The guys over at Reddit have started working on a new project called, Feeds.Reddit, a social web feed reader. Normally, I try to stay away from feed readers because I am a rather big Bloglines fan and it’s hard to get me to use anything different, but Feeds.Reddit has some very interesting features in development that keeps grabbing my attention.

Feeds.Reddit is, in my opnion, a combination of a feed reader and Share Your OPML with some extra functionality because it shares everyones feeds, combines them into one, and allows you to view statistics on users and feeds. Feeds.Reddit also has a rating system allowing anyone to rate a post, similar to how it works on their usual social bookmarking sites, except the only thing is your ratings don’t really do much at this point because the service hasn’t developed anything around them yet. The creator, Aaron Swartz, stated in his introduction of Feeds.Reddit, “This will go towards creating a list of the most popular items but it will also train a recommendations system to try to find other items and other feeds that you’ll probably like as well.” Sounds great to me and I’m excited to see how it will work. Being that most feeds I read are Web 2.0 related, I’m hoping that in rating them, it will help me find new sources and content relating to Web 2.0 that I haven’t come across before.

With the usual Reddit styled interface, Feeds.Reddit lists all posts on the left column and subscribed feeds on the right. All posts are listed in collapsable containers where the unread posts are expanded open and read posts are collapsed making it easier for you to stay organized. When expanding a post, you will see the hot (up) and cold (down) arrows for voting on the left along with the blog source and a bookmark to reddit option at the bottom.

Feeds.Reddit also has great keyboard support for navigating through posts. There are shortcuts for skipping to the next and previous post, rating a post up or down, and even expand and collapse keys. I’ve found the main key that I use allowing me to navigate very quickly through all my 260 subscribed feeds (ouch!) is by using the key, C, which will expand/collapse the current post and move to the next uncollapsed item (unread). I then use the key, A, to vote on a post I like. I’ve become comfortable with navigating through the posts to the point that I navigate through all the feeds with my fingers always placed on A and C. It’s quick, and I like it.

Overall, Feeds.Reddit doesn’t have too much functionality as of now that would steal me from Bloglines, but it certainly is a feed reader I’ll be keeping an eye on. I’ve been using Feeds.Reddit for around 2 weeks now, reading and rating, and I’m excited to see what they’ve got coming.

View Feeds.Reddit - Social Feed Reader.