Rivers and ponds

Dave’s riding his River of News steamboat again. One aggregator he didn’t mention that implemented that style is the Google Desktop “News” gadget. I haven’t used it since version 2.0, but that was my first aggregator and I did get used to that style. What I liked about it? If I went for a few days without reading anything, I didn’t know what I had missed because it scrolled off the end of the retained items. Good and bad, that.

I like what Scoble had to say, despite what Dave calls “kissing up” to Arrington. Sometimes I like having feeds segregated by source, because I want to go see what a particular party thinks about the daily blogstorm, rather than viewing the latest rants. Or when things aren’t so hectic (when was that?), it’s nice to sit down with one person’s thoughts for the day. On the other hand, sometimes it would be nice just to get the latest stories handed to me.

I want it both ways. Why can’t an aggregator give you a hot-swap option? That’s a hint, Nick. Let me know if I can help.