NetNewsWire needs to have a rating system, similar to iTunes. I want to be able to prefer some feeds over others, to have them shoot to the top, or use some other method of distinguishing the latest post on my fiancée’s weblog (which I want to be sure to read) from the dozen daily entries on, say, dealmac.com. Whether that be by color or placement or what, I don’t know.

For starters, we need some rating metadata. Stars as used in iTunes would be a pretty straightforward method. Tagging (a la flickr) might not be such a bad idea either, though it’s usually most useful on content for others to find, like public photos. But both of these could put added as panes in the Feed Info panel. Color tagging for individual posts would be a plus, too, a la Mail.

It might then be helpful to adopt the Mail Rules model, so that I can color or otherwise automatically manage posts from my highly rated feeds (Jennifer’s blogs would be colored RED when they arrive, and I might like a sound to play).

I don’t know what Brent has planned for NNW 2.x, but while writing this post, I found these NewsGator forum threads:

• Rating items
• Color labels for folders and feeds

Based on those, it looks like at least ratings will be making it into the next version for sure. Colors might be best served on feeds and cascade to their posts (if we can’t set colors on both feeds and posts).