RSSMicrosoft to Embed RSS in IE, Windows
By David Worthington | Published June 24, 2005, 1:30 PM
Microsoft is attempting to bring RSS to the masses by making the emerging technology even simpler and closely tying it Windows and Internet Explorer.
Friday, at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle, Microsoft announced platform level support for Really Simple Syndication (RSS) in Longhorn with end user facing facilities intended to make it easier to discover RSS feeds and support for simple list extensions.
Microsoft has developed an Application Programming Interface (API) for Longhorn that will perform the baseline tasks associated with RSS for developers. Because of this, no additional programming will be required to provide the ability to subscribe to and view feeds from within applications.
In addition to APIs, Longhorn will provide a common RSS feed list across all applications, common RSS data store for applications to access downloaded content, and an RSS platform sync engine. Like Windows Update, the sync engine will utilize idle network bandwidth.
Some of the suggestions proposed by Microsoft for RSS enabled applications are: A screensaver that provides the user with ongoing picture updates, a feed populating calendaring application to keeps appointments continuously up to date, and dynamic music playlists.
Amazon, a Microsoft partner for RSS, has already begun to develop an application that will inform customers about the latest products that may be of interest to them.
Some industry observers have called into question the need to embed RSS, an XML-based technology, into the operating system.
"In the future customers might be able to get customized RSS content that can interact with content on their desktop. The question is it enough of a benefit to justify turning RSS into a development platform," Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox told BetaNews. "I can envision benefits but I am struggling to understand why a platform is needed to get to those benefits."
Subscribing to an RSS feed from within Internet Explorer 7.0 will be similar to adding a Web site to "Favorites." An icon placed in a toolbar will illuminate when feeds have been updated with new content.
"In a way Microsoft has been down this road before with Active Desktop," said Wilcox. "The way this makes sense to me is if Microsoft believes that RSS will be the new interface for the Internet."
In an interview with BetaNews, Megan Kidd, a product manager for Microsoft, stressed that RSS is an additive, not a replacement for the Web browser. Kidd described RSS as the natural evolution of content discovery, a process that has progressed from an "ad hoc linking" from site to site, to search onto a subscription model.
Microsoft's use of RSS in Windows comes at a time when RSS has not yet obtained critical mass in the marketplace. Wilcox noted that, according to Jupiter Search surveys, only six percent of consumers have an RSS reader installed on their primary PC and they use it monthly or sometimes more frequently.
"Microsoft could legitimize RSS for the masses," noted Wilcox.
As previously reported, Microsoft will support the RSS 2.0 standard, which adds support for Simple List Extensions. Microsoft's Kidd said that Simple List Extensions order syndicated feeds in a way that allows the end users to "sort and do things with information."
Microsoft will deliver any modifications that it makes to the RSS standard to Creative Commons licensed under the Share Alike attribution agreement, the same license the RSS 2.0 specification was released under.
Yeay, yet another thing for people to whine about and say "Oh, its been done already, so why are they going to bother" or "Oh no, I cant uninstall this, god forbid I just not use it". I use firefox as my primary browser now, so I am not some MS zealot or fanboy, but when people bad mouth MS for not having functionality in IE, and then bad mouth MS for adding it and saying "oh its already been done" and stating how far behind the game MS is, it just annoys me to no end. People just cant decide what they want, aside for MS to go away. They hate MS so much, that NOTHING will ever be good enough for them when it comes from MS, unless its a rival product. I like FF, but I tell you, it is alot slower than IE. I use it primarily because it has a few features that I like, not b/c of its speed. Opera wins the race in that category, and second place goes to IE, then safari, then firefox.
Now bring it on, I know people are going to bad mouth me (because they cant stand when someone bad mouths their beloved firefox, god forbid someone have a differing opinion or think badly of it), so go ahead, I am ready to laugh
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|Looks like a Firefox/Safari rip-off... It's astonishing that MS neglected their browser until Firefox began to make headlines. Oh well, the product is a long way off anyway and I should think that Firefox will still be better by leaps and bounds by then.
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|RSS suport will do IE more heavy and need more RAM ! thumps down
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|Why would I want RSS? I have these things called feelings and emotions - aswell as moods. Maybe I don't want to know that there is *yet another* updated thing I need to read. Perhaps I'm mad cause my other computer just melted due to a faulty temperature detected in windows, and now it turns out microsoft is going to screw something of mine again in the future.
If I wanted RSS I'd download a program for it. If windows integrates it, I'll be forced to figure out how to remove it - that or IE 7.0, which is more likely. If I did want RSS, I'd want something very sophistocated. A multi-layered system, similar to a Classic Start Menu, but never moving items around in the list except based on categories.(So Spybot, Ad-Aware, and Windows AntiSpy "bookmarks" trade positions based on what's new, but never with anything outside their category. Betanews bookmark temporarily creates a shortcut(with an arrow) and puts it in this category in the start menu, indicating there is a new News Article about Anti-Spyware. Betanews and other RSS news sites also stick links to other articles in the related categories, next to the list of most recently updated bookmarks.
Also, it'd have to be a launchable program easily uninstalled, not embedded in the OS, that can be ran and doesn't consume insane amounts of system resources all the time - something microsoft has mostly failed so far.
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|Never better said - never better said.
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|I don't get it. If you don't want to use something, then why not just... you know... not use it? Why is it so important to uninstall it if it's much easier to just not use it. You could even remove all the shortcuts, and delete the registry keys for it so that it would be completely invisible. You don't have to have anything running you don't want in Windows. There's always a way to stop it.
I swear... nothing's ever good enough. People gripe that MS doesn't have enough features, and then they complain about the ones they do include. I'm no MS fan, but at least they *appear* to be trying with IE7.
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|MS tries to appeal to those that want all the fancy widgets and gizmos, and themes, but OS X just does it so much better - and with speed.
They should try to be removing lots of the extra features that slow things down, or atleast give people the option to completely remove/not install them. Things being slow is an extremely common complaint among new computer users. It's also a major complaint among gamers...for obvious reasons(duh).
A large chunk of people _just_ want a gaming machine out of windows. Probably several million in North America.(So atleast 0.5 or 1%) Most of these people either run Linux and use Winex, run WinXP for games, but always use their Mac for other stuff, or use a pirated copy of Win98SE in dual-boot to play games.
Any way you look at it...they aren't exactly hitting all their bases, and they certainly aren't profitting as much as they could be by appealing to more people.
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|My Cool Firefox x Safari browser (Windows XP)
- Browsing BN normally using Firefox -
http://r1cky.com/img/no-rss-firefox-safari.png
- Browsing BN RSS feeds using Sage 1.34, a Firefox RSS extension -
http://r1cky.com/img/rss-firefox-safari.png
- Browsing BN RSS feeds directly using Feedview, another Firefox extension -
http://r1cky.com/img/feedview.png
The invention of RSS is wonderful!!
BTW, "when will" / will Apple release Safari for Windows?
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Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5+ on Windows XP + Sage RSS extension + Safari Theme [Aqua] + Sage Safari look-alike CSS / MOD...
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|http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari/
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|Safari just reads RSS feeds, this is completely different. This is an entire platform for Windows based on RSS that could change the way applications communicate with the system and with remote servers.
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|Your point?
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|This could be a good thing unless MS completely botches it up and it becomes another security risk. They will have to be careful how they go about doing this.
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|RSS is great the way it exists now. I don't want Microsoft establishing some kind of quasi-RSS standard pushing their own (or partners) branded crap to consumers. Microsoft sees this as an opportunity to embed advertising into RSS.
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|No, just a way to keep ahead of FireFox. May not be the best way, to me, and I can already see lawsuits coming, but financially for Microsoft it must be worth it.
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