Dare Obasanjo - Where is Microsoft going with RSS/syndication?

"Why do you or don't you use a news aggregator?"

I don't use news aggregator's because I enjoy the experience of a web page.  My life isn't hectic to the point where I want ten of different websites consolidated to a single place.  The fact is, I enjoy the internet, and 'surfing' is a integral part of the experience.

On the other hand, when wireless internet becomes a little more ubiquitous in San Diego and I begin to rely on a PDA more, I can see myself using news readers almost exclusively.

Me, I use SharpReader, it's free, simple, works pretty well and has very few bugs..

If nothing else, it makes it easier to keep up to date with channel9, MSDN, slashdot, theRegister etc etc. I get the news within an hour of being posted.. I love it..

My life isn't exactly hectic either, but SharpReader is saving me from having to check on 62 web pages every day. Nobody enjoys looking at web pages that much.

I agree with Dare, ATOM so far has not proved a large enough change to switch to.

So yeah, I use SharpReader and I couldn't read blogs without it. I need to upload my opml to feeds.scripting.com so I can get a count on how many blogs I am currently subscribed to.

When I am reading the entries, I commonly open up the webpage to read the entry formatted or within the context of the website.  I DO enjoy reading blogs in websites more, but there only a few where I actually take the time to open the entry in my browser.

I love aggregators. I've used SharpReader, but found it a little slow, a little weighty for just reading news.
I now use the RSS Reader Panel  extension in Firefox
RSS 2.0 is fine for now. MS should keep an eye on Atom ...

Eddie wrote:

Me, I use SharpReader, it's free, simple, works pretty well and has very few bugs..

If nothing else, it makes it easier to keep up to date with channel9, MSDN, slashdot, theRegister etc etc. I get the news within an hour of being posted.. I love it..

Except for it's memory usage. I'm also using SharpReader.
You might get news faster, but you end up spending about the same amount of time as when you visit the sites with your browser.

I have mixed feelings when i run SharpReader in the morning, cause i end up with so much news while my head is full with idea's for that day.

I hope there will be no Microsoft-only syndication standards. After all it is meant to work on any device and platform.

I don't think you have to worry about that.

I use SharpReader as well. I started my own blog (which reminds me that I need to blog a little more) and decided to see how the aggregators worked.

One complaint I have is that I have not found a good Outlook Plugin for RSS aggregation. That and blog editing.

To be honest, the basic news functions of Outlook have not worked well at all. I mean in order to view news, you open Outlook Express? That to me is sort of a copout. What about a fully intergrated IM tool that handles email, News servers, and RSS along with my tasks, email and applointments. Then with my Pocket PC I could Sync and have everything in one place.

I think that is an improvement. Or at the minimum, intergrate the news reader(news:).

Regarding SharpReader memory usage.

Using the task manager memory usage column to do a rough measure was a futile attempt. Now i looked the amount of physical memory available before and after loading SharpReader. It seems it takes some 50 MB on my case. Memory usage column shows the working set, which can vary from over 100 MB to < 2 MB (minimized).

Sometimes it takes a while to sink in..  Dare Obasanjo co-wrote RSS Bandit (www.rssbandit.org)  I'd recommend to those of you using SharpReader to give it a try.  No, it's not faster, nor will it use less memory.  And yes, it might actually end up using more.  But it does have a LOT more features to it than Sharpreader does, i.e. a fuctional web browser with back and forward butttons.  Right now I'm using the latest beta and am really happy with it.

Jazzynupe,

Take a look at NewsGator (http://www.newsgator.com/). It is a plugin for Outlook and works really great. You can download plugins for NewsGator to allow you to also post to your own blog from Outlook also (AFAIK there is still no way to use NewsGator to comment on a blog post).

All in all, an awesome aggregator. I've been using it for a long time and love it. BTW, it also does NNTP news as well.

NewsGator does evil, evil things to Outlook's RAM usage. Having blogs show up in Outlook has many advantages (consistent UI, posts show up on my PPC) but NewsGator just doesn't seem to be a viable solution for me. Maybe if I were to add another 512mb of RAM...

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