MSN Gets Ready to Expand RSS Support
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Microsoft's Internet division is set to launch an RSS aggregation service for MyMSN users, while its search engine experiments with syndication for saving queries.
Syndication feeds are gaining more mainstream support from portals and search engines as Microsoft Corp. ramps up a set of new RSS features. The companys MSN unit is planning to release a beta of a Really Simple Syndication aggregation feature for users of its My MSN personalized home-page service, an MSN spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday. The beta was rumored to be ready for release by late Wednesday, according to Weblog postings from MSN officials. But MSN officially declined to provide specifics other than to say it would come out "soon."Meanwhile, MSN Search has started an experimental feature for subscribing to search queries using RSS, MSN confirmed. MSN quietly began testing the service when it released a beta of its search engine in November, but earlier this week a series of bloggers discovered the capability.
Read more here about Yahoos RSS embrace.
Startup companies providing RSS aggregation services through the Web include Bloglines and NewsGator Technologies. RSS feeds also are commonly read through desktop clients called newsreaders.
On the search-engine side, MSNs approach appears to be different, since it would let users monitor their favorite searches through RSS. Right now, the functionality seems more oriented toward the technically inclined.
An MSN spokeswoman stressed that the feature is experimental and is considered an alpha.
"Therefore [it] will be under constant enhancement and it may disappear and reappear throughout our testing period," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
The RSS feature is activated when a searcher on the recently released MSN Search beta adds a special string into the querys URL, according to a post on the MSN Search blog. Adding the new URL into an RSS newsreader then creates a subscription to the query.
The feature may be in early development, but it gives some clues into how MSN may try to differentiate its Web search engine against competitors such as Google Inc. and Yahoo. And MSN is searching for feedback.
"But dont get me wrong–this is a service we want to provide and make great," product manager Brady Forrest wrote in the blog post. "Tell us how we can make it better. What should we add? An orange button? What should we subtract?"
Earlier this week, MSN also began sending more of the visitors to its main search site to its beta search site in another sign of its plans to switch from Yahoo search results to its own this year.
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As an online reporter for eWEEK.com, Matt Hicks covers the fast-changing developments in Internet technologies. His coverage includes the growing field of Web conferencing software and services. With eight years as a business and technology journalist, Matt has gained insight into the market strategies of IT vendors as well as the needs of enterprise IT managers. He joined Ziff Davis in 1999 as a staff writer for the former Strategies section of eWEEK, where he wrote in-depth features about corporate strategies for e-business and enterprise software. In 2002, he moved to the News department at the magazine as a senior writer specializing in coverage of database software and enterprise networking. Later that year Matt started a yearlong fellowship in Washington, DC, after being awarded an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship for Journalist. As a fellow, he spent nine months working on policy issues, including technology policy, in for a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He rejoined Ziff Davis in August 2003 as a reporter dedicated to online coverage for eWEEK.com. Along with Web conferencing, he follows search engines, Web browsers, speech technology and the Internet domain-naming system.
