Niall Kennedy: Starting next week I will join
Microsoft’s Windows Live division to create a new product
team around syndication technologies such as RSS and Atom. I will
help build a feed syndication platform leveraged by Microsoft
products and developers all around the world. I am excited to
construct a team and product from scratch focused on scalability
and connecting syndication clients and their users wherever they
may exist: desktop, mobile, media center, gaming console, widget,
gadget, and more.
This has the possibility of being a Very Good Thing. Job
one is to shatter the
cone of silence that has surrounded much of Microsoft’s
participation in this space to date, and Niall seems to have every
intent of doing exactly that:
I will continue to engage the community. There are some big
challenges ahead for the entire syndication industry that are best
solved by working together. There is a need for new shared metadata
initiatives to describe rich media such as podcasts, videos and
images. Some content publishers are holding back their content due
to a lack of clear authorization and
feed noindex options. The industry can gain a lot by having
open dialogue and working groups around various issues in the space
and I will continue to look outward for new ideas, partnerships,
and best practices
It will also be interesting to see if his team will be building
a second feed syndication platform from
scratch, or if the intent is to simply
throw away the
current one.
What makes you think it is a desktop platform?
PS: I blogged some more context around Niall joining us at [link]
You obviously are reacting to something you read into what I said, as I never used those words.
From your question, I take it that the obvious synergies between these two efforts will not be exploited due to the organization structure that Microsoft has in place, and furthermore that the ‘suits’ will do exactly as Sean McGrath fears.
It will also be interesting to see if his team will be building a second feed syndication platform from scratch, or if the intent is to simply throw away the current one.
You link to the what is basically a client side library for processing RSS/Atom feeds. In my lingo that is a “desktop platform”. I doubt that Niall will be working on anything that is redundant or competitive with the Windows RSS platform. He will be working in my group, we build Web-based platforms for our online properties not desktop APIs.
Sam,
Where’s the confusion? Web APIs can be used by both Web applications and desktop applications. I guess one could argue that a Web API could replace a desktop one but that’s like arguing that the NewsGator API can replace the Windows RSS platform [as a real-world example]. I think they serve different purposes and could be complimentary not one making the other redundant, thus having to be “thrown away” to use your words.
I guess there are people who would agree with that hypothesis, I’m not one of them. Maybe working at Microsoft makes me not drink the “Web apps and APIs will make all desktop apps and APIs redundant” kool aid that the Web 2.0 crowd seem to be drinking these days.
I will be working on a feeds platform within Windows Live. The desktop apps in IE and Vista are separate but could of course hook into the platform as long as we could handle the load.
I lead with desktops in my example because it’s the current dominating experience.
To recap: I didn’t say that I thought Niall would be building a desktop platform. I didn’t say that it would be redundant or competitive. I didn’t say there would be confusion. In fact, I didn’t even say that anything would have to be thrown away, just that that was an option. Everything else was inserted by you, Dare.
What we have established is that Niall will be a part of an effort to build a second feed syndication platform. From scratch.
I gotta love the straight forward approach you took here. IE definetely has its problems and it cant even nearly compete with the latest in browser devs, even w/ their ie7 crapola!