Microsoft RSS Blog : Community

Windows Live Suite has lots of RSS goodness

rss — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:02:35 GMT

A couple weeks ago, Chris Jones (VP on the Windows Live team) announced the new Windows Live suite. Included in this suite are two things of potential interest to readers of this blog:

First, the beta release of Windows Live Mail -- a desktop email client like Outlook Express or Windows Mail for Vista. What makes it even more interesting is that includes support for reading RSS feeds (based on the Windows RSS Platform -- so anything you subscribed to using IE7 is automatically available in Windows Live Mail).

Windows Live Mail is great for those who like their feeds in a mail-like "three-pane" view. Brandon LeBlanc wrote about using Windows Live Mail as an RSS reader not too long ago on the Windows Experience blog. Read more about the beta release on the Windows Live Mail team blog.

Second, the suite includes an update to Windows Live Writer - a fantastic blogging tool (that I've written about before) with support for dozens of blogging services. Read about Writer on the team's blog.

So, lots of good stuff happening on the RSS and blogging front over in Windows Live-land. Keep an eye on the Windows Live Wire blog for updates.

- Sean

RSS 2.0 Best Practices Profile draft released

rss — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:58:49 GMT

One of the great things about RSS is that it's being used all over the world in countless ways. Millions of sites publish RSS feeds and hundreds of products consume those same feeds. The downside of this popularity, however, is that with that many implementations, there's bound to be some variance in how and when sites implement the specification. This can make it tricky for publishers and consumers to figure out how to implement some of the less-frequently-used features of the specification.

For the past few years, the RSS Advisory Board and the many hard-working and dedicated people on the RSS-public mailing list have been working hard to document how popular readers and services have implemented the specification, with the goal of helping publishers and consumers understand how best to get what they want.

The board recently published another draft (version 1.20) of the RSS 2.0 Best Practices Profile, which includes information on how various consumers use the <ttl> element, as well how to implement some commonly-used RSS extensions (like the Dublin Core and Slash extensions).

The profile is still evolving, so, if you're interested in getting involved, the best place to start is on the RSS-public mailing list. If you're implementing a new RSS publishing or consuming application, a quick glance at the profile would definitely help.

- Sean

Still Gone? Ok – got it!

rss — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:28:00 GMT

Sam Ruby pointed out HTTP 410 GONE support in feed readers or rather the lack thereof. He links to the list of User-Agent strings that continue to request the feed that is gone. One of the entries points at the Windows RSS Platform as an "offender":

Windows RSS Platform/1.0 (MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)

It's listed with 282 hits. At first I was surprised to see the Windows RSS Platform in that list since we specifically added 410 GONE support. But then it dawned on me: That's not the Windows RSS Platform!

Well, it is, but it isn't. The above User-Agent string is the one from the Beta 2 Preview release (Jan 2006) of the Windows RSS Platform. The User-Agent string changed in Beta 2 (April 2006) to the final string:

Windows-RSS-Platform/1.0 (MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)

I described the string here a year ago. See the difference? The dashes instead of spaces! Why the change? Well it turns out that the product token of the User-Agent string may not include spaces, since spaces delimit product tokens and comments.

So it turns out that there are still people running the Beta 2 Preview version of the Windows RSS Platform, or some application is "faking" the User-Agent string.

Either way, I just verified that the RTM version of the Windows RSS Platform handles 410 GONE correctly. I used the following Powershell script:

$fm = new-object -comobject "Microsoft.FeedsManager"

$feed = $fm.rootfolder.CreateFeed("gone","http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/index.rss")

$feed.SyncSetting

$feed.Download()

$feed.SyncSetting

When you run it you will see that the SyncSetting property is changed from 0 to 2 after the Download() call. Note that the SyncSettings are defined as:

typedef enum {

FSS_DEFAULT = 0,

FSS_INTERVAL = 1,

FSS_MANUAL = 2

} FEEDS_SYNC_SETTING;

FSS_DEFAULT - Use the system-defined DefaultInterval value.

FSS_INTERVAL - Use the Interval value defined by the feed.

FSS_MANUAL - Do not automatically update the feed. Use Download to manually update the feed.

which means that the feed initially uses the default sync interval to get updated. Upon download, the setting is changed to Manual since a feed that is GONE should no longer be updated automatically.

- Walter vonKoch

Windows Live Spaces goes RSS-crazy

rss — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 05:04:00 GMT

It's been quiet here for a couple months, but plenty of things have been happening in the RSS world. Most recently, Windows Live Spaces had an update (more at the Space Craft blog).

Mike Torres, all-powerful lead PM on the Spaces team dropped me note to point out that they went RSS-crazy in this update, with category feeds, feeds for every list (even a feed for all lists), profile feeds, comment feeds, a feed of your friends, and even a feed of all of the feeds on your space.

It's fantastic -- everything you might want to get is accessible via RSS!

Mike's blog post has all the details.

- Sean

Patent Applications in the RSS space

rss — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 00:18:40 GMT

It's always fun when a story hits the blogosphere while you're stuck on a plane. :)

This will be short, because I'm connecting over a 14.4K modem line (I have the deepest sympathy for folks who still do this every day!), but I just want to say a few basic things about the RSS-related patent applications mentioned in the article and elsewhere.

First, these patents describe specific ways to improve the RSS end-user and developer experience (which we believe are valuable and innovative contributions) -- they do not constitute a claim that Microsoft invented RSS.

We have always fully acknowledged the innovators and supporters of RSS, like Dave Winer, Nick Bradbury and many others, and I can say, without hesitation, that I and my colleagues personally have the deepest respect for their invaluable contributions.

From the beginning we have sought an open and reasonable relationship with the RSS community. As one example, we have published various RSS and Atom extensions under a Creative Commons license. These specifications provide proof of our commitment to offer our contributions to the community and evidence of our efforts to advance the technology. We honestly hope that our work brings benefit to all feed publishers, developers and users, and we've been happy with the response we have received from the community so far.

Finally, as a number of commenters have noted, we are far from the only company to apply for patent protection in this space. Other companies, including Apple and Google, have apparently also applied for patents. Applying for a patent on your innovation is common industry practice, and one which, by incenting and protecting the companies and people involved, encourages everyone to contribute to the community.

I hope this helps put our position in perspective. I want to reiterate that my team and I are fully committed to RSS and feed syndication technologies in general and to the community. Please post any additional questions (I'm sure you didn't need an invitation :), and I'll get back to them in the new year.

Thanks,

Sean Lyndersay
Program Manager Lead, RSS

Windows Vista and Feeds

rss — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:01:00 GMT

As noted pretty much everywhere on the web, Windows Vista launched (for businesses) last week.

Windows Vista includes IE7 and the Windows RSS Platform, and is therefore the first Windows operating system to ship with built-in support for RSS (and the first OS of any kind to have RSS support built-in as a native platform component).

Windows Vista is, in fact, the fulfilment of a promise we made over a year ago at Gnomedex 5.0: Longhorn loves RSS.

In addition to the reading experience in IE7, and the platform features, Windows Vista also include the new Windows Sidebar, which ships with a Feed Headlines gadget.

The team that built the gadget have written up a great post on how the gadget was built, and how they leveraged the RSS platform to make development much easier for themselves.

Read their post here: Building the Feed Headlines Gadget.

In case you haven't seen the gadget in action, the screenshot below shows the gadget after the user has clicked on a headline (I've configured it to show the headlines from the MSNBC News feed).

Many thanks to the folks on the Sidebar team that developed such a great gadget, as well as to Chrix Finne, who interned on the IE RSS team as a PM this past summer, and helped out the Sidebar team with feature design for this gadget.

- Sean

Note: Apologies to readers who downloaded an earlier version of this post, which used a photograph taken by Niall Kennedy and posted on flickr.com. He did not appreciate the usage, and replaced it with a different image. I forgot to include an attribution, which I had fully intended to do, but for which I apologise to him.

Thank you.

rss — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 06:14:00 GMT

It's been a hectic week.

Between getting thrown in a fountain (that's my boss, Group Program Manager of IE, but almost everyone went in at some point), and being filmed for Channel 9 video (say hi to Arvind, Will and Cindy, about half of the RSS test team), I forgot to post a note here. But, I figured that most people had probably heard that IE7 for XP (including the Windows RSS Platform) shipped last Wednesday.

But, in case you haven't... Dean Hachamovitch (GM of IE) has a post over on the IEBlog that covers all of the goodness that's in IE7. There's some good information on how to give feedback and get support, and the plans for Automatic Update distribution of IE7.

Now that the week is over, I'm taking a minute to reflect. Building IE7's RSS features and the Windows RSS Platform have been a great ride all of us on the RSS team. More importantly, it is abundantly clear that we could not have done it without the feedback and comments from all of you (anyone remember the icon posts?).

So, on behalf of the whole team: thank you.

As Dean said in his post, we have already started work on plans for the next version of Internet Explorer (which includes, of course, plans for the next version of the IE RSS features and the Windows RSS platform). So, feel free to use the comments on this post to let us know what RSS features are on the top of your must-see list for the next release.

Thanks again,
Sean

Attensa for Outlook 2.0

rss — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:32:00 GMT

The folks at Attensa make a slick RSS aggregator that integrates with Outlook and provides a River of News-style view with priortization based on what feeds you use the most.

Not too long ago, they released version 2.0 of the Attensa for Outlook product. Along with a ton of other great features, it includes synchronization with the Windows RSS Platform, so when you hit that RSS button in IE, the feed can automatically show up in Attensa -- which is great if you're using Attensa as your primary RSS reader.

This has been one of our guiding principles in IE7 -- you don't have to read your feeds in IE. By using the open APIs of the RSS platform, developers of innovative new RSS readers like Attensa can gain access to the orange button in IE7 that Steve Rubel loves.

Attensa works with Outlook 2000, Outlook XP and 2003 (Outlook 2007 support is in the works). If you're an Outlook user, you should definitely check it out. It's free -- so it's an easy choice if you're looking to try out something new.

- Sean

MSR Asia: RSS Reading Habits Survey

rss — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 00:53:29 GMT

What better way to spend a Friday afternoon (Redmond time, at least), than by filling out a quick 8 question survey on your RSS reading habits, hosted by the MSR Asia Center for Interactive Design?

Even if you don't take the survey, the results will be publicly available on Oct 20th (and there's even a results feed to which you can subscribe to get them when they are available).

Check out the post on the team's blog as well.

- Sean

NewsGator Desktop Sync in Beta

rss — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:13:32 GMT

Earlier this year at Mix06, Greg Reinacker and I did a talk on the RSS platform, during which he demo'd tool to synchronize the RSS platform state with NewsGator Online.

Yesterday, Nick Harris announced that the sync app, now known by the name of "NewsGator Desktop Sync" has gone into beta, and is available for everyone to download.

From Nick's post:

Desktop Sync is a system tray application that keeps your feeds, folders and read states synchronized between NewsGator Online and the Windows RSS Platform. This means that any application that uses the Windows RSS Platform will be automatically synchronized with your NewsGator Online account!

Check out Nick's post for information on where to download and where to give feedback (you'll need IE7 RC1 or Windows Vista RC1, and a free NewsGator Online account for it to work).

I just want to also use this opportunity to thank Nick, Greg and the others at NewsGator for their great feedback on the RSS platform. It has been great working with them.

- Walter vonKoch

Windows Live Writer Beta released

rss — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 03:23:40 GMT

I think it's only appropriate to congratulate the Windows Live Writer team on the release of their Beta by posting this entry using the Windows Live Writer Beta itself.

I've been using their internal release candidates for several weeks, and I have to say, it's the best blog posting tool I've ever used. This was clearly built by folks who know and understand the blogging space intimately -- little surprise, since it's developed by the team that wrote the excellent Onfolio research tool and RSS aggregator that Microsoft acquired earlier this year.

Liveside.net has a great interview with J.J. Allaire, who leads the Writer team.

So, check out their blog to learn all about it at: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

- Sean

Book talking about the RSS Platform

rss — Fri, 05 May 2006 23:54:00 GMT

Last month, I reviewed the chapter about the Windows RSS Platform in Dave Johnson’s upcoming book RSS and Atom in action. According to his blog post, it’s set for publication in mid-June after which you should be able to pick up a copy. We’re looking forward to it!

- Walter vonKoch