A podcast for those who design, develop and run websites.

Boagworld is the personal website of Paul (the Wurzel) Boag who lives in the heart of rural Dorset. He produces a weekly podcast along with Marcus (pop star) Lillington on all things relating to building and running websites.

Latest shows

138. Freeform: In this week's show the entire boagworld production team answer listener questions.
137. Adobe: In this week's show, Aral Balkan joins us to discuss the release of Adobe CS4 and we discuss how not to get blacklisted by google.
136. Stagnation: In this week's show we talk about overcoming stagnation and Ed Merritt shares a technique to achieve fixed footers without the use of javaScript.
135. Libraries: In this week's show we talk with John Resig on javaScript libraries and address the question what is more important when we release an app: speed or quality?
134. Chrome: In this weeks show we give you advice on choosing the right hosting company, Teifion and John send us a review of dConstruct and of course we discuss the release of Google Chrome, can it topple IE?

or view all shows

Have your say

Leave a message for the show...

Posts by tag

or view all posts | rss of all posts

We are pleased to announce that Friday 10th October will be Boagworld discount day at the Head Conference site. Signup to attend on that day and you will get 20% off!

Windows Live focuses on Web Feeds

Published on: November 2, 2005 by Paul Boag

If I have told you once, I have told you a hundred times... get a web feed (RSS) on your website! Microsoft has just launched Windows Live, and at the heart of it lies the humble RSS feed.

Windows Live is a free, ad-supported AJAX virtual desktop. Features include (or will soon include), instant messaging, internet telephone calls, integrated email and you guessed it web feeds.

What is more Windows Live can be extended by the installation of "gadgets" that can be developed by pretty much anyone with the skills. It wouldn't suprise me if the next thing you should be focusing on after adding an RSS feed to your site is the development of your own gadgets.

That means all the big players (Yahoo, Microsoft and Google) now provide virtual desktops built around delivering web feeds to peoples start pages. Combined with the live bookmarking function built into Firefox and the upcoming I.E. 7 makes an RSS feed as important as your newsletter email sign up form.

Comments

Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email

Post by Ed on November 2, 2005 2:32 PM

I hear the word "Portal" ringing in my ears......
Post by Mark on November 2, 2005 5:21 PM

Hi Paul, first of all, your podcasts are great! Just a question here: isn't Windows Live pretty much the same thing as Google's page: www.google.com/ig (which actually DOES work for Firefox! :) )
Take care!
Post by Paul Boag on November 2, 2005 7:00 PM

From the web feeds point of view, yes they are pretty much the same. However, Windows Live has this gadget API which will allow all kinds of additional functionality to be added in like a built in email client and IM messenger.
Post by Ed on November 3, 2005 8:47 PM

The microsoftgadgets.com site seems to be the place to get started writing Gadgets.
Post by Astrid on November 6, 2005 5:38 PM

Hi Paul,

what I like best is http://www.netvibes.com/
Mine is equipped with boagworld of cause ;-)
and works fine with Firefox
Post by Paul Boag on November 6, 2005 5:40 PM

That's the same one I use Astrid. However, mine isnt equipped with boagworld... he writes a load of boring old rubbish that I already know :)
Post by Ed on November 30, 2005 3:00 AM

Something else to consider for web feeds/rss feeds is "MSN Alerts". MSN Alerts "are time-sensitive notification messages that service providers can send to customers at the customer's request. Users can receive Microsoft Alerts on their desktop computers through MSN® or Microsoft Windows® Messenger, in e-mail, or on a mobile device, such as a phone or personal digital assistant (PDA)."

In other words: you can Sign up for MSN Alerts, get some code emailed to you a few days later and add that code to your site. When users click the button the code makes, they can sign up to get updates to your rss feed sent to them via MSN Messenger and the other places mentioned above.
Some users may like that as it means the update will come to them without even having to open an rss reader!

Additional Information

Interesting links

Future Of Web Apps - Videos
Carsonified are releasing videos of FOWA talks within hours of them happening! T..
The North Face Nuptse
For those following me on twitter, these are the slippers I have decided to get ..
Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder
Is cloud computing a mistake? Are we locking our data into propitiatory systems?..

Supporting boagworld

Boagworld only exists thanks to the kind support of the following people. Check them out.

Produced by Headscape
In association with GetSignOff
Bandwidth partially supplied by Switchpod

Speaking and writing

Join Paul at the London Hub of the Head conference on 24th October.
Paul has to endure painful questioning from the guys at Carsonified.
Paul does a random interview at JungleJar.com.
Paul's workshop on how to charm clients and win pitches is selling out fast. If you are attending FOWD New York this is your last chance to get a ticket.