tag:,2009:/1/tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524- 2009-10-30T14:53:04Z Comments for RSS Aggregators, commoditization and value-add Movable Type 4.23-en tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524 2005-09-14T08:17:45Z 2007-12-16T23:15:48Z RSS Aggregators, commoditization and value-add Over on my ZDNet blog I've written a couple of posts that extend my analysis of The RSS Space. In the first post I explained the RSS Space categorization some more. I then noted that 4 of the 5 categories are at the mercy of The Big 3 of the Internet industry - Google, Microsoft... Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com Over on my ZDNet blog I've written a couple of posts that extend my analysis of The RSS Space. In the first post I explained the RSS Space categorization some more. I then noted that 4 of the 5 categories are at the mercy of The Big 3 of the Internet industry - Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Commoditization is the term for this. I think this is most true in the 'Reader Services' category, because it's relatively easy these days to develop an RSS Aggregator. The real value in the future of 'Reader Services' will be in creating value-add services, which I believe is the direction that Bloglines, Newsgator, Rojo and the like are heading.

I finished that post with a bold prediction: the next Google will come from the 'Publisher Services' category, because it's the one category in which The Big 3 have shown little interest in colonizing. I'm interested to know what my R/WW readers think of that - am I off my rocker? Let me know in the comments ;-)

In a ZDNet post tonight, I reviewed Microsoft's announcement of start.com becoming an extensible application platform. Start.com is introducing "web gadgets", which are DHTML-based components that can be created by external developers and used on Start.com. According to Microsoft this will mean "anything from custom calendars to service integration."

This leaves Google and Bloglines behind the 8 ball. Surely Google is building something with RSS or Atom? Well at least it's finally released Blog Search. But... is it just me, or is Google Blog Search pretty tame/lame? I don't think Technorati should give up its day job just yet, despite being hammered in the blogosphere lately.

In relation to RSS value-add, I'm most disappointed with Bloglines. It has not followed up with any RSS value-add developments since its "Universal Inbox" strategy back in March 2005. And I've switched to Rojo as my Aggregator of choice now, because Bloglines has failed to keep up with Rojo in functionality. Come on Ask Jeeves, you didn't pay all that money to just sit on Bloglines did you?

There's a lot happening in The RSS Space right now and I will be writing more on the topic, both on ZDNet and Read/Write Web. The RSS Space Wiki is going strong too, so feel free to add vendors to that list.

]]> tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524-comment:36300 Comment from Harold Jarche on 2005-09-14 Harold Jarche http://www.jarche.com Google blog search IS tame/lame. It's nowhere close to technorati ... yet. So why did they release such a watered-down service? Are they desperate or do they know that the community will help them to fix it?

]]> 2005-09-14T11:55:26Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524-comment:36301 Comment from Andrew Chen on 2005-09-14 Andrew Chen http://dragon.mnstate.edu/~chenan/ This web gadgets thing sounds like MS is trying to gather the same sort of developer interest that Apple managed to get with their Dashboard Widgets (which they were initially going to call Gadgets). Only I guess they'll be having them be located/managed on the server instead of the user's desktop - increasing their control over the system.

]]> 2005-09-14T13:47:14Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524-comment:36302 Comment from Greg Gershman on 2005-09-14 Greg Gershman http://www.blogdigger.com Tame/lame, and derivative, rather than innovative. More on that later.

How do you see Google's AdSense for Feeds? Isn't that geared to Publisher Services? If anything, this would seem to be Google's biggest market, what with advertising being their biggest moneymaker.

I agree about Bloglines, and in the aggregator space in general. It's time for someone to shake things up with something that works better. I haven't tried Rojo, maybe I'll give it a shot.

]]> 2005-09-14T20:30:12Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524-comment:36303 Comment from Andy on 2005-09-14 Andy http://brudtkuhl.com I've found start.com to suck (content based on cookies).

Bloglines sucks as they have yet to innovate since launch.

I am very impressed with SearchFox RSS.

]]> 2005-09-14T20:43:25Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524-comment:36304 Comment from Richard MacManus on 2005-09-14 Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com Hi Greg,

Yes Google also comes under 'Publisher Services -> Advertising'. Apparently advertising accounts for around 95% of Google revenues! I look forward to your comments on the Blog Search.

Andy, yes I've heard great things about SearchFox RSS. I must give it a go.

]]> 2005-09-14T22:38:08Z tag:72.47.210.69,2005://1.4524-comment:36305 Comment from Marco on 2005-09-16 Marco http://www.codicesorgente.it/feedsaggregator Hi Richard,
another good web-based feeds aggregegator is this project:
RSS/ATOM Feeds Aggregator
http://www.codicesorgente.it/feedsaggregator

It's really new ... and needs suggests to growing up.

]]> 2005-09-16T09:05:05Z