Google announces feed API

Hi Robert,

I’m trying to do my part to get the funding you want for the company(ies) you want to buy. http://www.radioactivecode.com/?p=57

Seriously, I think the blogosphere should start a concentrated campaign to help Scoble get the funding he needs from his bosses.

Folks are missing one fact “Google Reader PM Jason Shellen and engineer Chris Wetherell both confirmed Google’s plans””

I think, what scobes is pointing out is simple, they (googs) is getting ahead of the game and he suggests a method of short-circuting the corporate brain in a transprarent manner via a blog post.

Chris C: you call upon the statutes of the soxs line as a rebuttal offering, may I ask the instruments and section that you are refering to in particular ??

If scoble had a chance in hell in making this happen, he wouldn’t be blogging about it.

Chris C said “FolderShare – wheeee (pointless). ”

But I would beg to differ.

you have this assumption that MS has to compete on everything. why?

Buying Newsgater might even buy some excitement around Office 12. But if it’s considered a threat in any manner, no way in hell it will happen. Any product that entices its users to spend more time on the web rather than working within an office product is never going to be a hit at Microsoft. What happens if Office users *gasp* start feeling comfortable using a web based reader? Doesn’t this lead them right into Writely?

Would be a great MS purchase but I don’t see it happening. Office has too much clout to block it.

Yeah, ok, Bungie and BAO…good points (my bad for leaving off list, wasn’t meant comprehensive), though Bungie wrapped in the total overall Xbox budget per se, so a loss even if a hit. FolderShare, however impressive a developer kick (even that’s up for debate), still won’t impact shareholders.

MFST’s M&A are a mixed bag, horrid in content and Cable TV. Crumbling for things they can’t work into a strategic advantage, (Solomon, Great Plains, Navision). But good in things that can mix into the whole, ie. Vermeer becoming MS FrontPage.

easier to rebuild something that’s already done

You’d think, but actually sometimes it’s easier to start from zero, than to rework outside code in. All varies tho, case by case.

But Ian McAllister with his hints per “some senior players at another Tier 1 Internet company” and Scoble, with more the lucid dreaming wishlists, man, I wonder when SOX is gonna bite the bloggers. But in and ironic way, they really need not worry, the general market doesn’t care, blogging is overhyped in its importance. And the blogger rumor mills have less than a coin flip in terms of accuracy levels.

right on.

right on…who…what…Dano?

Am I missing something here… Isn’t the web the platform? Why would anyone need a RSS Platform?

Who cares how many aggregators Newsgator owns. Let’s get serious …how hard is it to build an aggregator? How hard is it to reformat RSS to read in Outlook? For a company with the resources of Microsoft, I would think not too hard.

What exactly are you buying by buying Newsgator? It’s not going to solve the big company disease that Microsoft is infected with. It’s still very very early in the RSS game. Remember Lycos, Excite and Infoseek. They all got bought!

Just launch Vista already…. If it does RSS, it will have more distribution than all the platforms and aggregators combined in what the first week?

And Newsgator… for god’s sake change your freakin’ name….. Why would anyone have Gator in their name? Even Gator changed their name!

I don’t really like any of the readers I’ve tried. Matter of fact, not a one offers the feature I want most — and remember seeing in the first reader I tried years ago: Chronological view of all feeds. If I have 100 feeds, I want to see every story in a single pane in the order it is time-stamped. That way I can quickly glance at the latest stories, regardless of source. I don’t see that feature anywhere. Anyone have a client that does this (PC side of the house)?

Until there is a compelling reason to use an alternate program/service, I stick with Sage.

Kirk95: when you ask “how hard is it to make an aggregator?” you sound a lot like a NIH person. It’s very hard to do it well. Which is why you’re seeing so much angst in the comments here.

Robert,

Why you talk about this in public? Use your 2 hours response time in communications with Steve Ballmer and make this happen.
Too many talking without results is not good. Even more – some people already noticed that MSFT shareholders can sue you – as it can look like you are trying to play a game with stocks. You have real motivation to play this game – as you probably have some options.
Show us results please!

Isn’t it a bit ironic that someone named “Wood” would post about someone having a “stiffy”?

“Cause it searches YOUR feeds” ???
I wish this was true. Newsgator definately does not search my feeds. I asked for this feature a long time ago, and just recently they told me it will be coming soon.

Christopher: Microsoft didn’t buy Groove to get Groove. They bought Groove to get Ray Ozzie. That’s where they expect return of investment.

One more missed above: Visio

I was in the process of recommending it to a government agency with about 45,000 seats. Had a trial version and was scanning and drawing our network topology with it. Had signed non-disclosure on several upcoming features that would run circles around anything out there (to this day). I was working FOR the agency, not as a middleman sales-rep, so all I had to do was turn in my report and money would flow.

All of a sudden the Visio people didn’t return phone calls so I ditched the report. Next thing I know its an add-on to Office, minus the more useful features, and the stuff in the pipeline never saw the light of day.

This is what I hate about Microsoft. They not only crush competition, they crush innovation even if it isn’t competition. They are a bull in the china shop of US technology, which is why I think they have set us back at least ten years in many areas. That’s why I think that the only hope for technology to break free is for the US to become a second class citizen, a fate well on its way to happening.

Congratulations Microsoft, and congratulations to Scoble for participating (probably unknowingly) in the cover-up.

macbeach: I’m not trying to cover anything up here. If you search on Visio you’ll find a few ex-employees who’ve given their side of the story.

It’s the downside of acquisitions. They rarely go well unless there’s a real strategic reason to do them and unless the teams doing the acquisition really understand what they are buying and want to work with (and for) the new team.

NewsGator rocks! I still like Google Reader’s keyboard shortcuts, though. Except that they’ve ignored my suggestion for page-up and page-down keys–I would think that F and B would work since their other keystrokes are very vi-like. Perhaps when MS acquires NewsGator, you can have them incorporate some good keyboard shortcuts.

Is Microsoft too stupid to code a RSS API by themself? It’s a piece of cake to code something like that. By the way, RSS is old, Atom is more the way to go. As always, Microsoft is too late …

Why does Microsoft drop core things in Vista (like WinFS) but puts useless things (like an RSS api, eye candy, ..) in? Right .. to win users and to fight back against what they think is their worst enemy, Google and OSS.

Trust me, within 10 years Windows is doomed. People just use Windows because they’re used to it, not because it’s a good OS. Just look at all security holes it has … Do we pay for that?!

“you have this assumption that MS has to compete on everything. why?”

Because Microsoft is a convicted monopolist felon and this culture permeates Microsoft from the executive boardroom to the janitorial closet.

When I ask how hard is it to write an aggregator, I meant for Microsoft? For me it would be impossible….

You don’t think Microsoft could write a RSS aggregator in a matter of weeks or months? You guys have MSN, Windows, Office, Servers and .NET… just connect the dots with RSS? I don’t see how hard that is? Sorry? What happened to Team RSS and the orange shoes?

Why couldn’t Outlook, or IE, or Word, or Excel, or PowerPoint or Microsoft Live or Office Live or all of the above be Microsoft’s aggregator?

Why couldn’t your server apps be the aggregator. I just don’t get what a Newsgator or Attensa would add to Microsoft? Enterprise RSS? Syncing Posts. Is that a feature, product or company…? Wait a minute Brad’s invested in Newsgator…must be a company.

So what’s an NIH person? I don’t like the sound of that – yikes…

Hey I feel your frustration, I’ve worked in huge companies before…

Microsoft historically has been the quintessential slow follower. First mover advantage is just not as important when you have billions in cash on the balance sheet and 90% plus share in OS and Office markets. Remember Apple, Remember Borland, Remember Netscape, Remember Google (oops to early on that on one, maybe next year)

Happy New year!