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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."
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.
Yahoo does this, check it out.
my.yahoo.com
FeedReader (windows) does this.
Anyway, you can easily find this kind of PHP script.
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.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
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.)
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.
The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon - Douglas William Jerrold