A handy development post on how Internet Explorer handles right-to-left languages in RSS.

In this Attensa post a problem outlined by a Zimbra blog post is answered with; we will handle everything, don’t worry.

Zimbra says:

What you really want to avoid is a potpourri of clients all handing RSS/Atom feeds differently (each well in its own right but chaotic when viewed as a collection of feed services).

Attensa replies:

Our reader line-up includes a full featured Windows desktop reader and Outlook reader, a reader for Sametime Instant Messaging for alerts and time sensitive collaborative feeds and a Web reader integrated with the Attensa Feed Server. They all use the same architecture to facilitate “knowledge flow.”

I think this is the wrong answer, though understandable as it is driven by business development and the entrenched server market.

What happens if I am on a platform or device that Attensa does not have a client for? I’ll have to use a client that is supported on the platform and probably doesn’t tie into the Attensa system.

Even if more clients start using the Attensa or NewsGator APIs these are closed and proprietary. Attensa and NewsGator will be in control and can change plans at anytime.

We need, at the least, a standard synchronisation system. What have I read from what feeds. Any RSS aggregation system needs to then expose that in a standard way. We also need live OPML so my subscriptions are kept in synch.

Amazon continues to roll out RSS features with a new feed by tag system. You can for instance get a feed of all products recently tagged with blu-ray or the most popular items tagged with sci-fi.

In a press release Newsgator has revealed they have over 1 million users and have passed 1.5 billion RSS articles.

Additionally they claim 10 million hits on their RSS system per day.

1 million users probably includes trial, free and used-once accounts for their various products. The 10 million hits claim also needs to be clarified as it could be per request and not per user per day e.g. It likely is not all 1 million users hitting the system 10 times a day.

All the same these are impressive figures from Newsgator and they are certainly leading the pack in enterprise and professional RSS usage.

In a bit of fun, though potentially useful for Google Reader addicts, the Google Reader team has released a version that works well on big screens (TVs) and with the Nintendo Wii. You control scrolling with the Wiimote.

A school in the USA is using RSS to communicate better with the parents and children. Morning announcements are even available as a podcast feed.

Google and Yahoo! Finance now both provide feeds of the stocks they track. Interestingly neither provide the actual stock price but rather opt to syndicate the news items they associate with the stock. Still a useful service.

An interesting use of RSS is for your resume. As you go through jobs, obtain new qualifications and get new skills you post a new entry to your resume RSS feed. Some XSL or other script can then aggregate the single feed into an HTML page (or even Word doc) which has your latest resume data.

One can easily see a useful online tool built around this idea.

A good article on money-saving tips available via RSS feeds. This can be a good way to highlight to potential RSS users the benefits.

Three podcasts of an interview by Rok Hrastnik of Greg Reinacker of Newsgator. Some useful ideas on RSS, Microsoft’s place in it, marketing and Newsgator’s future.