RSS for Mac OS X Roundtable

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 18, 2004 @08:18AM from the something-different dept.

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."

30 of 114 comments (clear)

Enough? by someonewhois · 2004-10-18 08:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

It seems like they're tons out there, why do people keep making more?
1. Re:Enough? by SilentChris · 2004-10-18 08:27 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  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.
2. Re:Enough? by MmmDee · 2004-10-18 08:33 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
3. Re:Enough? by daeley · 2004-10-18 08:36 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  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. ;)
  
  --
  I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
4. Re:Enough? by outZider · 2004-10-18 09:30 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  NewsTicker?
  
  --
  - oZ
  // i am here.
5. Re:Enough? by drdink · 2004-10-18 09:30 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  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.
  
  --
  Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
6. Re:Enough? by jrp2 · 2004-10-18 09:36 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  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
7. Re:Enough? by daeley · 2004-10-18 10:49 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  It is quite an honor when The Ancient Ones grace us with their presence.
  
  --
  I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
8. Re:Enough? by Just+Some+Guy · 2004-10-19 01:38 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  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?
  
  --
  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Personal web portal by fembots · 2004-10-18 08:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

--
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
1. Re:Personal web portal by DavidLeblond · 2004-10-18 08:34 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Yahoo does this, check it out.
  
  my.yahoo.com
2. Re:Personal web portal by prockcore · 2004-10-18 08:36 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  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.
3. Re:Personal web portal by GrAfFiT · 2004-10-18 08:37 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  FeedReader (windows) does this.
  Anyway, you can easily find this kind of PHP script.
4. Re:Personal web portal by PierceLabs · 2004-10-18 08:52 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  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:Rephrase? by ravenspear · 2004-10-18 08:29 · Score: 3, Funny

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
Not meant as a troll but... by OS24Ever · 2004-10-18 08:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

...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

--
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
what is the point of RSS? by Trepidity · 2004-10-18 08:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

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?

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1. Re:what is the point of RSS? by slimyrubber · 2004-10-18 08:56 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  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.
  
  --
  [ I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance ] -- Isaac Asimov
2. Re:what is the point of RSS? by curious.corn · 2004-10-18 09:26 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  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).
  
  --
  Mi domando chi Ã il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
3. Re:what is the point of RSS? by Erik+Hollensbe · 2004-10-18 09:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  To put it bluntly, RSS means that I don't have to subscribe to your crappy flash interface to read your worthwhile content.
On Demand by fembots · 2004-10-18 08:47 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
1. Re:On Demand by Ash-Fox · 2004-10-18 09:45 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  > 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.
  
  --
  Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Re:Rephrase? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-18 08:50 · Score: 5, Funny

That's "grammar".

Point for me!
Still banging out bugs by Matey-O · 2004-10-18 08:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

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...

--
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
1. Re:Still banging out bugs by Erik+Hollensbe · 2004-10-18 09:56 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
Yea but what happens when.. by L0u13 · 2004-10-18 09:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?

--
-Louie
1. Re:Yea but what happens when.. by dick+johnson · 2004-10-18 09:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  - dj
What? No SlashDock? by ZZ-Type · 2004-10-18 09:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

--

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
Those who forget the past are doomed ... oh
Re:I'm still waiting for... by cosmo7 · 2004-10-18 09:25 · Score: 4, Informative

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.)
traffic overflow by PureCreditor · 2004-10-18 14:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.