Fliptop: Shining A New Light On The RSS Feed
The RSS feed subscription idea has been around for quite some time now, however for some reason never really caught on with the general public. Chances are because they need to then use another service like Google Reader to keep track of the RSS and end up getting information they are not generally interested in. Fliptop
aims to change that. Flitop is a new content subscription service that offers a simple way to subscribe to a website’s content. Fliptop provides more features to help the consumer get the exact content they are looking for. With Fliptop you are able to add keywords to filter content and select the topics or categories you are most interested in. Also, instead of only being able to get the feed through an RSS reader, you are able to receive the content through an email digest of only the content you are interested in.
Fliptop is coming at the subscription situation from both angles. The first is providing an embeddable button that publishers can add to their site. The second is providing a browser bookmarklet so the consumer doesn’t have to wait for the publisher to begin using Fliptop.
Fliptop is incredibly simple, easy to use and makes some sense out of what can sometimes be an flood of news feeds. The big question is, will publishers pick it up and begin using the service. I believe the bookmarklet is going to be a challenge to get the general consumer to install into their browser. So getting publishers to integrate it might be their best bet in terms of getting the consumer to use it. A few simple changes which they have made such as the publisher buttons saying “Follow” instead of “subscribe” could help a bit. They definitely have a great and simple to use product and I will definitely be keeping an eye on them.
During DEMOspring 2010 we had a chance to catch up with Fliptop’s Founder and CEO Doug Camplejohn:
