Tag: aggregators

Is Microsoft Trying To Kill Us?

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What on earth are Microsoft trying to do here? This is the US Software Patent office at its most ridiculous ever!! It has filed a patent on the Windows RSS Platform. Does this apply to Europe?

Part of the application appears to be describing the auto-discovery methods of detecting feeds in a page, but what about the rest of it? Is it for desktop Windows applications? Is it web aggregators? Time to call the lawyer.

If granted, one proposed patent would cover “finding and consuming Web subscriptions in a Web browser.” The invention, for example, could allow a user to “subscribe to a particular Web feed, be provided with a user interface that contains distinct indicia to identify new feeds, and…efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a Web browser.”

I’d like to know what effect this is going to have in Google Reader, Bloglines, Netvibes, PageFlakes, etc, etc and OF COURSE, podcast.com (which is nearing the end of a major overhaul with regards to feed reading and feed folder organisation – and ‘amplification’) !!! The whole podcast industry (yes, there is one) relies on this so-called invention.

The application was made in July 2005, so surely there’s plenty of prior art? I don’t get it?

Nick Bradbury, creator of FeedDemon apparently does not want to call Microsoft ‘evil’ just yet, but personally I feel like we just had a major shot across our bows. Friendly fire? I think not.

Is this just a way for lawyers to make money? I sometimes I think these departments just sit around working out ways to make eachother money while screwing consumers in the process. A little bit like a nation’s defence department working out ways to keep us on the brink of mass destruction in order to keep their budgets up and brass polished.

Foul!! Microsoft, I denounce thee!!

I just had an idea : Get every web developer in the world to write an RSS reader and post it up online. Let’s see how they deal with that. 🙂

feeds, rss

The Well-Formed Web?

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With well formed data, there’s no reason why not. 😉

Now, can we please work out the right way to *do* OPML please?

Basically:

If you want to point to a WEBSITE: use type=link and url=http://your.web.site.com

If you want to point to an RSS feed use type=rss and xmlUrl=htt://www.your.rss.feed.com/rss.xml

If you want to point to MORE OPML use type=include and url=http://www.you.opml.file.com/hoopla.opml

OK. So, you could argue that there might be better ways of doing/specifying it.
And what about htmlUrl, opmlUrl, atomUrl, foafUrl, rdfUrl, type=rdf, type=atom, type=application/pdf or whatever… I don’t know. Just DOCUMENT how you do it.

But what I do know is the sooner we agree and what is the right way to ‘do it’ – the better. 😀

IMHO.

Hey! Is my OPML Icon out of date?? :p

feed, feeds, grazing, IMHO, OPML, rss, web

3D News with RSS

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For Vista, when it comes out, here’s an app/widget from Microsoft called UniveRSS.

UniveRSS is a showcase application that demonstrates the use of several WPF features, 3D animations, data binding, and data visualization. Currently UniveRSS uses the RSS Feed Store managed through Internet Explorer 7. Later versions will allow you to manage the Feed Store from within the UniveRSS application.

It looks very nice and very much the type of thing I envisage in Second Life, when (and if) we get html on a prim surface. With all the available data bindings and communications we have at our disposal there, it should be faily easy to build this in the Metaverse.

Thanks to Dave Winer for the link.

feeds, gadgets, grazing, rss, Second Life, secondlife

An A-Z of Podcasts

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If you head on over to index.podcast.com , you will find a browsable A to Z index of all the podcasts in the podcast.com system.

Soon, you’ll be able to easily add feeds from this or the search (or anywhere!) to your own podcast directory and share the shows you like to listen to and organise them into feed folders, all with lovely OPML for you to build nice widgets out of 😉 – and we will to!

feeds, OPML, podcast, podcast.com, podcasting, podcasts

Nokia N91 as a mobile podcatcher

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Recently, I have been playing with the Nokia N91 – with Wifi built-in and a 4gb hard disk on board too – to test some podcast stuff I have been building. I have to say I really like it – especially as they let me plug standard headphones into the jack.

They have a neat little podcasting application on there by default, which makes it very easy to enter an OPML file url (or locally open one from the handset) for a podcast directory, or an RSS for a direct podcast subscription. I’ll do a full report on this soon.

But one very odd thing I found is that while the handset has no problems whatsoever in playing an AAC+ (.m4a) file which I copied over on the device, when I try to subscribe it to an RSS feed with .m4a audio enclosures ( audio/x-m4a ) the application tells me that the device will not play this format.

Ermm…hello??

Also, a quick note to say that this app is apparently called ‘mPodder‘ in the apps folder of the device. Hmmmm…

OPML, podcast, podcasting, rss

Podcast.com Upgrade

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Well, after ages of thinking and and coding, I have managed to do a huge overhaul of the podcast.com code, mainly in the directory / feed folder rendering department.

Ever since I built the first rendition of the renderer. I knew I’d have to rethink it somewhat, to cope with many, many users without losing the very cool functionality that I have put in there (for good reason).

Now you will find that the site loads ALOT faster. A quick peek at the OPML for each folder (see the red opml icons – which may change – when you open a feed folder) will show you that we use inclusion at every level now. This helps the whole system to scale.

Also, this means that one user can now link easily to another user’s folder without breaking the ‘tree’. It works with internally generated and managed ‘feed folders’ (creating OPML) as well as external OPML.

When you view a feed, you will also notice with added a link to show ‘where’ this feed appears in our users’ folder structures. (OK.. not so many users as yet, but we hope to add to them by the end of October) Also, you’ll see a button to show single-click subscription methods will a list of chicklets.

Another cool thing you should see is that EVERY folder has a permalink url – also with some links to add to del.icio.us or digg

We want the data here to work EVERYWHERE. We have an opportunity to work with EVERYONE.

We love you guys. Now I gotta do me a podcast! 🙂

feed, feeds, mp3, OPML, podcast, podcast.com, podcasts, rss

Why don’t 98% of people know about RSS?

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Scoble comments on the article on Dead 2.0 which claims that only 2% of people use RSS.

I’d say many people don’t *need* to know what RSS (or a ‘feed’) is. They probably use it in places without knowing it.

As more publishers syndicate their feeds, more applications and clients will develop which read and present them (on all sorts of devices).

Data feeds and formats like RSS (and OPML) create a ‘platform’ to build applications on. Not everyone needs to know the code below. Sure, developers certainly do! (What percentage of those do or don’t know or use RSS?)

How many people out there know what the ‘web’ and a ‘webpage’ is, yet draw a blank when you ask them what HTML or CSS is. A lot, I’d say.

Most of us watch the TV – but what percentage of people know how the picture got onto the screen?

Like the internets – it’s all tubes and magnets and squirrels. Right?

blogging, feed, feeds, OPML, rss

Pajamas Don’t Podcast

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I noticed Dave mentioned he was interviewed by Andrew Keen, who I have met through podcast.com activities. I’m glad to see he called it an interview and not a podcast. Why? No RSS feed at all containing the ability for me to subscribe to a series.

To quote Andrew in the interview “RSS is so simple – so elegant”

Andrew’s ‘AfterTV’ did have someone doing a feed for him a while back, but now it looks like Andrew is creating content now for some set up called Pajamas Media. They call themselves the best in global blogging, podcasts and opinion. Blogs? Check. Podcasts. Nope. MP3s to download from the site? Yes. Opinion? No doubt.

They say there are podcasts there – and in their Politics Central section – but I cannot find any at all. Sure, there are some MP3 which have had alot of time and effort put into the them to produce them, but no podcasts.

No feed = Not a podcast (IMHO)

To quote Dave in the interview : “Podcasting is another thing I invented”

I really wish people would do that final last leg of the production effort properly. I also wonder if the hosts etc realise their content is now stuck on a website many people will not have heard of – and not out there being freely aggregated all over the world, while telling anyone who sees it about that website and production team.

This happened few weeks back from Andrew, where he had interviewed Philip Rosedale from Linden Lab (which I now can’t find – no search results for Linden on PM or PC) . I like Andrew’s style and interviews, but he should get someone to sort out his feeds.

He’ll be glad to know the publishing system over at podcast.com is just about ready to roll. 😉

feed, feeds, podcast, podcast.com, podcasts, rss
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