Syncronizing RSS feeds
I recently picked up a semi-abandoned web-based RSS newsreader. It’s a great little project, and I love being able to read, and update all of my incoming feeds from whereever I happen to be physically located (desktop, laptop, cellphone, public terminal, et al.) However, I often find myself in offline situations (plane) where reading from a web-based reader is obviously not an option, and the newly created, and open-source Vienna RSS reader if very slick. But again I end up now having multiple sets of feeds, each in a different “read” state, and I really want to be able to tag/flag feeds for later perusal.
Therefore, I’ve been thinking about the possiblities for syncronizing feeds across multiple desktop computers as well as with a centralized server. This would allow me to flag, mark read/unread, add feeds, etc. at either the web-based reader or any desktop reader and keep them all syncronized.
The sync interface should be open, allowing any RSS reader to implement and support the interface. Therefore users are not “locked into” a reader just because they have all of their feeds already there. This type of application lock-in is so very totalitarian. People should use software because it fits their needs and be allowed to switch away (or to) without fear of data loss.
There are several simple criteria such an interface should support: added/removed feeds, flagged (multiple methods of flagging/tagging: e.g. interesting, todo, toread, etc), read/unread, last updated, and handle what *version* of a feed item also is marked (assuming updates happen to feed items?).
RSS 2 provides a guid tag. guid stands for globally unique identifier. It’s a string that uniquely identifies the item. When present, an aggregator may choose to use this string to determine if an item is new.. Therefore, an syncronization item could look like the following:
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http://highearthorbit.com/blog/syncronizing-rss-feeds
read
flagged
Mon, 07 Nov 2005 10:27:33 +0000
However, an important consideration is the fact that there will likely be thousands of feed items to syncronize, and XML is not known for its compactness.
Are there current RSS syncronization standards currently out there that I may have missed?
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November 14th, 2005 at 11:41 am (#)
Hey Andy,
Ross here…Brent Simmons is working on sync for the next version of NetNewsWire. The company that recently bought him out also operates a decent web-based newsreader and of course they sell an aggregator for Windows. Presumably, the idea is that you’ll be able to sync your feeds with their central servers and then read news in NNW, in their web reader, etc. I think it’s logical to assume this is a paid-only feature.
All that said, the answer to your direct question would be “no” (at least as far as I know). I see a definite incentive problem standing in the way of creating such a standard: at this point the parties that would make use of such software would want to lock you in to their reader(s).
As I see it, some organization (rather than the individual end user) would have to pay for and operate the server infrastructure that would bring this software to life, and we cannot expect them to do so out of the goodness of their hearts. If anyone would do something like this I’d say Google would be the most likely, but even they have their own web-based reader.
November 14th, 2005 at 11:51 am (#)
The software I primarily used is either open-source, or developed myself, so I’m not limited to someone hosting the service. There are numerous open-source/free newsreaders out there that would benefit from some standard for syncronizing together.
Something similar to the iCal standard which Apple’s iCal, Mozilla’s Sunbird, and PHP iCalendar. Syncronization wouldn’t require any special server-side work, just a central repository to store a sync file. This could be via ftp, sftp, scp, webdav (and therefore .Mac), or local file (say to put on a USB key).
The sync file would be a digital bookmark/highlighter for all of my RSS feeds.