I just finished my implementation of the latest draft of the Atom syndication format specification. I am currently publishing an Atom feed written to the new specification.
Category Archives: Feed aggregators
Ranchero Software interview on DrunkenBlog
DrunkenBlog posted a lengthy interview with Brent and Sheila Simmons of Ranchero Software. The conversation focuses on what it is like to run a small software business and what about Mac software makes Brent love to write clever applications.
RSS source element: threading your feed
The source element in RSS 2.0 is the most under-utilized item element yet it solves many of the issues of tracking threads and citing an item’s source. I would like to lift the veil on this optional sub-element of item and introduce new ways to track related content inside a feed aggregator.
Chameleon Bloglines extension
Joshua Taylor created a Bloglines extension to track attention metadata within the Bloglines newsreader.
NewsGator platform roadmap
Greg Reinacker just announced some big new products from NewsGator. NewsGator will now make a play behind the firewall with a product loosely named NewsGator Enterprise Server. NewsGator Enterprise Software will integrate with Exchange and Active Directory and interact with Outlook Web Access, Blackberry, and Exchange ActiveSync without needing to install NewsGator Outlook Edition on desktop computers across the organization. Greg also announced a white label version of NewsGator Online and there will be many APIs on the way for NewsGator Online. The feedback loop taking place on Greg’s blog is very interesting. Greg is actively engaging his community and…
Ask Jeeves purchases Bloglines
Ask Jeeves officially purchased Bloglines. Mark Fletcher and his team will move to the Ask Jeeves remote office in Los Gatos where Mark will be GM of Bloglines. Teoma will power Bloglines search. Bloglines will gather and monetize users’ attention data for contextual advertising. Bloglines launched 18 months ago in June 2003 Official Announcements Ask Jeeves. “Ask Jeeves plans to leverage these technologies across its search and portal brands, and as of today, Bloglines’ Web search capability will be powered by Ask Jeeves’ search technology.” Ask Jeeves Weblog. “There will be no short-term changes to Bloglines that weren’t already…
NewsFire 1.0
David Watanabe just released version 1.0 of NewsFire, a minimalist and speedy feed aggregator for Mac OS X. NewsFire is shareware and may be purchased for $20. I still use NetNewsWire but NewsFire has impressed me for many months with its speed and ease of use. Please open the application to AppleScript so I can write some hacks!…
Ask Jeeves buying Bloglines?
Mary Hodder reports Ask Jeeves is buying Bloglines and Mark Fletcher will be a Jeeves employee on Monday. Is this true? Mark Fletcher is presenting a 20-minute case study this Tuesday on RSS syndication, ad splicing, and blogging at the Media Center event. Perhaps the announcement is meant to coincide with the conference and Mark will use this time to talk about the new Bloglines. Update: Bloglines acquisition is official. Supposedly announced on Friday with an embargo of midnight tonight….
Tag-aware RSS feeds
Brian Del Vecchio wrote a long entry about about splicing a RSS feed by tag and how aggregator developers can create more tag-aware applications. It is possible within the RSS specification, but most feed authors have overlooked how to properly declare tags within their feeds. Flickr does not include categories with its RSS 2.0 feeds and Del.icio.us feeds use Dublin Core subject to provide space-separated tags. Before the feed aggregators can make your life easier we need to all do a better job as content producers to provide valuable information for our users. RSS 2.0 Each RSS 2.0 feed has…
Feed aggregators and robot exlcusion
The world of feed aggregators has been compared to the HTML Internet of 1994 by Scott Rosenberg and others.. We are starting to consume and make sense of this new data, but there are currently no well-defined methods or implementations of selective consumption. If I publish content it is instantly available to feed aggregators and search companies with no restraints on its usage regardless of licensing and robot preferences. If a Major League Baseball launched a weblog for the private, non-commercial use of their audience there is nothing stopping companies from adding or supplementing the content without the consent of…