We are currently advocating the desktop feed reader, Blogbridge, because of its support of reading lists and managed feed libraries (coming soon). Blogbridge does not currently have a web-based version of its reader–key if you want to read your feeds on the road and you don't have a laptop or internet connection. Tech Crunch recently did a survey of online or web-based feed readers. Here is a feature comparison chart from the article:

Summary from the article: If you are looking purely for performance, Google Reader and FeedLounge are the fastest in our tests. Bloglines and Rojo are the best choice if you are looking for a feature rich application (and Rojo blows Bloglines away on “web 2.0″ type features.

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We have been using Blogbridge as our preferred RSS aggregator because it allows us to manage reading lists inside the aggregator.

Now a new “stable” version of Blogbridge has been released. It is free and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux. While you can import OPML lists (or “reading lists”) in many RSS aggregators, Blogbridge is the only one we know of that supports dynamic reading lists. Here's what this means. Let's say you want to keep up to date with what we think are the most interesting feeds related to Learning 2.0. All you need to do is add this url to Blogbridge:

http://www.blogbridge.com/rl/3247/Otter+Learning+2.0.opml

If we find a new feed we think should be added to the list, it will also show up in your aggregator. This is what separates a reading list from a regular OPML file. The internal format isn't different in a reading list, it is the fact that the contents of the file changes over time that makes an OPML file into a dynamic reading list.

Here's how you subscribe to a reading list in Blogbridge:

1. Select 'Add Guide' from the Guides menu.

2. Enter a title for the new Guide.

3. Select the 'Reading List' tab.

4. Click the '+' button.

5. Enter the URL of a reading list. If you can't find one to try, you can get started with the one I have created based on Tech Memorandum.

6. Click 'Check and Add'.

7. Click 'Add'.

8. When the new Guide appears, all of the feeds listed in the reading list will be read, and the feed items will then appear.

By default, BlogBridge only checks for new contents in the reading list when it is first run. You may want to set your preferences to check for new feeds daily or weekly. This is done by:

1. Selecting 'Preferences' from the Tools menu.

2. Clicking the 'Reading Lists' tab.

3. Changing the 'Check for changed Reading Lists' setting to 'Once per Day' or 'Once per Hour.'

You can download the new release of Blogbridge, here.

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I believe 2006 is going to be the “year of the aggregator.” As more and more documents, news, and services become RSS-enabled, I expect to see very wide-spread adoption of desktop aggregators. To start off a new year of blogging, I am publishing the attached white paper, Aggegators: what are they, where have they come from, where are they going?

For additional information about aggegrators, please see our Learning 2.0 podcast series.

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When I give talks on Learning 2.0, at the start of the talk I ask people how many of them are using aggregators. Typically about 10 percent of the hands in the audience go up. By the end of the talk, I ask people how many are planning to get and use an aggregator. Now all hands go up. I am convinced (and seemingly convincing) that aggregators are the most important new tool that knowledge workers need in their tool box.

People ask me two questions: what aggregator should I get and how do I start populating it with channels that will be useful for me?

Now I've got the right answer to both questions. I am strongly recommending Blogbridge, a java-based aggregator that is rich in features and very easy to use. Blogbridge is a desktop-based system that is designed to manage many feeds. It has a user-interface that allows you to easily categorize and share feeds. Here is why I like it:

• Blogbridge is cross-platform, free, and open source. Because it is java-based, it works on both Windows and Macs.
• It is designed by Pito Salas who was the founder and CTO at eRoom. Pito really understands collaborative learning, so we feel that he has built Blogbridge to work very well in that capacity.
• Blogbridge has some very nice features including:

Guides: The Blogbridge user interface is organized around “guides” or collections of feeds. When you download Blogbridge, you are offered a set of guides that you can then personalize and customize. In the screenshot below, you can see that I have constructed a set of Otter blogs. These are feeds from all of the blogs the company maintains. Building this set of guides was easily done by pasting the urls for these blogs into the “subscribe to feed” dialog box.

Feed Discovery: this is one of the best features of Blogbridge. Built into the aggregator is a very nice “starter” collection of feeds that you can check and have added to your personal blogbridge.

But here's where things really start to get interesting with Blogbridge. In the current “developer's version” (download here: Look for the link at the bottom of this post for download), you can start to build and share your own reading lists. So if you would like to add our recommended collection of feeds on the topic of Learning 2.0 you click on the “Add Guide” link and give the Reading List a title, “Otter Learning 2.0.”

Then you click on Reading Lists and the “+” button at the lower left of the next screen. All you need to do is paste the following url into the dialog box to add our collection to your aggregator: http://www.ottergroup.com/Otter%20OPML

Voila. You now have a collection of feeds that will stay up to date as we add new feeds to our list. As this feature is still in “developer mode,” it is a bit complicated to manage. But the next stable version of Blogbridge will make it simpler and easier to both create reading lists from Blogbridge and to add reading lists to Blogbridge. At the Otter Group we feel this is a “must-have” feature for making aggregators critical learning tools. So far Blogbridge does it best.

More features, we like:

SmartFeeds: Smart Feeds are feeds that you create using search terms and tags. I've built a couple of smart feeds that grab new information from Google blog search on terms like “Learning 2.0″ and “Enterprise RSS.” To further streamline my reading, I've added additional smart feeds that search for those terms within all of the channels/feeds inside the aggregator. This gives me a very quick way to scan topics that are of the greatest importance to me at the moment.

Synchronization across computers: you can synchronize your feeds accounts to and from any computer. This means that your feeds can be easily accessed even when you are not at your own computer.

Tagging integration with del.icio.us: you can tag articles inside your aggregator with Blogbridge and synch these tags with del.icio.us. We've just started to use del.icio.us and have not yet integrated into our learning programs. But it is nice to know that we can do this through Blogbridge.

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Here is a very good outline of the issues enterprises face when implementing RSS systems behind the firewall.

Enterprises will use RSS on an intranet differently than consumers on the Internet. The biggest differences are driven by:

• How enterprise collaborate within an Intranet. For example, feed ratings for public Internet sites are useful but do they have a role for Intranet sites? Maybe, but how do they apply to enterprise applications providing personalized feeds?

• Teams within companies work closer together and need to work from a common set of information.

• Access control is a much bigger concern.

• Companies have tiers of staff and management that have access to different things.

• Often times Sarbox controls use the words “need to know” so access to information not directly attributable to your job also needs to be addressed.

• Companies have different computing infrastructure components such as identity management systems and system management suites.

• Companies need to manage internal IT services. They need to understand system capacity and performance trends. They may want usage reports to properly assign costs of resources.

In my opinion enterprise RSS requirements fall into these categories:

Identity

This has to do with determining the identity of the user monitoring a feed and handing that identity to the application serving the feed. This often gets lumped in with “Security” but identity is an important requirement all on its own. It not only determines access control but also provides the basis for personalization of information delivered.

The technical challenge here is integrating with a Company's single sign-on system.

• For desktop-based aggregators operating within the context of a browser this may not be a problem since many enteprise SSO systems are web-based and the aggregator application may share the same credentials as the browsers.

• For desktop client systems this can be a challenge since RSS is delivered via a web server, which are protected behind a web-based SSO system.

• For server-based aggregators this becomes more challenging since it involves using delegated credentials. The server is requesting access to a URL (which can map to a database transaction or just about any application function) and must be able to provide identity to the system serving the URL (the web server or enterprise application). For that matter, the user may not even be online when the feed URL is fetched.

Security

Where are the risks in the RSS system that can be compromised and how do we mitigate that risk?

Some that come to mind are feed credentials (for external feeds that do not take part in the enterprise SSO system) and maintaining the privacy of a user's feeds. Any part of the feed information may have sensitive information whether it is the URL, feed title, or contents of feed items.

This could mean simply limiting access to an individual's feed to the individual only, but not always. Perhaps we want to provide limited access, possibly based on groups defined in a corporate directory, to feed data. Although searching across multiple feeds is a good thing it too must honor the privacy of individual feed owners; showing results the searcher only has access to and not showing those feeds that are not allowed.

Integration

How does the RSS system integrate with the company's identity management components? How can the service be managed? Can we monitor it's health and availability? How can we backup and restore the system? Finally, can other applications integrate with it using an api, xml/soap, or even (are you ready for this?) RSS.

Administration and Service Management

Administering systems is probably the biggest headache for IT departments. The best gift a vendor can provide is the ability to delegate administration to the end-user as much as possible.

Adding users should be a non-event if it integrates with SSO.

Also, can it provide for sharing of feeds? Perhaps a department wants everyone to see the same set of feeds. Can these be bundled, shared, and access controlled by an end-user?

Finally, what type of reporting does the system provide? Are we running out of capacity? Are there feeds that take up room but no one is using?

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RSS, which stands for RDF Site Summary, but often referred to as Really Simple Syndication, is a tool for
condensing information into a feed, which can then be downloaded
automatically as new information becomes available. It
is a computer-generated data-file format that sites use to communicate
their contents to other sites and applications. Using a really simple
definition structure, (thus the name), RSS makes it easy for developers
to extract and integrate data from other sources into their own (J.
Spool). Typically
sites that change or add content regularly provide RSS feeds to save
users the trouble of having to visit the site and check for anything
new.

At a technical level, RSS is a file format as well as the process for
converting things to that format and distributing them. This technology
allows you to “subscribe” to any source (website, weblog, database,
etc.) that provides an RSS feed. To subscribe to a feed you use a piece
of software called an “aggregator.” Aggregators will soon be built into
all browsers but they can also be integrated with email programs like
Outlook. The aggregator acts as a personal mailbox receiving items -
articles, podcasts, etc. - from the feeds to which you subscribe.

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On an RSS network users publish
information according to the way they already do their work - sending
emails, updating databases, filing project reports. They also get new
ways to publish information that make it easy for them to reach out to
the entire network or any specific group to share their knowledge or
request assistance.  Information that previously was stored
locally–in individual inboxes and hard drives–becomes visible and
searchable for those who need it. The aggregated information becomes
the basis for collaboration and innovation.

Users subscribe to the
information they need instead of repeatedly searching company
databases, news sources, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, learning management
systems, project report archives. If a data source can be searched,
then users can subscribe - setting up a persistent search that finds
information as soon as it is published. With individuals and groups
customizing sets of subscriptions and sharing them across the network,
the result is improved knowledge transfer and greater opportunity for
collaboration. Because publishing and finding information are made so
simple, employees can share what they know and be recognized for it.
They can also more easily keep up with ideas and developments across
the network–enabling the kind of connections that result in innovation.

Users can customize the way they receive the information as well - as a
dashboard, in MS Outlook, on a mobile device, or through new user
interfaces like Google Desktop.

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After 10 years of building technology-based learning programs for
professionals, the Otter Group is now building RSS networks for
enterprises, workgroups, and professional networks. RSS networks enable
powerful personalization and customization, complex filtering and
intelligent analysis of all kinds of content flowing through an
organization. RSS networks integrate with a company’s existing methods
of sharing information such as Microsoft Outlook or can be built into
new user interfaces like Google Desktop so that people can share what
they know and find what they need.

We are demonstrating our new system for learning and information
management that solves the problems organizations now experience with
current technologies and methods: too much content for portals; too
much email; and knowledge and learning management systems that don’t
really work.

Download  the description of our presentation below and 
call us (617-973-9400) to learn more about RSS networks for your
workgroup or organization. We’ll help you deliver the right
information, in the right format, to the right people, at the right
time.

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On Tuesday, October 11th, Kathleen will be giving a talk on RSS Learning Networks at the Mass-ISPI Meeting.

To register, please go to: http://www.mass-ispi.org/

Presentation Description:

Technology was supposed to make learning better, faster, and easier. But
technology-enabled learning has not fulfilled its promise. People are
spending as much as five hours per week looking for information. While
they learn best from one another, the learning management systems
organizations are using do not enable that. Companies want each person
to contribute their expertise to the maximum benefit of the whole
enterprise but until now there have not been systems that make that
possible. What we need is a solution that will increase transparency,
improve knowledge sharing, allow end users to determine what is of
greatest value to them and harness the collective intelligence of an
organization.

This presentation will: 1) Explore a new system for learning and
information management that solves the problems that users experience
with current technologies and methods. 2) See how RSS can be used to
create learning networks and enable powerful personalization and
customization, complex filtering and analysis of all kinds of content
flowing through an organization. and 3) Look at a prototype of an RSS
learning network and two use case scenarios where RSS networks are used
for innovation in a large financial services company and for resource
and project management at a global engineering firm.

The presentation will look at some specific examples of RSS
Learning Networks at Merrill Lynch and some use cases of learning
networks for project and resource management.

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NewsGator Technologies, Inc., the leading RSS platform company,
announced today the launch of NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES).
Available in Q3, NewsGator Enterprise Server is a revolutionary new
product for aggregating and reading RSS content within the enterprise.
It brings the power of NewsGator's existing RSS engine, services and
capabilities behind the firewall, providing enterprise class security,
manageability and deployment. In addition, NGES optionally integrates
with Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory, which eases deployment
for enterprise IT departments and provides a user interface that
employees are comfortable with.

Key end-user benefits of NewsGator Enterprise Server include:

– Information workers can easily subscribe to secured internal RSS
feeds from business systems or other sources as well as all available
external RSS content.

– Synchronization across multiple interfaces (Desktop, Mobile, Internet, etc.).

– The ability to personalize feeds for workgroup collaboration,
opportunity tracking, business and competitive intelligence, and
project management.

– The ability to create personalized RSS feeds by monitoring keywords and URLs for both internal and external communication.

– Full support for folders and sub folders for organizing RSS feeds.

“We've seen enterprise adoption of RSS increase dramatically over
the last year, for both internal and external content,” said Greg
Reinacker, founder and CTO of NewsGator. “However, security and
manageability concerns have limited its widespread adoption in many
companies. We're very excited to introduce NewsGator Enterprise Server,
for businesses that want to enable efficient content distribution
behind their firewall. And with the optional integration with Microsoft
Exchange Server and Active Directory, there is essentially no end-user
training required and no per-desktop deployment required for the IT
department.”

Key technical features of NewsGator Enterprise Server include:

– Optional integration with Microsoft Exchange, enabling users to
read RSS feeds in Outlook, Outlook Web Access, Pocket Outlook,
Entourage and other Exchange-integrated applications without installing
any desktop client software.

– Optional integration with MS Active Directory allows for single sign-on and group administration and management.

– Based on the same engine that powers the award-winning NewsGator Online Services, already proven to be highly scalable.

– Consolidates and reduces bandwidth consumption by periodically
scanning each feed only once, regardless of how many users are
subscribed.

– Centralized deployment and management that requires no client software installation or plug-ins.

– Designed to be installed in hours, rather than days.

“The enterprise is the next frontier for RSS, as millions of
information workers globally seek easier means to find and track the
most relevant internal and external data,” said J.B. Holston, president
and CEO of NewsGator. “NewsGator allows these employees to track
important internal and external competitive, brand and company
information in a concise, organized manner, using the tools they are
familiar with. NewsGator Enterprise Server is the next critical
corporate solution to manage information workers' RSS needs most
effectively and efficiently.”

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