The new topics section is a great start

Re #2, from Home if I click on the topic (e.g. Macworld), I am taken to an Explore Macworld page. After working the topic a bit, if I go back (using the Firefox back key combination) I go to the cover page rather than the Home page.

I do have the topics know turned on.

Regarding the relevance of topics, it's a mixed bag. I haven't spent a lot of time using the topics as I only recently discovered it (cover is my start page) and I've had a busy time these last weeks. When it identifies top news stories it is a very useful format to browsing what is out there on a topic and I like being able to see what my sources have to say on the topic a lot (along with the mark-as-read).

On the other hand, the selection of topics seems to be skewed toward topics discussed on high volume sites although the volume doesn't necessarily reflect my level of interest. For example, I'm not a Mac or IPod person, but right now the top two out of the five topics are Apple related. This must be because I do subscribe to a few high volume sites like Engaget with a lot of posts on that issue right now.

I don't know how the topic ranking algorithm works but it would be nice if it weighs more heavily topics that have a lot of articles in my favorite sources relative to non-favorites. Engaget is not marked as a favorite but it seems to have a disproportionate impact on rankings.

I have a similar issue with the three top articles on the home page, they tend to be things that are generally popular with feedly readers rather than of greatest interest to me (e.g., right now all three are from tech blogs, although I am interested in news, politics, and certain economic and legal blogs as much or more than tech topics).

I look forward to seeing how mute and track work.

By the way, I wonder if you have thought about putting the topics on the cover page or, even better, combining the topics with the toggleable search bar. It would be great to have access to it from other pages (and even greater if the topics shown could reflect the context from which it was opened e.g., top topics in a category).

Finally, glad I could help out with feedly in 2008 and look forward to continuing in 2009. It's a great product and I'm proud that some of my suggestions have gone toward improving it. When it makes it big, I'll see if I can't get you to give me a ride on the corporate jet.