectives would be terribly limited and ultimately driven by the group think of current times. Gone is the ability to engage in current news debate with the established perspective of history. Gone is the ability to verify and prove current assertions of past realities. True debates, deep and varying perspectives are washed out in the bright lights of the now, present and alleged future.

I think this goes directly against your primary goal. Talking about the world is only meaningful when referencing the past. This why people email things to themselves, why they establish catalogs of browser bookmarks, why the wayback machine was launched and why we are requesting a tagging feature in Newsblur–stuff matters now and forever. Next time someone posts an article debating the merits of 8bit interfaces in our modern computing world I can go back to my “retro” tag and join the conversation… Except in this case it won’t be Newsblur that’s “bringing people together to talk about the world”, it’s my email, browser bookmarks and the wayback machine.

So if you really want to fulfill your stated mission I would heavily consider adding this ability. Not only would you replace a variety of inadequate cataloging mechanisms, you’d bring the cataloging paradigm to the place that makes the most sense, the news stream.

(Or you can always change your mission to “bring people together to talk about the now!” :))

#71

This is already done. Arbitrary tags can be added to saved stories. When you click the save story button, a text field for adding tags appears.

#72

With the burst of traffic on the forum today, I look forward to testing tags on the iPad app update during the Labor Day holiday – and to paying gladly if tags work as discussed.

Best regards,

#73

Great news! This was really hard to locate. Now that I found it I can get things going. Might consider moving the tagging option to the main story menu.

#74

Actually I realized there is a setting to move these buttons to the bottom of the story which is a bit better for me than the right hand side (also always on the bottom). Would be great it there were an option to display on top! Thanks anyway for the tagging feature!

#75

Well, search is still being thought about, and has yet to be built. But when it is built, custom tags will definitely be a part of that.

5 Likes
#76

For me social is sharing, not just consuming.

Using feeds that I create based on what I’ve read, or a theme I like or an idea I’d like to expand on (for example with some kind of tagging) I could then:

a) share that feed marked “idea1” with colleagues to improve work flow
b) bookmark the items tagged - “boomark” - save me reading it and then bookmarking it again - great for doing this on the move / mobile
c) tweet the items tagged - “tweet”
d) message the items on facebook - marked “fb”
and so on…

I can think of a lot of use cases and those above are just a few suggestions that would help save a lot of time and make RSS a social experience, not just consuming.

However, I’m just a user here, hence why I’m asking the question and maybe I do things differently. Eventually though I’ll have to seek out an alternative if this does not seem to be a worthwhile use case.

That’s fine, I’d rather Samuel said yes or no (I don’t like hoping or pushing) and then I and any others can make our decision as to what we do and where we go next.

3 Likes
#77

I’m looking for an alternative to Google Reader and I’m looking for a product that will:

  1. import my GReader tags (and tagged articles)
  2. allow me to add multiple tags to an article
  3. allow me to access articles by tag

Forgive me by asking for clarity, but does NewsBlur handle these features?

Thanks for replying

3 Likes
#78

I need tags. More than anything else. I need exactly what Ann requested, so, I’ll just copy and paste from her:

  1. import my GReader tags (and tagged articles)
  2. allow me to add multiple tags to an article
  3. allow me to access articles by tag

I can’t believe with the demise of Google Reader there aren’t more people requesting to see tags on NB. I’d gladly pay for it.

I have thousands of tagged news articles on Google Reader I need to be able to access and go back to on a daily basis to cover my beats.

I’m almost resorting to emailing myself each and every one of them just not to lose it all. Have been up all night looking for a feed reader that will do 1/2/3, but to no avail – and I signed up for dozens…

Is there any hope to see tags here on NB?
Thanks much.

4 Likes
#79

It seems to me that tags could come before a full-blown search feature. Just let us add tags to articles (more than one tag per article, please!), give us a list of our tags, and let us click them to view everything that has the selected tag. For me, that would be a great first step.

3 Likes