RSS for Mac OS X Roundtable

Thoro writes "There is an unusual interview with the authors of the five major RSS clients for OS X: NetNewsWire, NewsFire, NewsMac, PulpFiction and Shrook. Safari RSS, Apple, the hype around RSS and the role of the news aggregator in the future are discussed. It's also hinted that the performance problems of RSS may be overblown. It is a breath of fresh air to see so many competitors come together to talk civily and not to better gang up on another."

Comments

Rephrase?

[Orgazmus]

"so many competitors come together to talk civily and not to better gang up on another"

need i say more?

Re:Rephrase?

[ravenspear]

That would assume one of two things.

1. posters to slashdot actually possess grammer skills
2. the mods actually care about readability of their news

Re:Rephrase?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's "grammar".

Point for me!

Re:Rephrase?

[Orgazmus]

And still, nobody took the obvious joke.
Not even the mods, but who really expected that anyway?

Re:Rephrase?

[wintahmoot]

Nobody said anything about spelling, you insensitive clod!

Enough?

[someonewhois]

It seems like they're tons out there, why do people keep making more?

Re:Enough?

[SilentChris]

Because you get innovations. Example: I was pleased to see Firefox does "active bookmarks" using RSS, which change bookmarks depending on the content of the site (for example, I see a "RSS for Mac OS X Roundtable" link now). Eventually, most RSS programs are going to get folded into the browser anyway, so it's good to take the important pieces.

Re:Enough?

[MmmDee]

It seems like they're tons out there, why do people keep making more?

Careful, some folks could have said the same thing about operating systems. Even before the Microsoft/Linux arrivals.

Re:Enough?

[daeley]

Ahem...

someonewhois (808065): "It seems like they're tons out there, why do people keep making more?"

The same might be said for /. user accounts. ;)

Re:Enough?

[System.out.println()]

Eventually, most RSS programs are going to get folded into the browser anyway

What makes you say that? That's like saying email will be folded into the browser - sure, there's webmail, or Mozilla Suite, but they're different applications with different purposes. Unless they do something ridiculously clever, I don't see how a browser can offer any more than basic RSS support without becoming bloated.

Re:Enough?

[someonewhois]

Yeah, but 1 person uses 1 account, 1 person doesn't use 6 aggrevators - and if they do, they've got some serious multitasking going on (or all of the aggrevators suck, and they can only handle 1 feed each).

Re:Enough?

[SnakeStu]

Perhaps to ensure that there is "lots of software available" and "a strong developer base" for the platform for which one wishes to evangelize...?

And no, I didn't get through reading the article, because the "Macs rule, PCs drool" beginning of the interview turned me off entirely. The very premise of the first question was my first clue that annoyances lay ahead. I've never felt that I was facing a dearth of RSS reading/aggregating capabilities on my PC. (FWIW, my current RSS reader is my browser, i.e., Opera 7.)

Re:Enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'll find that a number of people here have multiple slashdot accounts, so they can agree with/asskiss themselves. And don't even get me started about that Anonymous Coward guy, he's everywhere! ;)

Re:Enough?

[mrchaotica]

I wish someone would be innovative enough to make a Mac RSS reader that works like KNewsTicker! I don't understand why people insist on having a vertical list/email-like/webpage-like interface when a ticker-tape is so perfect.

The only problem with KNewsTicker is that I'd have to install the entirety of KDE to use it : (

Re:Enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree!

Re:Enough?

[outZider]

NewsTicker?

Re:Enough?

[drdink]

The same might be said for /. user accounts. ;)

I agree, Mr. 126313. Please take note of my number and cease using this website. Thank you.

Re:Enough?

[drunkenbatman]

It's too bad you felt that way. It isn't about a dearth, it's about relative market share. Windows currently has something akin to 40 RSS readers of various qualities, while OSX has something like 6-8 of decent quality, past that and you're going to be stretching your idea of what you can call an aggregator.

That said, Apple is a pretty miniscule marketshare at the moment. While you can fudge things by talking about installed base, going by that installed base still decimates OS X's marketshare numbers. In most areas of software selection on the Mac, this is reflected pretty starkly. But not for RSS readers, and that's what I was after.

I'll admit they were a little ra-ra, but that was how they wanted to take it. I simply posed the question, I think it's a worthwhile one.

Re:Enough?

[jrp2]

Eventually, most RSS programs are going to get folded into the browser anyway, so it's good to take the important pieces.

First, you might want to checkout the sage extension for Firefox as opposed to the builtin live bookmarks. It is very nice.

My guess is you are mostly right, the mass consumption of RSS will be a PC browser embedded function. My guess is the hardcore will use other apps, such as feedreader, feeddemon, etc. They are far more refined for the purpose.

I think it will be very intesting how all this shakes out, and what clever ideas people come up with to use RSS (I have seen very innovative ideas already). The beatuy of RSS, is it's flexibility and generic nature, leaving the display to the whims of the users.

Also remember, the applications will go well beyond traditional PCs. I worked on a fairly infamous product (spectacular failure, mostly an idea before it's time that cost too much) called Audrey from 3Com. It was a small Internet Appliance (aimed for the kitchen, family room, etc.) that could browse and check email, but it's really cool feature was programmable "channels" for content, selected by a rotary knob on the front. You would program in what you wanted each channel to be (say Chicago Weather, football news, etc.) for each channel. You can "change the channel" like a TV.

What was behind all this? RSS (or a close cousin, at least, it was early in the game). Had we had all the RSS content there is now, that would have made the feature that much more compelling (we had a hell of a time getting content at the time).

Other, non-PC apps could be customized news on a mobile phone, driving electronic marquees (think Times Square). Yeah, these things are done now, but mostly manually, with limited selection of content. RSS opens up this kind of application to the little guy (think Main Street in East Bumfsck, Iowa), and opens up custom content on mobile phones (rather than the small selection of canned feeds available now).

Anyway, don't restrict the application to traditional PCs, and don't restrict the application to just traditional web content. RSS has potential to do what the web has done on a larger scale, provide access to non-web outlets (phones, etc.) only the big guys could access before.

Re:Enough?

[saddino]

People keep making more because the "optimal" UI metaphor for RSS is still being determined. The authors in the article have products that run the gamut from three panel email-like (NetNewsWire, Pulp) to iChat-like (NewsFire), to Finder-like (Shrook). And recently, authors such as myself (ahem, plug follows) have been working on ticker-like RSS/Atom readers such as Tickershock and Stickler (a competitor -- equal time rules in effect).

And with Apple getting in the mix with their browser-style Safari RSS, we'll just have to see what pans out of the mix.

Re:Enough?

[47Ronin]

It seems like they're tons out there, why do people keep making more?

Because developers for Mac are doing the same thing as Windows developers.. building dozens of titles that do the same exact thing, hence crushing the argument that "there isn't any software for Mac"

The difference is, in the Windows world there are hundreds of titles for each purpose, 90% of which may be crap. In the Mac universe, you may have only one or two titles for each purpose, but they're usually of very good quality.

Re:Enough?

[Erik Hollensbe]

Please keep RSS as far away from my browser as possible.

The app I use, NewsFire, is light and fast. By comparison, even FireFox or Opera are giant beasts.

Re:Enough?

[Erik Hollensbe]

Cheeky Italian Mob Bosses want as many aggrevators as they can get.

Re:Enough?

[System.out.println()]

Right there with you. Safari and Newsfire are great at what they do, and no replacement for each toher. :-)

Re:Enough?

[daeley]

It is quite an honor when The Ancient Ones grace us with their presence.

Re:Enough?

[mrchaotica]

Um, well... yeah, actually. Thanks!

I was kind of hoping for a Free (and free) version, but this is pretty good too.

Re:Enough?

[Just Some Guy]

It is quite an honor when The Ancient Ones grace us with their presence.

Do I count as an Honorable Ancient One, or at least a Mildly Inoffensive Old Guy?

Re:Enough?

[saddino]

Tickershock fits the bill.

Re:Enough?

[mrchaotica]

Thanks, but the other guy's link (for NewsTicker) was better -- it launches my browser instead of it's own newsreader thingy, and it costs $5 instead of $20.

Re:Enough?

[saddino]

Just FYI, Tickershock can launch your browser too. NewsTicker for $5 is OK, but you have to pay for it in CPU time. To each their own.

Re:Enough?

[Bob Uhl]

What's really annoying is that I was using /. before there were any user accounts, but waited so long that I've a relatively high UID. Sigh...

Personal web portal

[fembots]

Is there a reader that is flexible enough to allow users to make a pseudo web site (ie serving locally) with those aggregating syndicated content?

Imagine the possibility to design/allocate different news on diferent section of a web page, with different links, and everybody will get an instant GoogleNews with fully customised content.

Re:Personal web portal

[DavidLeblond]

Yahoo does this, check it out.

my.yahoo.com

Re:Personal web portal

[prockcore]

Imagine the possibility to design/allocate different news on diferent section of a web page, with different links, and everybody will get an instant GoogleNews with fully customised content.

You don't need to imagine it anymore. My.Yahoo does exactly this. Allowing you to put RSS feeds on your custom page.

We're looking at doing this exact same thing on our own site.

Re:Personal web portal

[GrAfFiT]

FeedReader (windows) does this.
Anyway, you can easily find this kind of PHP script.

Re:Personal web portal

[cluening]

Or... you could write your own. It isn't very hard:

http://www.wirelesscouch.net/cgi-bin/headlines/hea dlines.pl

Re:Personal web portal

[PierceLabs]

SlashDock does this (and I was actually surprised to find it not listed). When I do a "view digest" of these I get a web page of the feeds that I was interested in served locally. Its actually pretty cool, though I don't use it much.

Re:Personal web portal

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the Beta version of NetNewsWire:

http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/whatsnew/netnews wi re20.php

Re:Personal web portal

[Anonymous Coward]

Try out Buddy.

Re:Personal web portal

[Anonymous Coward]

It is if you don't already know perl or C or some other language. We're not all expert programmers, you know.

Re:Personal web portal

[Jerf]

Also Radio Userland, and an open-source clone PyDS. The usual Open Source/Commercial software applies; technically PyDS may do more but requires more maintenance and is harder to use :-)

I'm not sure either product can split the feeds by category, but I usually just read them all at once; I'm one of the people who swears by the "feed" approach to newsreading. Both products can split out your website by category, though, creating an "everything" main page, and seperate pages for categories which are basically weblogs-in-weblogs, with independent pinging, templates, upload points, etc.... or not, if you just want them to use the same template and go to subdirectories by default. I often use this for focused feeds, for people who just want to know about one of my software projects and not my "real" weblog.

Re:Personal web portal

[Atomicdesigns]

Startbulb.com does this and is way better than My Yahoo

Re:Personal web portal

[Ash-Fox]

You don't need to be a expert, infact it's mostly just a couple of clicks and a few sentences in VB.NET

Not meant as a troll but...

[OS24Ever]

...To me this just highlights the differences of the developer communities. The comment of 'amazing how they got together' vs. yelling at each other is the culture of the respective sales methods of the hardware and/or operating systems they are built on.

PC Hardware (teir one) vendors spend weeks with FUD about the other products. (IE Tommy Boy and "But what if the Guarantee Fairy's a crazy glue sniffer? Next thing you know there's change missing from your dresser and your daughter's knocked up. I've seen it a hundred times.")

Windows does the same thing from a development standpoint (DOS isn't done till Lotus won't run) and to some extent the semi-zealotry of the OSS community (to parapharase Mike Myers 'If it's not GPL it's CRAP!' and all the associated 'KDE is l33t gnome is proprietary' type things.

Just my $0.02

Apple gets it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is going to introduce Safari RSS with Mac OS X 10.4.

I think Apple should tied RSS reader with Mail.app, not the browser. What you think about that?

Re:Apple gets it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Apple should tied RSS reader with Mail.app, not the browser. What you think about that?

I think you should learn English. F'en Brit!

Re:Apple gets it wrong

[mattyrobinson69]

evolution has rss tied in, its nice. opera also has rss tied in (i think its nicer in opera, because its just a panel, click it to open a new window in the program your already running).

i get the latest /. headlines using rss in opera - try it.

Re:Apple gets it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're missing a few words there.

Re:Apple gets it wrong

[Macrat]

I think it would be silly to tie and RSS reader to a Mail tool.

After all, RSS feeds are from websites and link to articles that are posted on web sites.

Re:Apple gets it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

the browser handles their 'widgets', or whatever they would like to call them this week. So, it should be possible to make one which shows RSS with little difficulty.

Re:Apple gets it wrong

[keytoe]

I completely agree - so I wrote my own: Feed. It's still got some rough edges, but works well enough for everyday use, is Open Source and supports RSS and Atom.

what is the point of RSS?

[Trepidity]

Am I the only one who doesn't get the point of RSS? It seems to be providing periodic updates in a concise format. Can't you do that by setting things up to send items by email every time there's a new item posted? Or even by UseNet to a moderated group? What does RSS do that's new?

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[slimyrubber]

Can't you do that by setting things up to send items by email every time there's a new item posted? Or even by UseNet to a moderated group? What does RSS do that's new?

First off, you dont need to delete all the email once the 'expire'. Secondly firefox's live bookmarks are way too cool to be compaired with running an email client and switching between that and the browser. Thirdly, what you suggested is just another way of doing it and what difference would that make?

So what is the point of getting updates via email when you can just use live bookmarks from within browser, for example. Plus RSS are really valuable because they can and are integrated within various news feed sites like google news. Thats the strongest point of RSS feeds.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[trekstar25]

It's a great, dynamic format that can be used in some really useful ways: I love my Firefox live bookmarks, it lets me check the /. stories without even leaving whatever site I'm on.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[curious.corn]

RSS feeds are xml. You can XSTL one and insert it into another feed or generic xml, html, native widget interface. You can, of course, code your own site specific parser to recognize the newsletter's incipit text patterns but it makes some work doesn't it? So essentially it's nothing new (like say, transportation or calculus) but it's much easier to deal with (like walking compared to flight or pencil & paper to that nifty CPU humming on your desk).

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[Erik Hollensbe]

To put it bluntly, RSS means that I don't have to subscribe to your crappy flash interface to read your worthwhile content.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[System.out.println()]

RSS means that the same content available on websites is available in a feed. Since it bears repeating, that's the same content, at the same time.

The other thing it's having going for it is its popularity among web developers. Most web developers could care less about a usenet group and don't want to go to the trouble of a mailing list. Something like HTML on a smaller scale - whether it's good or not doesn't matter, what's important is that it's everywhere, and it's (usually) consistent. More sites with RSS mean more people will be interested in RSS readers, and it builds on itself.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[LordNimon]

RSS is more standard than email, so I can parse the data in a common format. This allows me, for instance, to put multiple RSS feeds on my home page. This allows me to get headline updates for multiple web sites in one shot, rather than have to deal with email (which needs to be manually deleted).

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, don't make the mistake of thinking RSS is just for "updates". For many sites, RSS gives you the *content*. Unfortunately many sites don't realize this and think RSS is just a notification service and that will I go and click on the url in my browser. No, the RSS feed should contain the content. I rarely use a web browser any more except for shopping and slashdot (which still has a crappy RSS setup, no way pick topics for instance). Sites without RSS don't exist for me in general.

Anyway RSS main benefits are

1) it is XML. easy to create and transform. I don't know if you're a programmer but it is 10x easier to generate an RSS file and stick it in a public place (FTP or HTTP server) then send emails. I can't even remember what the format for dates in an email is. I know I will get flack for this but it really is just a lot easier for me to turn data into RSS using available tools like Ruby's built-in rss library or perl's XML:RSS add-on.

it is also easier to parse RSS and have the computer read it aloud, or fold it into other web pages, or do all kinds of cool stuff. Again it's not impossible to do with email but it is harder.

2) it organized into feeds. in my newsreader I organize feeds by topic. click on the folder and view all combined, organized by date, or click on individual feeds to just view those articles. I'm not sure how to do that in email except to set up some "rules" which take time.

3) my newsreader doesn't go BING! when a new item appears, but my email does. Because when I get a new email I want to read it because it's usually from a person, but news items I "batch process".

3a) since you choose the feeds there's no spam

4) it is easy to subscribe to or unsubscribe from an rss feed. Just click on a link. Subscribing to email services requires multi-step processes. Unsubscribing is a pain (usually I just blacklist it in my postfix setup, easier than finding the address or link or whatever).

I use RSS for lots of stuff. For instance pulling important stuff out of the logs of multiple servers around the country and creating a "newsfeed" out of it. I don't need to get alerts (email is good for that), but sometimes I want to scan some statistics or application-level logs and see if trouble is brewing.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[dr.badass]

RSS is more standard than email, so I can parse the data in a common format.

Which common format would that be?
At last count there were 9 incompatable versions of RSS. And then there's Atom, which itself has a few incompatable versions floating out there in the wild.

And that's not counting the lack of content standards. Should they be full-text or excerpts? Should they include the author, the subject, the category? Should they contain full-size images? Should they contain enclosures? Should they contain style code? Should they contain ads? Everyone does it differently, and it's fucking infuriating.

I use the hell out of RSS, but it is by no means "standard".

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the lack of standards in FINDING the damn feeds.

Some use the goofy orange "XML" button (Gee, how about a more generic term there guys?)

Some use those little 15 pixel high 'badges'.

Some use the movable-type default "Syndicate this Site (XML)" link.

Some put them at the top, some at the bottom, some on the side, some on a separate page.

Some use embedded tags so conforming readers than autodetect them, while not giving any visible indication that they exist.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

A dial-up connection (low bandwidth) might open your eyes to some advantages of RSS. It makes web news as fast as Usenet, yet more formal (less like a help desk). Mail lists create their own bandwidth and storage problems, in a world full of spam (Mail lists are often also harvest points for spammers wanting real addresses).

For instance, You can every new SlashDot feed, without rereading the old ones, in a rather concise format, in one page so to speak, expand only those headlines of interest. You could do this with at least ten times the amount of content heavy sites (regardless of your bandwidth) in the time it would take to view ONE typical html site)

You still might have to click through multiple sites to get to the meat of the matter being discussed though.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[Anonymous Coward]

its a proof of format for people with rights to post to their web-server.

useful unless you get big, the standard is still in need of souped up DNS like cascading caches to enter the net's infrastructure before it'll be of true worldwide utility.

Re:what is the point of RSS?

[LordNimon]

Oh come on, there may be 10 versions of RSS, but at least it's a fixed number. There is no standard whatsoever for sending such data via email, because email is free-form text. I would need to write a separate parser for each email source I get. At least with RSS, I know that if I support all 10 versions, I will support everything.

On Demand

[fembots]

RSS is FOD (feed on demand), so yo don't get what you didn't ask for, and you can easily filter/remove undesired RSS feed.

Re:On Demand

[Ash-Fox]

> RSS is FOD (feed on demand), so yo don't get what you didn't ask for, and you can easily filter/remove undesired RSS feed.

My only problem with this, is that I run a small site on a 512KBps(down)/1024KBps(up) connection, and I get the equilivant of a slashdot effect every 30 minutes because of all the RSS feed readers.

I'm starting to consider offering a mailing feature instead because of this.

Re:On Demand

[lostguy]

Out of curiosity, have you looked at something like Coral?

Re:On Demand

[BigJimSlade]

My only problem with this, is that I run a small site on a 512KBps(down)/1024KBps(up) connection, and I get the equilivant of a slashdot effect every 30 minutes because of all the RSS feed readers.

1) Are you sure you're setting the correct HTTP response codes to let users know that content has/has not been updated? This can solve the problem for about 85% of your users, I would imagine.

2) Consider using a 3rd-party feed provider, such as FeedBurner. It will even give you most of the statistics you would get if you hosted the feed yourself.

Re:On Demand

[Ash-Fox]

Nope, but if I had the ability right now, I'd mod you as informative.

how is that different?

[Trepidity]

If you have each site be one UseNet group, with each update being a post in that group, that's feed on demand too. You subscribe to the groups you want, and don't subscribe to the ones you don't want, and can easily filter/remove undesired groups.

Re:how is that different?

[fembots]

Possibly, but site owners tend to find RSS/XML feed easier to create than setting up a new newsgroup.

Re:how is that different?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing a web technology to usenet..? Huh?

I'll say again: Huh?

Usenet = large archives of (pointlessly) replicated postings. propagation can suck, but load is distributed

Web = small, independent archives. propagation is not an issue, but load is centralized

You're talking about throwing two technologies together that have fundamentally different underlying concepts. I can't even begin to grasp why you would try to equate a website's RSS feed with a USENET group.

Re:how is that different?

[mmkkbb]

It's a LOT harder to filter spam from USENET.

Still banging out bugs

[Matey-O]

I'm finding that each RSS reader I see brings a feature or two I'd like, but none of them do everything right.

-Thunderbird does really well, but the keyboadr shortcuts don't drop down to the view window...want to see the next page? Hit space, see the next RSS feed item. (D'oh!)
-Another makes you click the item, then click the preview, when all you really want on some sites is to go from the item to the fill-monty (like Slashdot, for example)
-One updates Every Fifteen Minutes...ensuring you'll never get work done. Finish a pile of Rss feeds, Alt-tab over to your application, and it insistently bounces on the app bar telling you you've got more to read!

It's like all of the RSS programmers didn't have any UI background and have to learn all the useability stuff we figgured out in Web Browsers....and Word Processors, and OS's...

Re:Still banging out bugs

[cosmo7]

It's like all of the RSS programmers didn't have any UI background and have to learn all the useability stuff we figgured out in Web Browsers....and Word Processors, and OS's...

You could take a look at NewsYouCanUse if you want a newsreader with a less clicky and obtrusive interface. One click to open a story, from your menubar.

Re:Still banging out bugs

[Erik Hollensbe]

If you use a Mac, please check out NewsFire. Really, I haven't found a program so useful and unobtrusive in such a long time. Nowadays, I just hit my RSS reader when I have time to read things. I don't even bother going to sites anymore.

It solves all 3 of these problems very elegantly.

Of course, I wrote an article about how it annoys me that people who provide feeds don't include the full articles. It's really rather silly. They could include ads too, and I would embrace it.

Re:Still banging out bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, the RSS feeds should be just like the websites,

oh, wait...

Re:Still banging out bugs

[Erik Hollensbe]

Obviously you haven't spent a lot of time integrating an RSS reader into your workflow.

How many sites do you check each day that have no new content? I can say mine clearly: 0. And that's even for bob in iowa's blog, who only writes when it's a full moon in january.

The parent is asking a good question, he should be modded up so everyone can see it.

503 Server Busy

[fishwallop]

I wanted to comment on the claims that RSS performance problems may be "overblown", but all I get is 503 errors!
Must be all those darn RSS users trying to get their slashdot feed on the hour.

Yea but what happens when..

[L0u13]

All well and good that the Mac developers can make a standard, but what happens when Microsoft comes out with MSRSS or RSSnet that is completely proprietary?

Re:Yea but what happens when..

[dick johnson]

Not much, me thinks. Microsoft can offer such a standard, but it's up to Web Developers to deploy it. Why would such a standard be better than RSS? The point of having a web presence is to reach as many readers/users as possible. Limiting my company's site only to users of Microsoft products doesn't stand up to that test. The site I work for uses RSS and I can't see any circumstance where we would provide content only to some (ie, Windows) readers.

Re:Yea but what happens when..

[Ash-Fox]

To put it simply, it's not RSS then plus, why the hell would they need to make another XML format for RSS?

I don't think Microsoft is trying to replace open standards, just dominate the market.

I'm still waiting for...

[commodoresloat]

RSS on the menubar. It's just my preference, I can't justify it with any arguments, but I find it odd that with so many RSS readers out there for OSX I can't find one that puts news in a hierarchical menu.

I'd also like to see a decent ticker with a reasonable interface. Something not too intrusive that will roll selected headlines across the menubar or somewhere else once in a while, not constantly. I looked at a screensaver that did RSS but it did way too much work and crashed a bunch. I just want to occasionally know when there is a new headline on certain RSS feeds.

Of course, there are tons of other potential RSS applications out there; reading slashdot headlines using different interfaces is only the tip of the iceberg. Being able to integrate RSS and similarly updated information into other applications could be very useful.

Re:I'm still waiting for...

[cosmo7]

RSS on the menubar. It's just my preference, I can't justify it with any arguments, but I find it odd that with so many RSS readers out there for OSX I can't find one that puts news in a hierarchical menu.

Try NewsYouCanUse.

(Sorry for spamming my product, but it does exactly what you're looking for.)

Re:I'm still waiting for...

[nmk]

Or you can try You Control. It gives you a highly customizable Menubar RSS reader plus a large number of other customizable menus. The application is a bit expensive, but you might want to check it out for the amazing variety of customizable menu's it lets you create.

What? No SlashDock?

[ZZ-Type]

Where's SlashDock in the list? http://homepage.mac.com/stas/slashdock.html

This is what I use to constantly check SlashDot for new stories. It's probably the best I've seen, is contantly updated and is FREE! (Donations accepted.)

I have no connection other than liking and using SlashDock.

Re:What? No SlashDock?

[Gogo Dodo]

The interview was with a group of commercial RSS aggregators for Mac OS X. It was not meant to be a review of every RSS aggregator out there, but an "interview" with a group of programmers of full-featured (?) or commercial (true, one was is free) RSS aggregators.

Re:What? No SlashDock?

[Anonymous Coward]

the five major RSS clients for OS X

I guess I keyed on the phrase "five major." The poster above you hadn't heard of most of them. Neither had I, but I have been using SlashDock for a long, long time. And I've been using it with SlashDot at the top of my RSS list.

Re:Personal web portal - Use Java Rome

[Aesiq]

This is fairly easy to implement. Sun has libraries and classes for accepting all syndication formats called Rome https://rome.dev.java.net/. We just dropped it in at our site http://www.arctechnologygroup.com/dojo/arctg/v.jsp ?p=/solutions/rss.

Podcasts

[sjonke]

The only thing RSS I'm actually using and somewhat "get" is iPodder for podcasts. Minimalist and klunky, though. I wish it would notify me when a new podcast has been downloaded. As it is I have to check iTunes manually to see if there's anything new. Better still it should check to see if your iPod is connected, and if it is, tell iTunes to sync it. Then it really would be loading your iPod for you.

It's the format

[ShatteredDream]

Theoretically, it is easy to write a RSS reader. For example you can create a RSS reader for your blog in PHP that will pull the latest headlines from your friends' blogs so that y'all can link back and forth to each other. I say theoretically because you have RSS 0.92, RSS/RDF 1.0 and RSS 2.0. That's why Atom came into being, a bunch of guys finally wanted a standard XML grammar that wouldn't change with the latest whims of its maintainers and users.

There really is nothing stopping you from writing plugins for MovableType or another blog package that supports plugins, that would allow you to send email or post to usenet. The question is... why would you want to do that as an alternative to RSS rather than maybe a compliment? Your automatically generated messages would probably just got shot down by a spam filter.

that's the part I don't get

[Trepidity]

I already check my email regularly, because I'm on a bunch of announcement lists and mailing lists. If I wanted to read each new Slashdot story as it came in without visiting the site, I could just have them emailed to me, and they'd be filtered into a "Slashdot" box. What does RSS give me that this setup doesn't, besides another damn client?

but email already allows that

[Trepidity]

Many sites, including Slashdot, will email you the new stories when they come out. How does subscribing to the RSS feed work out better than subscribing to the email feed? Besides being another client?

I imagine soon we'll have standardized ways to get comments and post replies in an RSS client, then the client will add killfiles and whatnot, and then we'll have reinvented the discussion group yet again.

Re:but email already allows that

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine soon we'll have standardized ways to get comments and post replies in an RSS client, then the client will add killfiles and whatnot, and then we'll have reinvented the discussion group yet again.

It would take a monsterous buffoon (greater than Dave Winer) to turn RSS into the shithole that Usenet has become. RSS is simple, lightwieght, completely decentralized, and entirely web-centric. The reason it's so popular is because it's so simple. Not because it's so featuriffic. People are working out what to do with it. What works and what doesn't.

Posting a simple xml file on a webserver is all it takes to have an RSS feed. You can do it with a text editor. Usenet it is not.

Re:but email already allows that

[Erik Hollensbe]

Ok, I'll put it this way:

I get a lot of mail generated by CVS commits. A *lot* of mail.

Now, I can either read that mail or I can ignore it. Regardless of the effect, it appears in my mailbox, and I have to write several filters to keep it from obscuring my mother's wonderful chain letters telling me how much she loves me.

90% of the time, I don't care what's in that diff, where it's applied, or anything.

But I spent a good deal of time writing a small script to generate those emails. Sounds like something pretty counter-productive, especially when I can use the CVS tools or something like cvsweb to look at those diffs, right? Not really. As I'm sure you know, having the ability to use my mail client's search tool to scan through those makes it easy.

Enter cvs2rss. Instead of generating emails that get pushed to my mailbox every commit, it generates a RSS file on the server, which points to the cvsweb stuff. What does this mean?

Instead of getting 40 emails a day and ignoring 39 of them, I configure my reader to scan the rss file once a day. It doesn't interfere with my mail checking, nothing else, as a matter of fact. And when I *do* want to check out something, I can go to cvsweb, where I can do a lot more than just stare at the diff - which is nice if I want to annotate. And our mail administrator is happy because I don't have an IMAP box crammed with every patch since the inception of the project.

If you want to take this further, imagine slashdot's email load, which pushes emails when stories come out. Now, I may not care about the latest story, nor do I want to read slashdot as often as they send out emails. So I configure my RSS reader to check slashdot every 4 hours. Result? The only time I visit slashdot now is to (like right now), reply to comments that have been made to mine. And it's like this for every site that uses RSS. BBC, Slashdot. CSMonitor, they all have the same interface, my RSS reader NewsFire, which is much better suited to giving me a pile of links and descriptions than my email client is.

Yeah, no kidding!

[eLoco]

...with the authors of the five major RSS clients for OS X: NetNewsWire, NewsFire, NewsMac, PulpFiction and Shrook...

Not that I'm an RSS fanatic, but I've heard of exactly one of these (NetNewsWire), and everyone I know on OS X uses SlashDock, so this strikes me as uninformed. And not mentioning SlashDock on Slashdot, of all things...

use web browser

[pointyhairedmba]

Why not just use a web interface so that you don't have a Mac or PC version. I've been playing with Pluck's ( http://www.pluck.com ) web interface which I like. Other vendors also have web interfaces.

Re:use web browser

[pointyhairedmba]

oops, didn't format my link correctly http://www.pluck.com/

Re:use web browser

[TheInternet]

Why not just use a web interface

A lot of people want their feed reader to interact with their desktop environment and other desktop apps.

- Scott

AAGGLL Re:how is that different?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a LOT harder to filter spam from USENET.

Please explain?

I find it really easy to filter spam from USENET - you can use the same filter tech. you use on an email client.

Re:AAGGLL Re:how is that different?

[mmkkbb]

and is that perfect? no.

it's hard to even get spam onto an RSS feed in the first place

Re:AAGGLL Re:how is that different?

[maeka]

A moderated USENT group can have controls over whom is able to post. That makes it just as easy to snip spam from the source as RSS.

Re:Fuck You America

[denthijs]

why do you have to be a hater?

traffic overflow

[PureCreditor]

The idea of RSS is great, but how is different from the late 90's idea of pushing content to the desktop, such as Microsoft's Active Desktop?

2 issues posed :
1) Automated RSS agents might update too often, thus creating unnecessary network traffic.
2) The user might need to access the absolutely latest headlines, and the RSS agent might be displaying a cached copy. Then when the user access the original site's frontpage, the original intent of RSS is defeated.

I'm a huge fan of RSS (esp My Yahoo portal's implementation), but the problems need to be addressed.

URLs for the various rss feeders

[Clith]

NewsFire
NetNewsWire
NewsMac
Pulp Fiction
Shrook

Re:URLs for the various rss feeders

[dwjoyes]

OT, How long is tnir going to be down for the Fedora upgrade, just so's I know... Thanks, see ya, Happy Hallowe'en!