There are a number of different types of readers: web-based, desktop, Outlook based, etc… This post is focused solely on web-based feed readers. I’ve included the big guys plus some up and coming readers with outstanding features and/or performance like News Alloy, Gritwire, Attensa and FeedLoung
Bill Gates had particular praise for RSS and its future role - "We think it's [rss] is very important" and rss use in Microsoft products is "going to skyrocket". He talked about how Rss is "the start of the programmable web" along with exposing apis. He referred to Microsoft building tools that will help with the messaging protocols that are central to the programmable web.
No one has the exclusive right to determine the path forward for RSS, you may influence but you may not decide. You have to sell your ideas, they are not mandates.
All of that effort has resulted in a huge shift in how we use the internet, in companies getting funded, in Microsoft putting RSS in IE 7 — in massive technology upheavals. Its a very unique situation when a grassroots movement can come to such full fruition without getting lost in the forest of lawyers, ownership and selfishness.
But we don’t need the tech industry, and it’s about time their attitude reflected that. They didn’t bring us the web, that came from a researcher in academia. And they didn’t bring us RSS, that came from the publishing industry
Recent research conducted by Yahoo! and Ipsos reveal that 31% of all net users use RSS but only 4% actually realise they are using it (report here (pdf)), and 12% are roughly aware of what RSS is.
o where do we go from here? In 2006 feed reading will become even easier than it is now, especially if there is a groundswell of adoption around Windows Vista. It will bolted into all kinds of connected devices, from cell phones to Sling Boxes to point of purchase displays. In addition all kinds of new information will find its way into feeds, not just news and blogs.
Attention to something is valuable, but in a world of too much information divided by the time to consume a portion of it, signalling a lack of attention is more valuable. By that construct, gestures of inattention will fetch a greater price, and purveyors of gestures of indirection or redirection will gain inordinate value as compared to domain experts
One other important point: We’re releasing the SSE specification under a Creative Commons license – Attribution-ShareAlike. I’m very pleased that Microsoft is supporting the Creative Commons approach; you can see more about this at in the licensing section at the end of the spec.
By following the atomic unit of content around as it’s ripped, mixed, and republished, the content is afforded the widest variety of distribution paths to reach the largest possible audience, which in turn creates the greatest opportunity for monetization.