If you look at how Reddit works, I think you are referring to something similar? Basically you have a feed for each section of the forum and then users are able to create their own "Active Topics" page by "subscribing" to the feeds that interest them. Then, based on user preference, their Active Topics page simply parses all the feeds to which they are subscribed.Ron2K wrote: On a serious note, it could end up being a worthy replacement, it just depends on how it's implemented. Ideally, you'd have an RSS feed per category (i.e. one for Hardware, one for Software, one for Modding, and so forth). Could maybe have parent forum feeds automatically incorporating subforum feeds (e.g. the Modding feed would include the Project Logs topics as well). Like I said, it depends on how the phpBB development team decides to implement it - I'll see how involved I can get with the development process and see if I could influence things a bit.
As far as RSS feed readers go, for when this eventually comes - there are plenty of freeware ones out there, and IIRC even Outlook 2007 has a built-in feed reader.
Sounds easy enough in theory.
However, in practice it may kill your brain
