RSS, OPML and the XML platform.
The RSS Blog
Wed, 01 Mar 2006 03:39:01 GMT
RSS to MT Import

Every once in awhile, I get a request to import stuff into MT. Most of the time, I can export a blog to RSS, but not to MT import format. So, a little XSLT magic and TADA! RSS2MT.

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 03:44:02 GMT
Flixster

Online social networking meets movies.

http://www.flixster.com

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 20:09:39 GMT
JournalHome has been sold

JounalHome, a second tier blog host, has been sold for an undisclosed amount to an anonymous party. The platform was less than ideal. The owners, I found, tended to jerk around their bloggers, changing policies as the wind's changed.

http://www.journalhome.com/

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 18:39:08 GMT
edgeio has gone live

edgeio blog: Tonight (Sunday 26 Febrary 2006) at midnight Pacific time we removed the password from edgeio and it is available, worldwide, for all users.

http://blog.edgeio.com/?p=15

Randy: Edgeio uses RSS tags to aggregate classified listings. You can inject your listings into edgeio by tagging them 'listing' and pinging their ping server.

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 21:19:38 GMT
FeedBurner is 2 Years Old

Burning Questions: Happy Birthday to us! Though the company was founded back in October of 2003, today is the official two-year anniversary of our pre-alpha launch.

http://www.burningdoor.com/feedburner/archives/001687.html

Randy: Happy B-day to the FeedBurner gang!

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:49:07 GMT
RSS Board Launches Socialtext Wiki

Rogers Cadenhead: The RSS Advisory Board now has a wiki provided by member Ross Mayfield and Socialtext.

Randy: I'll make an effort to populate it this weekend.

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:36:30 GMT
Technorati Blog Favorites
Technorati has this new feature called Favorite Blogs, where they allow you to upload your blogroll and make it available as a reading list to others. Just one problem, it exposes the weakness of the Technorati index. Today, Technorati features four blog favorites. Each of these reading list has at least a few and some even a dozen blogs that haven't been indexed in days, weeks and months (one blog hasn't been indexed in more than a year), but that are updated daily by their authors. In fact, a handful of blogs aren't being indexed at all. Next time Technorati says they've indexed 28.4 million blogs, ask them how many have been indexed recently. It would appear to be substantially less.
Fri, 24 Feb 2006 16:30:57 GMT
TrackBack as an Internet Standard

Byrne Reese: Six Apart is beginning the process of submitting TrackBack to the Internet community and establishing TrackBack as a standard. To that end, Six Apart would like to invite anyone who is interested to join a provisional TrackBack Working Group by signing up for the TrackBack-protocol mailing list, and engaging its members in a discussion about the future of TrackBack.

http://www.lifewiki.net/trackback

Randy: I've long stopped sending trackbacks, because I found that the majority of trackback entry points were dead. That is, the Webpage contained a reference to a trackback URI, but the trackback handler was removed or didn't process my pings, most likely to avoid trackback SPAM. Assuming the trackback working group is more than a rubber stamp, this could be the revitalization of what use to be a cool part of the blogosphere.

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:13:53 GMT
Proposal: Add Two New Board Members

Rogers Cadenhead: I propose that we change the charter to expand the RSS Advisory Board to 11 members and that the two new members be Scott Johnson and Greg Smith.

https://www.rssboard.org/news/33

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 15:03:09 GMT
RSS-Public Mailing List

I was really hoping for good things from the RSS public mailing list, but like every RSS 2.0 mailing list before it, the RDF/Atom people have taken over and there's more links to the Atom wiki of late than anything that could be considered constructive. There does not appear to be a path forward, as nobody has the guts to stand up and tell the Atomites to get lost. As such, I've decided that I'm gonna work independently of that mailing list and create RSS documentation to help RSS users on The RSS Blog. Anything I create will be presented to Dave Winer and the RSS Advisory Board for approval. The first thing I would like to create is an RSS interop document that inherits RSS as-is, does not try to change it, and simply provides guidance to RSS developers when publishing and parsing RSS documents. Please feel free to suggest other things that we can work together on, to make RSS better. Comments of the line "use RDF" or "use Atom" will be deleted. Sorry, but there has to be a forum where people can discuss RSS without getting RDF and Atom jammed down their throat.

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:35:53 GMT
Google Launches Page Creator

Nathan Weinberg: Google has released Page Creator, an AJAX-powered web page creation and hosting service.

http://pages.google.com/

Dave Winer: This evening Google launched a totally unremarkable page creator web app.

Nathan Weinberg: Well, I'm sure this has to be a new record! Google has closed Google Pages to new registrations already. Since Stu was the first to report this to me at 11 a.m., and I first noticed Pages at around 2 a.m., that would mean a nine-hour beta.

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:21:48 GMT
Why We Fight

Rogers Cadenhead: If no group has the authority to resolve the enclosures issue, all podcasters relying on multiple enclosures will be publishing RSS feeds that don't work for what is potentially their largest audience.

Rogers Cadenhead: There ought to be a framework for the development and business community that has arisen around RSS to solve these long-standing questions or decree that they are never going to be solved. In the absence of any other such effort, the board exists as an attempt to serve that purpose.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-board/message/42

Randy: Hear, hear!

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:13:21 GMT
Podcast: from Free to Paid?

Robyn Tippins: The Ricky Gervais show becomes the first major podcast to go from completely free to available only on a paid basis. Audible will charge $1.95 per episode or $6.95 for the season.

http://blog.rssapplied.com/public/item/116698

Randy: $2 for a podcast? I don't even listen to the free ones.

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 04:48:03 GMT
RSS Gets an Enema

Mark Woodman: Long overdue, I believe, has been public discussion on how to improve RSS and clean out the harmful wastes and toxins. [cut] So, get out the warm saline of thoughtful discussion, and jump right in. It is going to be messy, but I think we’ll all benefit in the end.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/woodman/inkblots?m=7

Randy: Mark's post must be read in full. Click thru. It's worth it :-)

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:18:27 GMT
RSS Board Recommends the Feed Validator

Rogers Cadenhead: The RSS Advisory Board proposal to recommend the Feed Validator has passed 8-0, with members Meg Hourihan, Jenny Levine, Eric Lunt, Ross Mayfield, Randy Charles Morin, Greg Reinacker, Dave Sifry and myself voting in favor.

Randy: Rogers also setup a form on The RSS Advisory Board Website that submits validation requests to the Feed Validator.

https://www.rssboard.org/feed-validator

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 16:08:14 GMT
Another $12 million for Six Apart?
Om Malik, Paul KedroskyMark Evans, Kent Newsome and a lot of others are discussing the latest rumour that Six Apart has raised another $12 million. Normally, I'd add something like this to my link blog and move on, but this one is interesting. Why does Six Apart need more money? They sell product. Are they still running a big loss? Or is this one of those investments that happens in the months leading up to a takeover or IPO? An IPO seems unlikely. Will Yahoo! buy them? Is Six Apart gonna buy Technorati? The next three months should be interesting.
Mon, 20 Feb 2006 15:21:18 GMT
Disclosing My Conflict of Interests

Dave Winer: I would also like to know what interests the other members of this group have. Are they receiving money from the companies? Do they have any conflicts of interest? Do they assume a responsibility to disclose any conflicts of interest?

Randy: That sounds fair. Here's my resume. I run a semi-popular blogging network and search engine called KBCafe. I also run a free RSS-to-email service called Rmail. I run a variety of advertising on both KBCafe and Rmail, including but not limited to AdSense and BlogAds. I use to be part of the Corante blog network. I do consulting work from time-to-time with a variety of Web 2.0 start-ups. Almost all of my work depends on the success of RSS and therefor I have an interest in RSS succeeding (is that a conflict?). Contrary to popular belief, I have not sold any not-for-profit Websites to Verisign for $5 million ;-)

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 03:29:59 GMT
Steve Kirks on The RSS Advisory Board

Steve Kirks: Anyone can take the original spec and repurpose it as long as the CC license rules are followed.

http://houseofwarwick.com/entries/00000030.html

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 03:28:11 GMT
Marshall Kirkpatrick on The RSS Advisory Board
Marshall Kirkpatrick: I'm willing to put my trust, for what it's worth, in the hands of Cadenhead and the expanded Advisory Board.
Sat, 18 Feb 2006 18:20:05 GMT
A new logo for Atom?

Image Hosted by ImageShack.usmajordojo: I have no idea what inspired Mena, but she took it upon herself to design a new logo for the Atom protocol and syndication format, and it’s hot.

http://www.majordojo.com/2006/02/a_new_logo_for_1.php

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 17:01:40 GMT
Adam Green on The RSS Advisory Board

Adam Green: So go ahead Rogers and the rest of the RSS Advisory Board. If Dave wants to put his considerable intellect into improving RSS, his suggestions will be given a great deal of respect, but this time around change is coming whether he approves or not.

http://darwinianweb.com/archive/2006/261.html

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 16:23:23 GMT
Sam Ruby on The RSS Advisory Board

Sam Ruby: In the long run, the success of the [RSS Advisory Board] work currently under the working title of RSS 2.0.2 depends little on what Harvard thinks, but instead depends very much on what people like Nick and companies like Microsoft actually do. The leadership that Rogers is providing has been exemplary.  [cut] I believe this work is important and should continue.

http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2006/02/18/Tossing-Roses

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 02:46:02 GMT
What does the RSS advisory board actually do?

Q: What does the advisory board actually do?
A: We [cut] make minor changes to the spec per the roadmap [cut].

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/advisoryBoard#whatDoesTheAdvisoryBoardActuallyDo

Roadmap
[cut] We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only for the purpose of clarifying the specification, not for adding new features to the format. [cut]

https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification#roadmap

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 02:27:11 GMT
Statement Regarding the RSS 2.0

John Palfrey: We've heard from a number of people about an uneasy (and unfounded) sense that something is happening with respect to the RSS 2.0 spec.  [cut] While we are delighted to know that many members of the RSS community continue to work on relevant issues to move the industry along in various ways, including related to the spec itself, Harvard has no involvement with any of these efforts. 

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2006/02/17

Randy: Translation. Harvard is divorcing itself from the RSS Advisory Board.

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:30:13 GMT
A Guide to RSS Elements

Greg Smith, author of Feeder Reader has written an excellent Guide to RSS Elements.

http://www.feederreader.com/TechnicalGuides/RSS_Basic.html

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 00:35:44 GMT
Niall Leaves Technorati

Niall Kennedy: I am leaving Technorati to pursue new opportunities. I submitted my resignation letter this morning and I will be a free agent on March 1. I joined Technorati in February 2005 excited about changing the world of weblogs and introducing people to a new kind of search. Almost a year later my passions at work have eroded and it's time to find new horizons.

Randy: Good luck Niall! Bad luck for Technorati. Niall's one to keep an eye on, or hire.

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 15:40:40 GMT
URL is (not) Official Undefined?
Every once in awhile, somebody brings up the statement "there's no such thing as a URL". This statement by Tim Bray goes back 3 years and has been repeated in too many mailing lists. I've always wanted to know where this statement comes from. This week, Sam Ruby brought up the same argument on the RSS advisory board public mailing list when he said, "URL became a term that had no official meaning". So I asked, "Do you have a reference for URL become a term that had no official meaning". And Sam honoured me with a response, "FUTURE SPECIFICATIONS AND RELATED DOCUMENTATION SHOULD USE THE GENERAL TERM URI RATHER THAN THE MORE RESTRICTIVE TERMS URL AND URN". How does that statement imply that URL is official undefined? It doesn't. Anyhow, I thought I'd document this, so that others can simply point people here when they hear that fallacious argument. Not that I know it to be fallacious, but nobody seems capable of justifying it. In the meanwhile, if anybody finds the written word that says URL is undefined or doesn't exist, then please post in the comments.
Thu, 16 Feb 2006 02:35:37 GMT
Atom API Update
Today, after many conversations on the rssboard public mailing list with Sam Ruby, I got the fever to check out the progress of Atom. The main topic of conversation on the mailing list is whether HTTP PUT and DELETE are going to fly. That conversation has been ongoing for 2 years. Matt Mullenweg doesn't think it was realistic and Tim Bray bit. Wow, didn't I say that 3 years ago. When I read the thread, I didn't understand. Doesn't Atom have a SOAP alternative that doesn't require PUT or DELETE? This was one of Tim Bray's highlights when he announced the IETF working group 2 years ago. It turns out that the latest version of Atom doesn't mention SOAP at all, except in the revision notes. It seems the SOAP alternative was removed last summer or fall. What a shame!
Wed, 15 Feb 2006 22:21:44 GMT
My Way or I Unsubscribe
The syndication community has been long dominated by people who threaten when they don't get their way. I would gladly see them leave.
Wed, 15 Feb 2006 18:22:40 GMT
NewsGator's ping endpoint
Greg Reinacker: For those who are wondering how to ping NewsGator's system when a feed is updated...the ping endpoint is

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

Randy: Google juice added.

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 02:53:46 GMT
Google Video is Totally Useless

If you don't live in the United States, the recent upgrade of Google Video has made it absolutely useless. Almost every video now is U.S. only. If it's U.S. only and you know I don't live there, then why not exclude those from the results in the first place?

 

http://video.google.com/

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 22:53:12 GMT
RSS 2.0.2

Today, the draft of the next version of RSS took on a version number; 2.0.2. Please take the time to read it and post your thoughts on our Yahoo! Group.

<rss version="2.0.2">
   ...

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:57:29 GMT
What's the deal with Google's Orkut?

Chris Gilmer: Why isn’t Google pushing the Orkut online community for friends?

Randy: I suspect Chris has been privileged with the Bad, bad server. No donut for you nonsense. Google is likely hush-hush about Orkut because it's horribly broken. I recently invited a couple friends who were interested in checking it out. Both reported problems and have yet to see Orkut's server get that prized donut (a successful account activation).

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 03:12:56 GMT
Why do People Persist in Using Blogspot?

 
Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:33:30 GMT
Blogs by Olympics participants to be banned

TMC: The Japanese Olympic Committee is telling athletes competing at the Turin Winter Olympic Games not to open web logs because the Olympic Charter bans athletes' journalist activities when the games are on, and violators will be disqualified.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/01/29/1323487.htm

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:09:53 GMT
When Bloggers Attack

Ted Bridis: The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=1605357

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:08:51 GMT
New Home for Bitty Browser

Scott Matthews as created a new home for his Bitty Browser. If you haven't used Bitty Browser, it's pretty neat. Here's the KBCafe blog network reading list displayed with the Bitty Browser.

 

http://www.bitty.com/

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:22:27 GMT
Reading Lists Podcast

Joshua PorterAdam Green and Danny Ayers joined Alex Barnett and I for a podcast on OPML Reading Lists.  Reading List Podcast with Adam Green and Danny Ayers (11MB .mp3 - Alex’s notes).

http://bokardo.com/archives/reading-lists-podcast/

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:05:49 GMT
R-mail Upgrade

All day yesterday and this morning, I did a major upgrade to R-mail. Including untested Atom 1.0 support.

http://www.r-mail.org/blog/?guid=20060213070243

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:32:44 GMT
MySpace RSS Support

Derrick Oien is wondering why "the blogosphere said nothing about the fact that 45 million people now see RSS and podcasting on their number one addiction." Well, MySpace's treatment of RSS is very similar to LiveJournal, that is, RSS is a 2nd class citizen. Take a look at my MySpace blog. Note the link Subscribe (left sidebar) and the link rss (header at right). MySpace users subscribe to each others blogs via the Subscribe link (1st class citizen) and RSS users via the RSS link (2nd class citizen). Now, log into MySpace and try to subscribe to The RSS Blog or any blog not hosted on MySpace. You can't. You see, MySpace is a closed sphere in itself and doesn't really participate actively in the blogosphere. Yes, they have token support for RSS, but token support with a feed that returns the Content-Type "text/xml" is only confusing the majority of MySpace users. I mean really, take a look at my MySpace RSS in IE6.  What do you think most MySpace users are thinking when they see this (reaching for the Back button). That's always been the reason RSS hasn't been adopted by the majority. Subscribing remains a game of copy and paste. IE7 may change that.

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:00:06 GMT
7th Habit of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users

Slacker Manager: No need for your bookmarks to remain trapped in del.icio.us. If you have a blog, you can export your links a number of ways. You can have a list of each day’s bookmarks auto-posted to your blog by going into the settings section and clicking on the ‘daily blog posting’ link in the experimental section. There isn’t much documentation on this, but if you’re using Typepad look here, if you’re using MovableType look here (note the Blogger instructions in the comments), and Wordpress folks look here.

http://slackermanager.com/2005/12/the_several_hab.html

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:52:14 GMT
Big mail on campus

Google: We're testing a new service with the school by hosting Gmail accounts with SJCC [San Jose City College] domain addresses (like student@jaguars.sjcc.edu).

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/big-mail-on-campus.html

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 21:15:33 GMT
Rojo No Jo?
I noticed today that www.rojo.com wasn't responding for a few hours. It finally came online and I noticed that all my feeds are more than 24 hours out-of-date. Not that use Rojo, but I do have a lot of readers who do. I checked the blogosphere and didn't note anything on the outage front. I also checked their forums and it appears to be broken. Anybody else know anything?
Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:14:29 GMT
Commitment to Better Customer Support

Janice Myint: In its commitment to continually improve its service, Technorati has recently brought me on board as a full time Customer Support Specialist.

http://technorati.com/weblog/2006/01/80.html

Randy: I wonder if Janice realizes what she just got herself into. After reading this, I went to the Technorati ping Webpage, just to check how long it had been since Technorati realized some of my blogs had changed. Some which are updated several times a day, hadn't been indexed by Technorati for several weeks. One of my blogs wasn't indexed in 84 days. From this form, you can ping Technorati and I did for all my blogs, some several times. In fact, I do this once in awhile, when I feel I need a little bit more frustration in my life. They remain 20, 30, 40 days unindexed.

I use FeedBurner's PingShot to ping Technorati. At one time, the great guys at FeedBurner tried to help me. I don't think the problem is FeedBurner, because manually pinging Technorati doesn't work either.

David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati, Eric Lunt, a founder at FeedBurner and I are members of the RSS advisory board. David had asked that the board members tag their blogs with the tag rssboard. I did such, but the rssboard tag remains empty. I described the problem to David on the board mailing list (it's publicly readable) and never received a reply.

Frustrating. Web 2.0 is really broken.

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:28:53 GMT
Wordpress.com Posts Gone

Of late, I've been experimenting with posting my del.icio.us links to a Wordpress.com blog that I setup. This morning, that blog seems to be empty. I setup a second Wordpress.com blog for Rmail reviews. It too seems to be empty. So is Dave's scripting.wordpress.com. And Scoble's blog too. Yikes!

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
click to enlarge

Update: Wordpress.com is back!

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 04:16:27 GMT
Dangers of MySpace
More and more, I'm reading about the dangers of MySpace from people who just don't seem to understand that MySpace has become an important part of a teenage life. Now, don't get me wrong, all of these articles are worth reading. If you are the parent of an Internet user under the age of 18, then maybe it's required reading. You need to know this stuff. But, let me tell you how to protect your children ... It's really easy ... Talk to them. Tell your child that child predators are using MySpace. Tell your child to watch out for child predators. Tell them, not to put their address or phone numbers in their MySpace profile. Of course, they may not listen to you, but at least you've prepared them. It's like when you tell them to be wary of strangers or talk to them about sex. You are preparing them for life and life today includes the Internet. And teen life includes MySpace. You can ban your child from using MySpace and it'll have the same affect as telling your child to break up with their boyfriend. Remember also that strangers and sex are not evil. And neither is MySpace.
Thu, 09 Feb 2006 21:50:41 GMT
Google RSS Reading List

I created an OPML reading list of my favorite Google blogs.

http://www.kbcafe.com/google/google.opml.xml

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 21:36:47 GMT
Send me an Odeo
Send Me A Message
Odeo has the awesome new feature where you can send me audio messages by simply clicking on the badge floating on the right. They have a lot of different badges that you can use.
Thu, 09 Feb 2006 17:38:29 GMT
Edgeio

Rob Hof: The way Edgeio works is that bloggers would post items they want to sell right on their blogs, tagging them with the word "listing" (and eventually other descriptive tags). Then, Edgeio will pluck them as it constantly crawls millions of blogs looking for the "listing" tag and index them on Edgeio.com.

Randy: That's very cool!

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 17:09:36 GMT
Gmail for Domains

Garet Rogers: Based on information found buried deep within the javascript source, we can start to see the bigger picture for GMail — what else could they possibly add to this mail client? Their next big move will likely be GMail for domains — a powerful way for anybody who owns a domain to utilize GMail as a mail server, not just a client.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=95

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:58:17 GMT
This is a test
Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:30:12 GMT
Niall lunches with Google Reader Team

Niall Kenedy: The team is still growing and adding new features including a public Google Reader API to allow other developers to create and extend applications on top of the Google feed ecosystem.

http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2006/02/story-of-google.html

Randy: If y'all don't know, I use Google Reader as my primary news reader, although in any given week, I'll use upto a dozen different readers to test out new announced features. Of late, Google Reader is getting more and more buggy, but it's still the best there is. That said, I like GreatNews a lot and it's the only native RSS reader that you'll find installed on my harddrive for more than a week at-a-time. Down the road, a public Google Reader API and an RSS engine built into IE will mean that the back-end and the front-end of your RSS reader are likely to be developed by two different groups. This could be interesting. Note, GreatNews already does this today with Bloglines. Download it and see the future.

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 02:36:44 GMT
Zobbler - MySpace Resouces

I just found Zobbler, a great Website for those looking for MySpace layouts (they have hundreds) and lots of other cool stuff.

http://www.zobbler.com/

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:52:25 GMT
Web 2.0 is Breaking

As you may have heard, Feedster is experiencing a major fall in terms functionality. As such, all my Feedster feeds in Google Reader are no longer valid. So, what do you do? You unsubscribe.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Ooops! Seems you can't. In fact, I can't unsub from any feeds from the Edit subscriptions tab. The problem with mashups is that more than one piece has to work and in Web 2.0-land, it's more likely that more than once piece doesn't work. Argggg!

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:07:25 GMT
Google's Billion-Dollar Dell Deal
Nathan Weinberg: Google shares slipped $17 on reports that Google was thinking of paying a billion dollars to Dell to bundle its software.
Wed, 08 Feb 2006 15:11:03 GMT
Email Sucks

I'm now pretty much doing email by the seat of my pants. If you sent me an email in the last 24 hours, then I likely didn't read it. It all started about 17 hours ago, when I started receiving the same SPAM email over-and-over. No matter how many times I marked the email as SPAM, Gmail continued to drop the email in my Inbox. I reviewed the email's original content and each email is identical except the sending and receiving email addresses. What's new? Gmail SPAM filtering sucks and is getting worse.

I created a filter to automatically move the missed SPAM into the Trash folder. Then I went to sleep. ... I wake up in the morning and for the first time in years, I have no email in my Inbox. Nothing for 14 hours. It seems that Gmail is no longer accepting any of my email. Period. I even sent an email directly to my Gmail account and it hasn't arrived. No email in the Trash or SPAM bucket in 16 hours.

I switched my Inbox over to Yahoo! mail. Yahoo! mails interface sucks and I haven't got my invite to the beta. I also tried Hotmail and live.com, which suck even more.

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 13:03:06 GMT
Subscribe in Firefox 2.0

Moz Wiki: Clicking the subscribe button subscribes the user to the feed in their selected feed reader.

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Feed_Handling#Subscribe_Button

Randy: Awesome! With Firefox 2.0 and IE7, both browsers will have hooks for developers to capture subscription data.

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 18:37:59 GMT
Save Your Gtalk Chat History Gmail

You can now save your Google Talk chat history in Gmail. This makes your chats instantly searchable. Google also intends to integrate Google Talk directly into Gmail, allowing you to see your contacts in the left sidebar, change your online status and chat within the Gmail Webpage.

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/chat.html

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 13:24:57 GMT
New Feedster Site…New Features!

Alan Graham: As a quick recap, just last month it was pontificated that Feedster was dead or at least on some serious form of life support. And regardless of our reassurances that, yes we were very much alive and simply taking steps to make our systems better and stronger, people love to kick you while you’re down. And they did. Some of it was deserved, and some of it not. But we took our lumps, and just kept our noses to the grindstone, focusing on the task at hand…the launch of the first phase of our new site. And here we are.

http://www.feedster.com/blog/2006/02/06/new-feedster-sitenew-features/

Randy: Hmmm, reviewing the site, the only thing that is new is the HTML layout. Where's the new features? Lot's of removed features; MyFeedster, link search, FeedFinder. I don't see anything new. Still on life support?

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 06:11:44 GMT
iTunes 6.0.2 can import/export OPML

Nathan Nutter: To export your podcasts list to OPML you just go to Podcasts. Then choose File > Export Song List… when you save the file choose the Format OPML and you’re done. [cut] You can import it by going to File > Import… then just select the OPML file.

http://nnutter.com/wp/2006/itunes-602-can-importexport-opml/

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 14:45:02 GMT
State of the Blogosphere, February 2006

Highlights from Dave Sifry latest State of the Blogosphere blog entry.

David Sifry:

http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000419.html

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 02:50:17 GMT
IE6 Keeps Blowing Up Today

I'm looking for somebody to blame...

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 01:06:10 GMT
Chris Pirillo is Blocking Google Reader

Using Google Reader, I came across Chris Pirillo and clicked thru to find this.

 access from http://www.google.com/reader/lens/ has been denied

Hmmm! Political statement? Repeatable!

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 23:27:49 GMT
Feedback on IE7 from the Developer of FeedDemon

Nick Bradbury: I'm sure I'll get questions from people wondering when FeedDemon will support the new Feeds API. [cut] Supporting the API requires a lot of extra work, so there's less incentive to support it right away. More importantly, I haven't seen any statement about what Microsoft plans to do with the user's feed (attention) data, and I can't give customer data to Microsoft without some idea of how this data will be used.

http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/feedback_on_ie7.html

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 22:53:52 GMT
How RSS can bust through

Dave Winer: There are two barriers to brain-dead simplicity.

  1. It must be easy to find relevant feeds.
  2. Subscription has to be centralized.

http://scripting.wordpress.com/2006/02/05/fred-is-right/

Randy: Disagree. Simplicity only happens when subscription becomes brain-dead simple. I use a dozen or more RSS readers on any given week. The primarily mechanism for subscribing is cutting and pasting the RSS URI. Yes, there are subscription chicklets and auto-discovery, but I don't remember the last time I clicked on a subscription chicklet or used auto-disco. The chicklets are usually missing from most blogs or the auto-discovery involves an additional toolbar. Does IE7's centralization solve this? Only on Windows and only for RSS readers that piggy back on IE7's API. Currently nobody. I don't understand why it can't be like this...

click here to receive updates to this Webpage

...or even better, like this...

{this is a placeholder for nothingness}

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 05:08:31 GMT
Now make it easier to unsubscribe from feeds…

Danny Ayers: But when subscribing to a feed, let’s have the default option to make it temporary. After a given amount of time, the feed will drop from the list unless the user has said otherwise in the intervening period.

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 01:01:53 GMT
Encoding HTML in RSS

For the millionth time, there's a new discussion on how HTML should be encoded in RSS. The permathread continues, this time on the RSS board public mailing list .

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-public/message/24?threaded=1

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:40:52 GMT
NewsGator at Demo2006

Greg Reinacker: NewsGator is launching a new product at DEMO 2006.  Be sure to come see us...I'll be on stage with Walker Fenton at 10:47am Wednesday Feb 8, and we'll of course have some folks in the Pavilion throughout the conference.

http://www.rassoc.com/gregr/weblog/archive.aspx?post=797

Randy: The problem about chasing the curve is that the leader control the curve. NewsGator could move the curve slightly or drastically. The later could mean a sustainable leader.

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 01:48:19 GMT
New Layout
I made a lot of changes recently to the layout. If the blog looks a little funny, then refresh and you should pick up the new style-sheet. A little bit of color. What do you think? The Google ad in the right sidebar looks a little funny, I think I'll revert it to orange border and white background. The best new feature is that each user comment now has a permalink. Click on User Comment in the title of any comment to see the permalink in the address bar. Hope you like. Feedback desperately wanted.
Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:29:46 GMT
Over 10% of Technorati 100 on MSN Spaces

Bloggers Blog: 13 blogs on the Technorati 100 are MSN Spaces blogs.

http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=202063

Randy: I checked out the MSN Spaces blogs in the Technorati 100 and many hadn't been updated in weeks. Many are also in foreign languages, so it's difficult to see exactly why they are popular. None seem to be high quality content. A best guess is that the Technorati 100 is compromised.

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 22:35:06 GMT
RSS Acquired by Atom
In the spirit of recent "I've now heard from two sources close to Yahoo which tell me that Yahoo is going to be buying Digg for nearly $30M.", I can confirm from my sources, Dave and Rogers, that RSS has been sold to Atom for $30M and the rights to the Atom API. Dave, Rogers, Tim and Sam will be announcing exact terms next week. Dave was heard saying "I'm giving up RSS for the new pot-of-gold. MetaWeblogAPI." Tim and Sam have agreed to suspend development of the Atom API and as Tim said, "It was dragging on forever, eh!" 
Thu, 02 Feb 2006 18:53:18 GMT
My Yahoo! Subscribers
This week, My Yahoo! finally fixed the missing subscribers bug, where they were not communicating the number of My Yahoo! subscribers to FeedBurner. The bug started back in October, My Yahoo! and FeedBurner thought they have squashed it, but there remained a couple unresolved issues. Thanks to both teams for making my subscriber count jump this week. It's good for the ego. I owe Yahoo! a dozen posts. Now, if only Google Reader would start reporting subscribers. Hello? Any Google employees listening?
Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:28:02 GMT
Attensa Releases Attensa for Outlook and Attensa Online

Attensa: After eight months in Beta, Attensa for Outlook has emerged and is now a real product. The big news is the additon of AttentionStream article level synchronization with Attensa Online. Attensa Online, our free Web based reader, is live and open to everyone. Sign up and try it at attensa.com  [cut] Attensa for Outlook is only $20 and includes a one year subscription to synchronization with Attensa Online.

http://attensa.typepad.com/attensa/2006/02/attensa_release.html

Randy: Last night, Matthew Bookspan gave me a demo of Attensa for Outlook and Web. Looked pretty awesome. I'll download and try them out for myself today. The Outlook client uses the AttentionStream API to synchronize your data. This API will be publicly available in the future. I'm sure it wouldn't take much to reverse engineer it Niall.

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 13:16:38 GMT
Read the RSS Advisory Board

Shouldn't you be reading the blogs of the 9 members of the RSS advisory board? I put together an OPML file to make subscribing to all 9 blogs easier.

https://rssweblog.com/rssadvisoryboard.xml

Update: I added the four RSS feeds for the RSS Website and Mailing lists.

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