FeedHenry

RSS is largely about text though with a growing video and audio usage base. Text to speech systems are usually a bit of a joke and until now I hadn’t heard one that did the job well enough for me to seriously think about using it. BlueGrind though is pretty good.

RSS text feeds to audio and played over your mobile phone or saved as podcasts and synced to your iPod. Some big potential in text to speech coupled with RSS.

Google has released a Feed API that allows you to pull down items from RSS and ATOM feeds in JSON or XML formats. It deals with all the peculiarities of the syndication formats and one would imagine is reliable and up to date, being Google (though it must be said that Google Reader is known to be a good 20 to 30 minutes behind Bloglines for updates.)

This API though should be of no concern to Millifeed, Newsgator, Attensa and co. This is because the API is specifically conditioned for AJAX usage. It is meant to be used for sites who want feeds in their sidebars or tickers. It is likely that Google would cut your API access if they detected you using it for powering a major feed reader or aggregation platform.

It only took a couple of years for Darwin to formulate the idea of evolution by natural selection. It took thirty years to frame that idea in a way that would convince other scientists and the general public.

Darwin’s rhetorical strategy is an important realisation to make when it comes to selling technology.

We can have the best technology but we are going to be a minor footnote in the landscape if we can’t get people to accept it.

The pillar approach mentioned has to be done carefully though otherwise we will come across as a lecturer and there is automatic emotional backlash to that in our current day and age.

I do think a European style of getting technology to market will make a comeback; A quiet, persistent and practical approach to technology in our lives, not technology as our lives.

Microsoft are showing some understanding of what feeds can do in an update to their Windows Live Spaces site. Not only providing feeds of items, like blog post and photos, they are also providing feeds of available feeds. Feeds of categories, feeds of users etc.

This is key to the future of feeds. Making any resource available on a website available through a feed.

NewsGator love feeds.

Creating feeds normally involves custom user interfaces or using blogging software like WordPress. Attensa though now allows users to email their new item. The email is added to a feed. Simple and most people already know how to use email.

S60, on Nokia phones, is being updated to include some Ajax support.

In more news FeedBurner is taking control of SFGate feeds.

Yahoo! is pushing the xhtml:meta namespace for controlling how feeds are reaped by their robot. Unfortunately Google has their own and Bloglines has a separate scheme.

FeedBurner has been tasked with handling corporate AOL feeds. So far just a few hundred but it could explode for them.