I enjoyed this David Berlind post on ZDnet: Next-gen RSS reading platform (Attensa) demos power of Attention.xml
In it, David discusses Newsgator and Attensa, and hit on the key aspects of good RSS aggregators and readers:
Integration within a familiar offline application
Personally, after trying a lot of RSS newsreaders, I think it makes the most sense to take receipt of RSS-delivered content in my e-mail client which is what I've been doing with Newsgator. I spend so much of my day in Outlook (the officially supported email at my company)and the way Newsgator can shuttle content from specific RSS feeds directly into a specific Outlook folder is an organizational principal that's perfect for my style of consumption.
Access from broswer and phone
Both Attensa and Newsgator are doing something else that clearly position them as the catalyst for the next generation of RSS readers ... Both also have a Web-based version as well.
...
Newsgator users can also access their subscriptions through their cell phones but the handset must have HTML-reading capability (some sort of mobile browser). Not to be outdone by Newsgator, Attensa also has a mobile strategy as well. According to Attensa's director of marketing Scott Niesen, the company will soon be releasing a mobile version of its technology that works across handsets such as cell phones and BlackBerry's
An enterprise version of the aggregator (currently a Newsgator exclusive)
Newsgator, by comparison, provides a self-hosting option. That design choice could affect the comfort level that some enterprises have with Attensa's approach.
Intelligent prioritisation (currently unique to Attensa)
Attensa — whose co-founder and vice president of R&D Eric Hayes is a co-author of the Attention.xml specification — has figured out how to prioritize RSS items based on the what you're historically paying the most attention to. In other words, subjects that are of the most interest to you or that have the highest relevance to your work (based on what you're reading and how you read it) rise to the top (or the mouth) of your RSS reader
One reason I liked this article was it pointed out that the future -- at least for RSS aggregation -- includes a balance of web 2.0 (hosted, web-accessed) and more traditional (familiar client, enterprise-based) capabilities and choices.
Comments