A SSAPI Christmas Wish
Not long ago I wondered , “How long is it going to be until Microsoft simply puts an RSS reader right in Outlook?”
Interestingly, John Robert Scoble recently commented on the upcoming RSS support in Outlook 12. Microsoft is essentially making the need for NewsGator Outlook obsolete… except for one significant detail: NewsGator Outlook synchronizes with NewsGator Online. So no matter where you read a feed item, the other client will know about it. This synchonization is so appealing that Scoble even asks if Outlook will talk to NewsGator’s servers. (My guess is: Yeah, right.)
So for this holiday season, I won’t be making any predictions. I’ll just make a wish…
I wish for a Syndication Synchronization API (SSAPI).
A server with this API would allow RSS and Atom users to maintain an account which could be used by SSAPI-aware readers. The functionality of SSAPI might look like this:
1) User enters SSAPI account info (host/user/password) into their reader. The credentials are cached until changed or deleted.
2) User subscribes to a new feed. The reader sends notification to the SSAPI server of the user’s new subscription. (Now any SSAPI-aware reader employed by the user will know about the new subscription.) Deleted subscriptions should work the same way.
3) User reads various items in a feed. The reader sends, at regular intervals, updates to the SSAPI server about which items have been read. (Now any SSAPI-aware reader used by the user will know which items have and haven’t been read.)
4) User opens another reader which is also configured for SSAPI. This reader starts by synchronizing both subscriptions and read items with the server, so that new feeds and new items are displayed correctly.
As for hosting: The big portals like Google, Yahoo, or MSN would offer SSAPI within their user accounts so that the availability of SSAPI would be ubiquitous. Whoever hosts your SMTP/POP can also host your SSAPI. So convenient!
There, that wasn’t so bad. Now we just need to get a standards committee set up, enough of the big names and egos to agree with each other, the biggest ‘Net portals on the planet to offer it, and all of the best RSS/Atom readers to support it.
Failing that, I guess I could settle for a Starbucks gift card.
December 25th, 2005 at 04:34
Would you be surprised to know that you are using the API at the moment. No need for it to be ‘invented’.
It is called OPML and you can access your own by looking at http://inkblots.markwoodman.com/wp-links-opml.php
No need for URL’s go and search the web for OPML.
Stephen
December 25th, 2005 at 16:57
I’d like to wish for a Coffee Drink Size Standard - CDSS. I mean, is a Grande bigger than a Large? Where does Venti fit in? I doubt we’ll get the big boys of coffee to get together on this.
Another aside, OPML has it’s own set of problems
December 26th, 2005 at 06:09
Stephen,
I should have brought up why OPML doesn’t do the trick; thanks for mentioning it. Aside from being a problematic format, OPML is just a means of listing feeds in an organized manner. OPML is about format, not function. (See Kevin Burton’s discussion on the pitfalls of trying to manage OPML via an API.)
There is no defined protocol or API for adding/updating/deleting feeds from a canonical list. And there is no means of tracking which items have been read within a given feed. These functional points exist inside every reader — what I’m suggesting is a standard way to do this outside the reader. Think IMAP, but for feeds.
December 26th, 2005 at 17:31
Who is John Scoble?
December 26th, 2005 at 18:30
John Scoble was a slavery abolitionist in the 1850’s and as such does not have a blog. Robert Scoble is a Microsoft blogger and the victim of a typo. Fixed!
December 27th, 2005 at 03:59
Randy points out that NewsGator, BlogLines and Yahoo have proprietary APIs for this functionality.
But, no standard.
Without a standard, can we hope to get most readers to implement a bunch of proprietary APIs?