I came across a new project I have never seen before, it's called NewsCloud.
From what I've seen, they seem to take a stab at social news just as we do, but using all RSS feeds. I'm not a big programmer, so I've yet to look at the code.
It is all open source, so I figured it may be of use to us and our quest for better RSS incorporation.
Their Site:
http://www.newscloud.com/
Their Project:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/newscloud
Their Wiki:
http://wiki.newscloud.com/index.php/...NewsCloud_Wiki
Hope this is of some use!