Microsoft entering our market is great news... Bullsh#t!
I have heard a number of podcasts recently where feed reader vendors are asked the question "How do you feel about Microsoft including RSS support in IE7 and feed reading in Outlook.
And the answer is always "Oh we are very happy because this helps to bring feed reading to the mainstream and it will only help us grow the market together".
Sorry but this is crap.
I agree that a universal subscriptions store in IE7 is great for the entire RSS ecosystem on the client side, however integrating feed reading into Outlook 2007 is basically the death nail for 90% of use-case-scenarios for 90% of users in the 'reading feeds like email' space.
I think it spells the beginning of the end of the smaller vendors and the marginalization of the bigger players. Sure Outlook's feed reading features are no where near as good as Attensa or Feeddemon right now, but give it a little time.
Like with all of it's marketplace battles, Microsoft does not need to release the best product, only the most tightly integrated out-of-the-box 'good enough' solution.
The answer to the Microsoft question cannot be "Oh it's great, it grows the market". That's a lie. Because the question is not the size of the market, it's the size of the opportunity. And the increase in market size by Microsoft results in more Microsoft customers, not more opportunity.
We are working hard to release the first Beta and we will then be announcing features/extensions that will further differentiate Touchstone (The Attention Management Platform) from feed readers and gadgets/widgets (as if it needed more).
And the answer is always "Oh we are very happy because this helps to bring feed reading to the mainstream and it will only help us grow the market together".
Sorry but this is crap.
I agree that a universal subscriptions store in IE7 is great for the entire RSS ecosystem on the client side, however integrating feed reading into Outlook 2007 is basically the death nail for 90% of use-case-scenarios for 90% of users in the 'reading feeds like email' space.
I think it spells the beginning of the end of the smaller vendors and the marginalization of the bigger players. Sure Outlook's feed reading features are no where near as good as Attensa or Feeddemon right now, but give it a little time.
Like with all of it's marketplace battles, Microsoft does not need to release the best product, only the most tightly integrated out-of-the-box 'good enough' solution.
The answer to the Microsoft question cannot be "Oh it's great, it grows the market". That's a lie. Because the question is not the size of the market, it's the size of the opportunity. And the increase in market size by Microsoft results in more Microsoft customers, not more opportunity.
We are working hard to release the first Beta and we will then be announcing features/extensions that will further differentiate Touchstone (The Attention Management Platform) from feed readers and gadgets/widgets (as if it needed more).
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