2004 November

Technorati recently released a little utility called the “Technorati this favelet.” According to Sifry’s Alerts, the favelet, which is still in beta, allows you to search the Technorati database for mention of a phrase or a URL.
The favelet works with all major browsers, including Mozilla, IE, Firefox, and Safari. I’m glad someone has finally […]

Would you be interested in supporting an open access directory of RSS news feeds that explicitly carry a Creative Commons or a Public Domain license?
That would mean that you could be sure, well ahead of using them for syndication, re-mixing or re-publication of any kind, that the content in those feeds explicitly permitted re-use […]

Mark Harrison points out that a new RSS feed is now available on MSDN for SharePoint Portal Server information - cool! It looks like it’s updated when new articles are posted on MSDN, which means not frequently – but all the more reason to have an easy way to know when they’re published without having […]

Are you in favour of ads inside RSS feeds?
Are you going to unsubscribe from those feeds that will start using them?
Here at Lockergnome, ads inside feeds are not something new, as Chris Pirillo has long touted the critical benefits that independent publishers like him may derive from this.

Joshua Allen, at Better Living Through Software, has a post about PodCasting. Allen points out that while many have been saying “RSS is broken” and trying to fix it by designing new versions and new formats, there are ideas in RSS that have been around for a long time that actually work.
One of those […]

John Battelle noticed that Overture is experimenting with ads in RSS. They seem to be testing in smaller feeds only. From John’s post:
This is what I’ve been on about for some time now - the inclusion of a major ad network play[ing] in RSS as a step toward the monetization of RSS, and […]

USA Today now has RSS feeds for most of their content, if not all. See the feeds here.

The site does what its name suggests. You can search the feeds in its database, add your own feed, and view recently updated feeds. From the site:
Feed-Directory.com is a complete directory of syndicated feeds. With over several thousand feeds in its database, Feed-Directory.com is one of the biggest feed directories on the web, […]

Sony decided to jump on the RSS bandwagon with RSS feeds for their artists. You can find the eleven feeds (why only eleven?) here. Hopefully, as time passes, more artists will be added.
Actually, there are twelve feeds. One artist has two, one for news and the other for tour information.

Pheedo has launched an RSS / ATOM ad service. It has been tested over the past few months, and now launches with some high-profile publishers (including Lockergnome) and a variety of features:

Sophisticated targeting and optimization capabilities. Unlike sending an email newsletter, consumers and aggregators are in control of requesting your feed. From every 15 […]

Do you know how to ping XML-RPC servers?
Ever wondered how you can let the world know that your latest post is out the moment you hit “Publish” on your blog site?
XML-RPC is the answer.
If you are a blogger, your blogging software may offer you a different, immediate method to notify directories that your blog […]

In a previous post, I linked to Nick Bradbury’s blog and his post about FeedDemon and Podcasting. Now, a few days later, Nick has a follow-up post that explains his thoughts on Podcasting and its future.
I was going to listen to it as we drove, but my son and I got involved in a great […]

Easily create, edit and publish rss feeds. New RSS feeds can be quickly and easily created with FeedForAll. Advanced features enable you to create professional looking rss feeds quickly. Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced with FeedForAll. RSS feeds generated by other means can be automatically repaired, so that they conform to the […]

I have been waiting a long time for Halo 2, and now that it’s out, it looks to be an incredible game. I did not wait in line last night for the midnight release (I came very close though), but tens of thousands of people did.
How do I know that? Check out the Halo […]

Nick Bradbury writes “I’ve been thinking about how to support podcasting in FeedDemon ever since the concept was introduced to me at Gnomedex, and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve moved beyond thinking about it to actually implementing it.
It’s not available yet, but the next beta of FeedDemon will include podcasting tools, along with much […]

From the press release:
NewsIsFree.com, provider of aggregated online news and business information, and Optimal Access Inc., a software company dedicated to the mission of simplifying aggregation, management, navigation and sharing of links, today announced that Optimal Access has released NewsIsFree site authentication and feed aggregation into its system.
Optimal Desktop’s unique value proposition is the integration […]

Stardock recently released Blog Navigator 1.0. From the press release:
Blog Navigator is arguably the most advanced program of its kind and it’s free. For example, Blog Navigator has the ability to pre-load all the articles on a given blog site to speed up reading. It also has a host of off-line reading features in […]

Sifry’s Alerts has details on the new Technorati site redesign.
The home page has been redesigned, the keyword search has been redone on the back end, and a developers contest has been announced. There are also some new features, still in beta, that look promising. One is a Top 20 MP3 list, and the […]

The newsmaster task is one of systematically refining the techniques and tools that can provide the most effective way to aggregate RSS-based content from multiple sources (e.g.: Web, news, blogosphere) and then managing this content to filter, pick and select only those items that are rich and truly relevant to the topic covered.
While a trained […]

Engadget, part of the Weblogs, Inc. Network, has added some new features and improvments.
Section feeds, though previously available, now have a more visible link on each section page. There is also a new feed for the “Ask Engadget” section.
We’ve mentioned this a couple of times before, but in case you’re new around here, […]