Created my first two non-public RSS feeds for internal information last week and they are working great.  Now that we have some tools (sharpreader, etc..) for reading these documents its just easier to publish out RSS and take advantage of them as opposed to some fixed sql query window over RDP or whatever.

From my very limited view point of RSS, I personally think the only thing that is missing is the ability to date stamp each item in the collection; including tool support for this.  Lets say I did a synchronization of my RSS document at exactly 12:00 PM; and then at 12:15 PM I want to resynch.  Well the RSS reader has to remember each item that has already been read and only display those new items. (Sharpreader has a 45MB footprint right now..ACK!)

Why cant the RSS document automatically timestamp each item so that these readers simply exclude by date?  Wouldnt that make it easier for sharing subscriptions with different machines/tools?  Or even better, have the tool request the document based on a timestamp restriction when originally requesting the document? 

“Only give me the new items after 12:00 PM“

The next step, of course, would be the ability for OPML to become time aware.  That is, I export my subscriptions to my OPML file, and the tool automatically timestamps each outline with the last time I synched up.  So then when I take the OPML file home, and plug it into a different reader that reader will know what to ask for and not show me everything on all the feeds.

One last thing.  Anyone got some URL's for web-based readers?  Why on earth, in this online age, are we all simply downloading RSS documents into offline readers?  Why is this not a free service on some public web site?  We wouldnt have to worry about the installation of the reader, upgrades, tracking the subscriptions between different machines/readers, tracking each item that has been read, etc.. (of course i want my own custom stylesheet, ability to import and save my OPML directly, etc..)

Im out.

1 Comment

• Dare Obasanjo said Monday, August 18, 2003 12:41:00 PM

  >From my very limited view point of RSS, I personally think the only thing that is missing is the ability to date stamp each item in the collection; including tool support for this
  
  You should learn more about RSS. There are at least two elements that can be used to timestamp each item; pubDate and dc:date
  
  >Anyone got some URL's for web-based readers?
  
  Google for BlogLines. There are a bunch more but that's the only one that comes to mind.