As of now, the RSS blog joins our list of retired and archived blogs. I recommend checking out Download Squad, our software and computer blog that covers many aspects of the on-screen lifestyle and user experience.

speaking of RSS, remember that many of our blogs (including Download Squad) off RSS feeds by category.

Thanks for reading!

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.)

This is sweet. BloxOr is a Web-based RSS aggregator whose Ajaxy underpinning makes it very much like a desktop newsreader. Three viewing panes reveal the user's list of feeds, the list of items within any single feed, and the content of the feed item. This arrangement, standard on many desktop programs, eliminates the two-pane system common in Web aggregators which requires a click to see the feed item's content. BloxOr works beautifully, and registration requires only a username and password; no email address.

After rumors met silence from the WordPress.org site, an official announcement has finally been posted: WordPress 2.0 has been released. I haven't yet tested it (though I trust WordPress, I wouldn't dare upgrade before backing up my databases and WP folders), but I haven't seen (substantial) reports of migration problems. WordPress 2 is named "Duke," and documented upgrades include a WYSIWYG entry-writing interface (it's about time!) and inline image uploading (it's asbout time!). There is also some kind of Ajaxy-sounding drag-and-drop of interface elements. WordPress has done amazingly well to date, thanks largely to its (relative) ease of installation and operationsl quickness--both selling points when compared to Movable Type, in particular. The program's geekiness, while appealing to many users, probably holds it back from more widespread use. The new WP2 features make it sound ready to rock in a bigger arena. Here is the announcement and download page.

A new RSS mashup site acts as a meta search engine reaching into Amazon, Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Flickr, YouTube, and Technorati. You cannot mash all the search results into one feed, but you can merge Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! Shopping into a single product feed, which is damn convenient. The site is weak on design, but it works. Used to be called Longtail, but (according to a posted explanation) that term has been trademarked by its popularizer, Chris Anderson. The mashup site is now called BaeBo, and is operated by Fancis Shanahan. (BaeBo is the language spoken in the Solomon islands ... perhaps it has other meanings, too.)

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.

Niall Kennedy has documented an API for Google Reader, beating Google to a public release of how developers can build their own feed-reading applications atop Google's engine. An update to Niall's original post reveals that the product manager of Google Reader confirmed the accuracy of Niall's work, and asserted that Google built the API first, then contstructed Google Reader as just one example of what could be done. The implication here is that Google might well develop new feed-reading applications--something to look forward to. Further, Google plans to release an official API before long, opening the doors to third-party applications.

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.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for ads in RSS, and have said so for months. I have intuitively felt that inconspicuous ads would probably work best, if only because they would piss off readers less than big, loud ads. However, a study from Pheedo indicates the reverse is true, and it's two layers of bad news. First, ads run as separate RSS feed items are far more successful (generating about eight times the clickthroughs) as ads embedded in RSS items. Then, it turns out that blitzing the feed with ads in every other item is the most successful tactic of all. Of course, you might lose most of your readers, but the remaining ones will be clicking your ads.

This weekend it's going to be quiet as a library in here. We're doing some maintenance—big, important stuff that I'd tell you about except then I'd have to be killed, and besides, I don't undertand it in the slightest. Posting in this blog will be light to nonexistent, and the comment sections will be entirely broken. Save up your rants and raves 'til Monday morning. Thanks!