Google just released their web-based feed reader named Google Reader. Users can login using their Google account and track web feeds in a two-column layout with a default sort of “relevance.” Google is not currently pulling from its archive of past blog entries and only displays the items currently present in the feed. The first column displays a list of subscribed feeds and switches to a list of posts when you click an item. Posts are displayed in the sidebar drawer using title and publication date only. The complete entry display contains the entry title, author, publication date, link, and…
Category Archives: Feed aggregators
Yahoo! RSS awareness whitepaper
Yahoo! conducted a study of Internet users in August in an attempt to quantify the ubiquity of RSS among Internet users. Yahoo! released a whitepaper covering some of their findings after surveying over 4000 Internet users in August. Findings Only 12% of those surveyed were aware of RSS, and only 4% have knowingly used RSS. 27% of respondents had interacted with RSS content in personalized start pages such as My Yahoo! but did not realize they were using RSS. The average RSS user subscribed to 6.6 feeds and spend an average of 4.1 hours per week reading those feeds. Only…
Interview with Greg Reinacker and Brent Simmons of NewsGator
I had the opportunity to sit down with Greg Reinacker and Brent Simmons to talk about the NewsGator and its recent acquisition of Ranchero Software. I spent about 30 minutes with Greg and Brent talking about how they decided to work together, how NetNewsWire contributes to NewsGator’s product strategy and revenue goals, and what changes we can expect from both sides in the near future. I asked a few questions Greg and Brent had never discussed and there are definitely a few details yet to be worked out. We also talked about Nick Bradbury and NewsGator’s acquisition of Bradbury…
NewsGator purchases NetNewsWire
NewsGator Technologies has a new page on their site about the acquisition of NetNewsWire. Brent Simmons, the creator of NetNewsWire, will be joining the NewsGator team as a product architect according to a release on the NewsGator site. Om Malik scooped the news last night. The phrasing of the announcement is around NetNewsWire only. I presume NewsGator has acquired all of Ranchero software, including products such as editing software MarsEdit, and not just NetNewsWire. NewsGator Technologies now produces software in C#, ASP.net, Delphi, and Objective C. Lack of a unified codebase and the company’s reliance on one engineer per…
NewsFire blocks RSS ads
I noticed something new and interesting in the NewsFire release notes today: NewsFire now blocks advertisements from Google and FeedBurner. NewsFire is the first aggregator I know of to block advertisements in the default installation and not a custom user-supplied CSS stylesheet. I tested the new feature with Brad Feld’s feed and Engadget’s feed and both display advertisements in the source but not when displayed in NewsFire. I cannot find any way to enable advertisements at the application or feed level. Is NewsFire the first of what may be many aggregators to block advertisements in feeds? Will products tout this…
RSS jobs at Yahoo! and Microsoft
Yahoo! and Microsoft are definitely paying attention to emerging forms of data transport such as RSS. It is evident not only in their product roadmaps but also in the essential tools to help potential candidates succeed in their jobs. Microsoft mentions RSS in 15 current job descriptions across product groups such as portable media center, marketing, and MSN. Looks like Microsoft has some plans for RSS on mobile devices. Yahoo! mentions RSS in 12 current job descriptions including what they are calling their “open content (RSS) platform.” Google currently has no job listings for feed technologies RSS, Atom, or even…
Firefox feed styling
I downloaded the nightly build of Firefox this morning and noticed a new default styling for feeds. Firefox is currently displaying headlines only but it looks like you may be able to adjust that preference through the hovering preference and information box on the right-hand side. A checkbox appears next to items with a link currently in your browser history. Deer Park is the name of Firefox binaries while in alpha development stage. Tags: firefox, deerpark…
RSS is still an obscure term
Pew Internet & American Life Project asked over 1300 Internet users about their awareness of certain Internet terms. While 88% of respondents had a good idea what the term “spam” means only 9% had a good idea what “RSS” means. 26% of respondents had never heard the term “RSS.” I am sure MP3 was just as obscure before the term became synonymous with all digital music….
Microsoft RSS search using Start.com
Microsoft announced a new version of Start.com yesterday that includes news and feed search. You can view the new Start.com and search for yourself. Search results are displayed in a JavaScript window and each search category’s results are displayed using asynchronous JavaScript. You can subscribe to the feed of any result in the RSS search results. I still don’t like the branding of feed search as “RSS search” but I do still ask for a Kleenex even if it’s a Puffs and my parents call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover even if it’s a Dyson. Tags: microsoft, feedsearch, rss…
Bloglines feed statistics
Ask Jeeves just released some statistics about the size of their database and subscribed users. 1,121,655 feeds with at least one subscriber Slashdot is the most popular feed with 37,400 active subscribers. Bloglines indexes almost 600 million articles (items/entries). Bloglines adds over 2 million new articles to its index daily. My blog has a RSS feed for every post, category, month, as well as custom keyword searches and a feed for the last 15 blog entries. That’s thousands of feeds without even mentioning my Atom 0.3 and Atom 1.0 feeds. I am definitely not conservative in what I produce and…