Features of the YOLS application (whatever we decide to call it) [UPDATE: Hello, NoTooMi!]

By on January 1st, 2011

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Until I find somewhere better, I’ll be keeping the application description complete in a Google Document for the YOLS application, but here’s what I have right now:

The application we’re building in the Year Of Living Socially is basically the one I’ve been wishing I had for the last fifteen years or so.  I try to keep up with all the goings-on in several topic areas, and it’s a full-time job I just can’t afford to take.  The purpose of this application is first to gather all of that content in one place, and second to organize it in such a way that I can get all of the information quickly and painlessly.

This will ultimately involve analysis that eliminates duplicate information, even if it’s not duplicate content.  (For example, the same news item is often repeated on multiple blogs, but usually not verbatim.)  Perhaps the ability for people to curate particular topics and create summaries.

I also want to be able to tell the system to ignore particular topics, and have it understand what I’m talking about beyond simple keywords.

It also needs to analyze content pointed to by my friends to find sources and topics I may have missed, and maybe recommend people as friends based on shared interests.

Search is a must, including the ability to dig down and perform queries based on multiple criteria, including what other people think about a piece of content.

Some general (but certainly not all-inclusive) features I don’t want to forget:

  • Ability to add news feeds
  • Ability to promote or demote topics in terms of priority
  • Ability to subscribe to email lists and read topics through the system just like from RSS feeds, so I can get all of that stuff out of my email box
  • Ability to chat with other users
  • Ability to share items
  • Ability to archive items for later
  • Ability to search personal content
  • Ability to search global content
  • Ability to track new content on web sites, even if they don’t have a feed or email list
  • Semantic analysis of content to determine topics and better predict user interest level
  • Ability to edit how history is used in making preference decisions (ie, “Don’t use this” or “This is really important”)
  • Twitter API – receive and send tweets, RT things you really like
Categorized under: Year of Living Socially.
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