New Blog Aggregator...

Jeremy Allaire (formerly of Macromedia and before that Allaire) phoned me Friday to sync up and chat a little about the future of the web.  One of the things we talked a little about was the current state of blogs and blog aggregators (we had met once before at a web developer conference where we had both done keynotes -- but reconnected by stumbling on each others Blogs). 

He recommended checking out Newz Crawler (free trial at: http://www.newzcrawler.com/downloads.shtml) which does a good job of handling RSS feeds.  I downloaded it this afternoon and gave it a spin.  So far, I've been impressed with it (although admitedly my previous aggregation technique was using the "Add To Favorites" link of my browser). 

It includes a number of built-in RSS feeds from various news sources (BBC, ZDNET, etc).  Frankly I wasn't aware that all these "traditional" web sites provided RSS feeds of their articles and content.  This really opened my eyes to the power of RSS (I feel like something of a luddite saying that -- but oh well).  Unfortunately some of the sites I frequent still aren't RSS enabled -- but hopefully this will change soon.

I feel somewhat guilty that the www.asp.net website doesn't publish its content yet via RSS (examples: article of the day, new control gallery submissions, frequent posts on the forums, etc).  We need to get that changed (I'm putting it on my long list of things todo).

Published Saturday, March 01, 2003 5:15 PM by ScottGu

Comments

# Aggregators : A Blog for Graymad

Saturday, March 01, 2003 8:15 PM by TrackBack
Aggregators : A Blog for Graymad

# Changes started or few thoughts on RSS emergence : SlavoF's WebLog

Saturday, March 01, 2003 8:15 PM by TrackBack
Changes started or few thoughts on RSS emergence : SlavoF's WebLog

# New Blog Aggregator... : Sam Gentile's Blog

Saturday, March 01, 2003 8:15 PM by TrackBack
New Blog Aggregator... : Sam Gentile's Blog

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Saturday, March 01, 2003 9:10 PM by Jorge
You might give NewsGator a try, also. Not as feature-rich as Newz Crawler, but if you live in Outlook, it's quite nice, especially after setting the folder headers.

http://www.newsgator.com/

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Saturday, March 01, 2003 9:17 PM by Mike Amundsen
yep - been using NewzCrawler for some time. i have tested others and kinda like the News Gator, but this one is the one i use the most.

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Saturday, March 01, 2003 11:42 PM by Anil John
Scott, I would recommend giving Newsgator a spin as well as you pretty much live within Outlook :-) and you can set up all the native rules and filters that you are used to with Outlook. If you prefer a stand-alone one, Dare Obasanjo on your WebData team has released one for download on MSDN. Direct URL @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnexxml/html/xml02172003.asp

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Wednesday, March 05, 2003 8:43 PM by Scott Cate
I was going to second the vote on newsgator. It's got a great interface with outlook.

I'm right there with you on being new to the RSS world, and ashamed of being such a late comer. After bringing newsgator on board as a myKB.com client, I realized the RSS potential and now we're adding RSS feeds to our application. It's amazing to me that technologies like this have existed for so long, and I/we haven't been more subjected to them.

Kind of makes me wonder what else we're missing.

# NewsDesk

Thursday, March 06, 2003 8:50 PM by David Peckham
I'd like to hear your impressions of NewsDesk. You can find it at http://www.wildgrape.net. My tutorials (http://www.wildgrape.net/Tutorial) will give you a good feel for it.

Dave

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Sunday, March 09, 2003 9:28 PM by brady gaster
snarf - the simple news aggregator for rss feeds. i've placed a link to my newest creation on the right-hand navigation bar of my blog. feel free to drag the icon to your toolbar, as it's written in the form of a bookmarklet that will load snarf into your IE search bar.

have fun with it! please feel free to email me with ideas or suggestions (or especially bugs!).

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Tuesday, March 11, 2003 5:13 AM by Serge van den Oever
One of my collegues made a web based news aggregator. It's really nifty! Check it out at http://www.niftyportal.com

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Monday, March 17, 2003 3:21 PM by Klaim
"I feel somewhat guilty that the www.asp.net website doesn't publish " - you shoud try ActiveRefresh (http://www.activerefresh.com). It can create RSS-like channels for WebPages and customize them.

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Wednesday, March 19, 2003 4:15 AM by Phil Weber
Scott: Feel free to steal my .NET code for generating an RSS feed: http://www.philweber.com/net/2003/03/05.htm. I'd be honored!

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Thursday, April 17, 2003 10:42 AM by Michael Heraghty
I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on how "aggregation will change the future of the web".

Thanks,
-- m

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Monday, July 07, 2003 2:38 PM by Gauthier
also checkout FeedDemon (currently in beta).
http://feeddemon.com

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Tuesday, September 30, 2003 10:35 PM by Nick
check out feeddemon.com

# re: New Blog Aggregator...

Tuesday, October 07, 2003 10:49 AM by Andrew Zubritsky
NewsGator, also, yes.

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# Switching to FeedDemon

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 1:41 AM by TrackBack