Tuesday, April 8, 2003

SharpReader vs Syndirella Reasons I like Syndirella better than SharpReader: The icon in the system try changes color if there is new items to be read. Syndirella detects when the content of a given item changes. Not a very long list. Of course, many of the Radio vs Syndirella items apply to SharpReader too. [Sam Ruby] Oof. Interesting how quickly SharpReader has developed a positive reputation against competing products. 3:35:30 PM

Dmitry Jemerov to quit Syndirella? Dmitry Jemerov writes: I'm really, really tempted to give up Syndirella development. And this is one of the reasons why. SharpReader today has just about everything that I wanted to implement in Syndirella in the next 2-3 months. So, instead of spending time creating Yet Another implementation, I'd rather continue the development of Structorian or a C++/SDL client for DungeonLab. Ok, this is definately not what I wanted to achieve with SharpReader's release. Syndirella has a loyal following and still has a number of features that SharpReader does not (yet?) have. It would be a shame to see further development abandoned. Of course since Syndirella is open-source, I guess others can pick up where Dmitry left off... [SharpReader category of Luke Hutteman's public virtual MemoryStream] Well, it is sad, but I'm not that surprised. What I am surprised at is how many desktop news aggregator projects there are already. For SharpReader to hit the blogosphere so quickly is a testament to his marketing mix (whether he knows this or not). Still, my mom ain't gonna install any of these... 3:34:11 PM

Let RSS Power Your Email Marketing With the proliferation of government web portals and pages, it is becoming ever more necessary for agencies to reach their customers by email. You can no longer even expect your most devoted readers to visit your web sites on a regular basis. One of my web hosters made a major service change several months ago but never notified their customers by email. The notice was only on their website, and then in a place only accessible by password. When I suggested yesterday to their sales rep that email notices were preferable and that the company could provide them at no additional cost, she was incredulous. Even when governments and businesses do market news and services by email, they're usually using mailing lists and e-newsletters. I subscribe, for example, to newsletters about Utah travel and events, and I get email news of newly posted court opinions and administrative rules. I bet that in every state there are hundreds of these kinds of lists. The problem is that the public cannot easily learn of their existence and they are relatively time intensive for us to prepare and distribute. Using RSS, customers can more easily find and subscribe to our syndicated news, and we can eliminate all the extra processes needed to prepare information or repackage it for email delivery. As one who has managed 30 simultaneous mailing lists, I know. In a few days from now, I'd like to begin sharing with you some methods of using RSS technologies to automate the process of email news publishing. If you have a method that works for you, please write me, Ray Matthews, and let's share it. [RSS in Government] This is simply awesome! Linking RSS into an existing email newsletter system is exactly the right thing to do, and over time, I bet email deliveries drop to a fraction of their current levels. Take back the inbox! 3:29:40 PM

Sean Alexander, program manager for Microsoft on... Sean Alexander, program manager for Microsoft on the Windows Media team, says they have a new blogging plugin coming for Windows Media 9. Hmmm. [The Scobleizer Weblog] Uh, yeah, I'm skeptical too! 3:27:32 PM