hi, I have read you clarification and i understand your definition of that what makes a river.
I feel they give a better reading experience also for desktop users (I’m currently using the NewsRiver!). On the desktop you can have a “rich” mode where the river presents all the media content inside the posts or where the posts are decorated with controls to republish or share them or do any kind of social interaction.
I also still think that on a mobile the lightness of the page is important for the overall usability of the news site.
One question though: what is the reason for reading the feeds “in random order, different every time” ? would still work if you read the feeds always in the same order?
The random order thing isn’t super important, my aggregator does randomize the order every time, what’s most important is to not get hung up on the order, that’s why I put it in the narrative.
Source: 
Scripting News Annex 
Posted by Ben on September 9, 2006 at 6:53 pm
This is very interesting approach, espesially about mobile Rivers, something common with RSS.
Posted by Luca Mearelli on September 10, 2006 at 12:02 am
hi, I have read you clarification and i understand your definition of that what makes a river.
I feel they give a better reading experience also for desktop users (I’m currently using the NewsRiver!). On the desktop you can have a “rich” mode where the river presents all the media content inside the posts or where the posts are decorated with controls to republish or share them or do any kind of social interaction.
I also still think that on a mobile the lightness of the page is important for the overall usability of the news site.
One question though: what is the reason for reading the feeds “in random order, different every time” ? would still work if you read the feeds always in the same order?
Posted by Dave Winer on September 10, 2006 at 4:10 am
The random order thing isn’t super important, my aggregator does randomize the order every time, what’s most important is to not get hung up on the order, that’s why I put it in the narrative.
Posted by Matt Terenzio on September 10, 2006 at 7:05 am
Good Morning,
here is an OPML of some rivers of jobs. I plan to add a bunch more to that file later today:
http://riverofjobs.com/opml/
I’ll submit it to NewsRiver.org as well, in case that’s important.