eBay has recently added RSS feeds to its search results, allowing users to track their favorite auction items in their news readers. Given that most RSS readers only check for new feeds every half hour, listings in the feeds won't have an end time less than 15 minutes from the time the feed is retrieved. eBay also said the RSS feeds won't initially support all search parameters available through advanced search pages.

The new RSS feed is part of an effort to make more of eBay accessible via the technology. Last November, the auction site began its foray into the RSS world with feeds for the announcement board, discussion boards and listings from specific eBay Stores. Arturo Zacarias, eBay's senior product manager for new technologies, said that the company will add RSS feeds to other areas of the site "in the coming months."

Microsoft's Windows Live has just improved its RSS feed reading feature and supposedly now lets you import your OPML files. But the biggest news is that a new toolbar is due out this afternoon that incorporates many of the features of Onfolio, a desktop research organizer and RSS reader that Microsoft announced it acquired yesterday. Onfolio is no longer for sale and won't be supported in the future, with the acquired company now focusing all its efforts on improving and supporting the new toolbar only.

It's unclear whether the new toolbar will keep any of Onfolio's desktop RSS functions. We'll have to wait and see this afternoon, when the new toolbar is released for download. It appears you can download it from the Onfolio site. I'm curious to see what functions are delegated to the Web and which ones are left for the desktop application. (By the way, if you purchased the basic or professional versions of Onfolio after Dec. 8, you can request a refund. Purchasers of the academic version are out of luck because a half-dozen or so of its features are not available in the toolbar.)

On Windows Live, RSS reading is very cool. You can click on a feed and go to the original site to the read a story -- or you can hover over a "[more]" link and see much of the feed's content and graphics. You can scroll through a story if it doesn't fit into the pop-up window. This is how Google should have programmed its RSS reader, which, in my mind, sucks. (I do, however, like Google's personalized front page, where I do much of my RSS reading.)

A favorite shareware program of mine that adds all kinds of information to your iPod has raised the number of RSS feed items it can handle. Pod2Go, which has been a Mac product for a while, but just recently introduced a Windows beta as well, now lets you view 100 items or articles per RSS feed that are converted into iPod notes for later reading while on a plane or anywhere else. Essentially, you can turn your iPod into a PDA. Previously, you could only view up to 30 news items per feed.

The software comes with more than 1,000 built-in feeds to choose from. You also can add your own RSS or Atom feedst. If you're running NetNewsWire on your Mac, Pod2Go automatically lets you select which feeds you want to include from that program. It does the same thing with Safari's RSS feeds. However, the software doesn't support RSS feeds that require authorization.

But the software doesn't stop there. It also provides information about the weather, movies, stocks, lyrics, horoscopes (if you believe in those silly things), driving directions and gas prices. The Mac version also lets you sync with address book contacts, iCal calendars and other items. It also has a backup feature and a launcher so you can start any program when Pod2Go syncs. There's a 15-day free trial. After that, the software costs $15. Right now, the Windows version is free until the beta ends.

At first, saving and reading your RSS feeds from Safari may have seemed appealing. But that may have changed. After all, there are a good five or six solid RSS readers for the Mac that can do the job better. Well, there seems to be a way to move those RSS feeds out of Safari and into the reader of your choice.

By using an XML stylesheet and running it in the Mac terminal, you can convert the RSS feeds into an OPML file. Nearly all RSS readers -- both desktop and online -- will let you import feeds via OPML. Here's how you do it:

Download the XML stylesheet from here. Then run it in the terminal with these commands:

I plopped down five bucks this week to try the beta of FeedLounge, an elegantly designed online alternative to such storied desktop RSS readers as FeedDemon and NetNewsWire. In fact, it's hard to tell the difference, at first glance, between FeedLounge and an offline reader like FeedDemon. (The three screenshots show the same feed using different views.)

Of course, the main problem for FeedLounge's developers is convincing folks that they need to pay $5 a month for what Bloglines and NewsGator are already providing on the Internet for mostly free (NewsGator does have some paid versions of its service). Still, it's an impressive feat and it was worth the Lincoln to see what Ajaxian technologies can do for the RSS-reading community.

My first task was inputting a list of about 900 feeds via an OPML import. Rather than handling it all it once, FeedLounge provides a notice that it will incorporate the feeds in batches until they're all there. This apparently keeps their servers from dogging everytime someone like myself comes along with a gigantic OPML file.

The results of our poll on how many RSS feeds you follow are in and they suggest that most people read more than 100 feeds. A total of 40 percent follow up to 100 feeds, while 8 percent read 120 to 129 feeds and 7 percent read 210 to 229 feeds. The largest group by far, comprising 12 percent of votes, reads 390 or more feeds! (There were more than 159 potential voters,but we had a technical problem that prevented many readers from voting in the poll. You can read about many of their RSS habits in the comments section of the original post.)

We're curious to know how many RSS feeds you have loaded into your RSS feeder of choice. If it's in the hundreds, we doubt you read them all every day, but that's for another poll. For now, let us know the number of feeds you track in total by selecting the poll choice that includes your total. We'll print the results in another week or so.

Take our poll.

There's probably never been so much fanfare over a tiny orange icon. But the icon Firefox browsers use to indicate that RSS feeds are available on a Web site is being adopted by Microsoft for its Internet Explorer 7 and, likely, Windows Vista operating system. Then the news came that Microsoft would use the Firefox icon in Office 12 -- particularly in Outlook.

Personally, I prefer the RSS icon that says "RSS" or, when I'm feeling really geeky, the one that reads "XML." But the Redmond, Wash., giant and Mozilla officials met and agreed that the Firefox icon is more user friendly, especially for folks who have no idea what RSS is.

In related news, a designer has created a Web site for the new logo. You can download the icon in a variety of sizes.

After 10 days of collecting votes, we have some results in our Dec. 5 poll that asked you what RSS readers you use. Bloglines was the winner, with 187 votes, followed by NetNewsWire with 163 votes. It's interesting to see the number of readers who are Mac users. FeedDemon, considered tne best RSS readers for Windows by some, only received 34 votes. Readers could vote for multiple selections.

Yahoo received 89 votes, followed by Google's 51 votes. "Other software reader" garnered 94 votes, with 41 votes going to "other online reader." Seven voters said they don't read RSS feeds. Combining Bloglines, Newsgator, Yahoo, Google and "other online reader" indicates that a large chunk of our readership get their RSS-feed information online rather than from software applications.

It suggests to me that they are getting their news, but perhaps are missing some of the extra features found in software apps. But this could be good news for the new Web 2.0 online readers slowly surfacing. They may be able to attract more people than the desktop software developers can, shaking up this growing niche of the software industry.

We'd like to hear which RSS readers you use to read RSS and Atom feeds. So we're running a poll that asks that very question. Please select all the readers that you use on a daily basis. If your reader isn't specifically in the list, feel free to tell us about it in the comments (along with an URL, if possible, so others can check it out).

 

Which RSS reader do you use?
	Bloglines
	Newsgator
	FeedDemon
	NetNewsWire
	Yahoo
	Google
	Other software reader
	Other online reader
	I don't read RSS feeds.