Filed under aggregators …

Jun 25 2005
1 Comment
aggregators, gnomedex, gnomedex2005, netnewswire, rss, Web/Tech, Weblogs

Meet the aggregators

The running joke here at Gnomedex is to refer to aggregators as aggravators. Everyone laughs when it comes up but the truth is that I can’t relate to the joke. My aggregator doesn’t give me fits and isn’t lacking key functions. Sure, it’s not perfect (what software is?), but it’s damned close.

I bring this up because I just had lunch with Brent and Sheila Simmons, authors of NetNewsWire. They’re a very nice couple; quiet and mild-mannered – which is a rare sight at Gnomedex. One of the hallmarks of a successful software package is the developer’s willingness to listen and Brent and Sheila do this very well. Thanks to them for a great lunch and a fantastic product.

Jun 24 2005
aggregators, gnomedex, gnomedex2005, netnewswire, rss

IE 7, rss, chaos

Steve Rubel says there will be chaos amongst developers of Windows aggregators once IE 7 ships:

The news isn’t all rosy, however. In the short term, there will be a bit of chaos. The news aggregators, for example, will need to change their business models – perhaps even as I write this. Any RSS aggregator that dreams of competing against Longhorn (e.g. by not supporting it), probably has little chance to win. What they all must do to compete now is innovate on the Longhorn RSS platform. They need to take it farther than what Microsoft gives us next year if they want to succeed wildly.

Steve, I’m not sure there will be chaos. If you look at what’s happened on the Mac platform since Tiger was released two months ago with RSS support built into Safari, you’ll see that 3rd party aggregators are doing just fine. In fact, Brent Simmons, author of NetNewsWire, has said (can’t find the link, but dammit I know it’s out there) that Safari 2.0 is one of the best things that ever happened to NetNewsWire. Safari’s RSS support is very basic (but quite functional) and if the IE demo today is an accurate representation of what we’ll see when Longhorn ships, IE 7′s RSS support won’t be much deeper than Safari’s (well, except for the common feed list – which is damned slick and I wish Apple would do it). In fact, it looks like the IE team cribbed their entire RSS UI directly from Safari.

Jun 24 2005
aggregators, gnomedex, gnomedex2005, rss, Web/Tech, web2.0

IE 7 RSS

Looks JUST like Safari. No kidding. Freakin’ identical.
IE7RSS.jpg

Regardless, what they’ve done with list extensions and especially the common feed list is impressive and is good for RSS, syndication, and users. I do wish that Apple would open up Safari’s RSS subscription list to all apps. A single, system-wide feed list is definitely the way to go. Good for them.

Jun 23 2005
1 Comment
aggregators, gnomedex, journalism, netnewswire, opensourcejournalism, podcasting, rss, tacomaproject, Web/Tech, web2.0, Weblogs, Work

Gnomedex: First impressions

  1. Dave Winer is much taller than I’d expected.
  2. Adam Curry isn’t as tall as I’d expected
  3. Chris Pirillo is about as tall as I’d expected
  4. Dan Gillmor gave me a nice bit of encouragement
  5. The place is crawling with “A-list” bloggers and podcasters
  6. Cameras everywhere
  7. The wifi is fast but uses the same IP range as my corporate WAN, making VPN connections something I’ve yet to work out
  8. The Google trucker hat was a nice touch
  9. My URL got left off my name badge somehow but I’ll fix that myself
  10. Parking isn’t bad
Jun 23 2005
aggregators, gnomedex, journalism, macintosh, netnewswire, opensourcejournalism, photography, podcasting, rss, tacomaproject, Web/Tech, web2.0, Weblogs, Work

Gnomedexing

Gotta go into the office for a few hours today then it’s off to Seattle for Gnomedex. What is Gnomdex? It’s a geek-fest the covers pretty much whatever is happening now or will be happening soon in the online world. This year it’s going to be about RSS, podcasting, citizen journalism, micropublishing, and more. This looks like the one to attend, too. Microsoft is poised to make some announcements at the show, as is Audible. Plus, there’s the added bonus of being in the same room with both Adam Curry and Dave Winer. I’m not sure if their personal falling-out and subsequent public arguments have helped our hurt podcasting but it will certainly be interesting to see them in the same room.

You can follow along at home with Flikr or Technorati.

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