So exactly what IS going on here? Well, today I found my FilterMyRSS logo on an internet mosaic image. There must be a thousand websites which make up the mosaic. I think they found me through this site. Anyway, I spent a good 40 minutes trying to find my widget of space on that page:

So the question becomes. Can you? I’m sure you have better things to do with your time, but I’ll reward you with a 2GB Flash Drive if you find it. Just send me the image with a circle around the location. If there happens to be more than one entry, I’ll do a random draw. I’ll keep this live for two weeks [July 10th] before updating the image with location.

Update: We Have a Winner!

Today I picked the winner for finding the FilterMyRSS logo in the web mosaic hosted by Appappeal.com. A total of 14 people entered the contest [thanks everyone] and using an on-line random number generator, I picked the lucky lad: Ras Pechuel. Ras was the 10th person to submit the correct result.  So I’ll drop a 2GB flash drive in the mail for you. For all those who question the process here’s a screen shot of the random number.

A quick shout out to Xichen for putting FilterMyRSS on his del.icio.us account as his post got FitlerMyRSS to the #1 position for May 28th, 2008.  As of recently, FilterMyRSS has gotten some great press and some great emails thanking us for the cool little RSS filter utility that is easy to use, free and feature rich.

Here is my snapshot in time to capture this great moment:

You might not, but James Mowery does from Performancing.com. James runs that website to help bloggers become better bloggers and streamline the process of spreading information and making a little coin in the process.

James openly admits to having too much information in his Feed Reader. So what should he do? RSS Filter of course. James goes on to suggest services such as FilterMyRSS as ideal utilities for bloggers [including himself] to strip down the data overload and get just what you want.

James - thanks for posting about FilterMyRSS. Only one comment [which I’ll post on your site] is FilterMyRSS also has an exclusion feature. You mentioned some other prominent services, but I wanted to get in there as well.

Several weeks ago FilterMyRSS added a new feature which many have asked for: keyword exclusion. The new RSS Filter feature means you can exclude feed articles based off keywords.

The most obvious example would be filtering out articles containing profanity.

So this is how it works: Simply put a negative sign in front of your keyword.

Example: -microsoft
*This would filter OUT all articles of a feed with the word “microsoft“

The RSS exclusion is based off string keywords…so…

Example: “-american idol”
*This would filter OUT all articles with the two words “american idol” as the exact string. However, you will still get articles that had “american” in one area and “idol” in another.

I believe this makes FilterMyRSS a much more powerful utility for RSS Filter needs. Enjoy!

Today I received a very nice compliment email from Blamgadget of Holland regarding the RSS Filter services I provide. I must admit, I don’t get many emails…the site just works as advertised, but to get a nice note from the inbox is a great way to start the day. This is what I received:

I have used FeedRinse until FilterMyRSS started to support exclusion signs. The thing I like about FilterMyRSS is that it’s so damn easy. Because I only filter a few feeds, which contain advertisements regularly, and only set them up to work as iGoogle gadgets. I can tell you that feeds load instantly without delays. With FeedRinse they sometimes took a few seconds or did not load at all (rarely though). This could be because of some iGoogle caching feature and/or very good FilterMyRSS hosting, but I haven’t encountered a single delay since I used FilterMyRSS.

Are you looking for the easiest and fastest RSS filtering solution? It’s FilterMyRSS which you’re looking for, definitely (don’t bother looking any much further).

-Blamgadget (Holland)

Thanks Blamgadget for the kind words. If anyone else is looking to kill some time, write me a note on how you use FilterMyRSS.

I was checking the link activity for FilterMyRSS today and noticed Matt Cutts, the voice and front man for Google, linked to my RSS Filter site. The link came from Matt’s personal blog, so it’s not an indorcement from Google - but hell, all the worthy SEOs subscribe to his personal blog, so I consider this a big win for my small RSS filter service.

Matt was writing about Predictions for 2008 when some Commenter’s started suggesting services to make their life easier. Matt inserted the comment below suggesting FilterMyRSS as a good tool for filtering on keywords.

The other thing I like about Matt’s post is not only the link itself (thanks Matt if you read my blog) but the fact he listed FilterMyRSS first over another great feed service, FeedRinse. Although I don’t live by subliminal messages and activity, I will take the fact of my site being listed first as a kudos for what FilterMyRSS offers. So I guess in this case I am reading into the subliminal.

Here is the article if you didn’t catch the link inserted above:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/my-2008-predictions/

FreeWareGenius gave FilterMyRSS some props the other day with a nice article about my features plus some additional tips you may find valuable.

A feature I don’t sport is feed blending, this is where you make a channel of feeds and label them as one.  For example, you are a gadget blog and want all the filtered RSS feeds of “iphone” to be grouped together - you’d blend it by grouping the different source feeds into the “iphone” filtered feed.

I considered offering feed blending but it appears this application is for the few data crunchers taking in hundreds of feeds - not a couple dozen.  None-the-less shoot me an email if Feed Blending is something you’d like to see.

Thanks FreeWareGenius for the honorable mention.

Today Filter My RSS got picked up by Weblog Tools Collection with a short post about the benefits of using our RSS filter.  The author, Mark Ghosh, goes on to state:

I have used something of the same nature on various other services but this is a once stop shop and it is very easy to use.

Original article.

Shankar Ganesh reviewed FilterMyRSS several days ago with a huge number of blog supporters. Mr. Ganesh posted about how an RSS filter can help a blogger or webmaster manage the overload of RSS items in their reader. To our surprise, many web surfers don’t use filters and the introduction to FilterMyRSS was welcome with open arms. Here is how Mr. Ganesh summed up the service:

Consider you’re reading a popular blog that publishes tens of articles everyday. Not all posts might be of value to you, but all posts fall right on your RSS reader since you just can’t customize what comes through the feed. Information Overload.

Here is where Filter My RSS comes in handy. You can filter out unwanted items from feeds simply by specifying some possible keywords to the title, description, or the category of the source feed, and get the content on the feed filtered to ‘what you really want to read’.

Reading through some visitor posts in the comment section Filter My RSS received the following praise:

Shankar, a very neat service! This is of great interest to me and I am sure others as well who are trying to cut down on the feed overload.

A great concept, we all bloggers would require it!

Well this is definitely one service that I would use. I usually subscribe to feeds where there are more than 30-40 posts per day and I definitely do not read it all.

Nice find buddy. This will definitely increase my productivity.

So find out why all the buzz for RSS filter lies with Filter My RSS feed filter service! Read the original review by Shankar Ganesh.

Google Reader is a great product.  It loads fast and is easy to use.  However the filter isn’t ideal.  “How to filter Google Reader” can be accomplished in two ways:

1. The “stock” solution Google provides is a keyword filter you apply when the browser window is open.  For FilterMyRSS we don’t see value in this approach.  If one is wanting to filter feeds, why bring in the entire feed first, then filter.  Wouldn’t it be much easier to filter the feed before it is displayed?
2. The second method requires FilterMyRSS feed filter (obviously).  By using this RSS filter you can insert the feed URL, type in your keywords and the resultant RSS filter provides only the articles with your keywords.

Although method two does require running your feed through another site, that one time setup far out-weights the annoying task of entering a keyword in the Google Reader EACH TIME you open the reader page.

We hope you feel the same.  FilterMyRSS home page.