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Previously, the term “feeds” was synonymous to
Google News, another big service provided by Google. Since Google didn’t give
any support to RSS or Atom feeds, programmers started to scrap headlines off
Google News. And these headlines were then displayed on another Web site.
However, now you see Google supports both RSS and
Atom feeds. Reportedly Google News team had been receiving a lot of feature
requests for RSS feed support. And that’s why the company decided to give a dose
of news through both the syndication flavors, Atom and RSS. This shows that even
Google couldn’t ignore the growing popularity of RSS.
It still took Google a long time before they
actually started on with the Google News feeds. But even now Google’s support
has only been added to Google News content and has not been extended to it’s
standard web search. Even though Yahoo! has started to provide News feeds just
for that one specific keyword. For example, if you would like to follow news
that mentions “George Bush”, you can do that perfectly. This hasn’t been
implemented by Google as of yet, but might be soon.
Re-use of Google RSS feed content is officially
limited to non-commercial uses and requires complete credentials of all the
individual sources included, Google itself and the publication of the search
terms and criteria used to create the feed. Will these restrictions really help
Google to harness the true power of RSS? Well, now that’s another question!
Google’s RSS Ad Patent
“Google Files for RSS Ad Patent” – That seems
to be the hottest topic been going around the Internet for some time now.
Another classic example of the web getting “Googlized”, as the world’s biggest
search engine revs up to dominate the RSS ad market.
If you still didn’t get what exactly I’m
talking about here, Google has filed for a patent with the US Patent and Trade
Office (USPTO) for embedding advertisements into syndicated RSS and Atom feeds.
According to the abstract, the patent is all
about a method for "incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated
presentation format in an automated manner." This goes beyond RSS or Atom feeds,
as it pertains to syndicated formats on the whole.
However, Google wasn’t the first to jump in the
RSS ad bandwagon. Companies like Pheedo and Kanoodle had already started trying
their hand at it long back. If we see the positive side of this, Google taking
it’s own protection measures in the RSS ad bracket, is itself a big proof about
the potential of this growing technology. The filing is not astonishing though,
for a firm of it’s size can delve much deeper.
Quoting from Pheedo’s official blog “Google is
not going to own RSS advertising. At best, Google may gain some protection for
its specific techniques and methods of inserting and tracking ads in syndicated
content.” All I can say is, Google is surely making huge strides in the RSS
sector but everything does have a limit.
Google RSS Reader
After heavily betting upon RSS by filing a
patent for the ads, Google wasn’t surely gonna stay behind when it came to RSS
readers. It was very predictable for the company to launch it’s own aggregator,
another step towards bettering the syndication lifestyle.
What’s common between Google’s reader and its
other services is the simplicity of use. The way Google designs it’s services,
(doesn’t matter if it’s Gmail or Adsense) is what wins over everything else.
That’s exactly what one gets to see in Google’s reader. The ease of use and how
simple it is.
The web-based reader, which is in its beta
stage, requires a login similar to Gmail. Once logged in, feeds can be added and
organized very effortlessly. The feeds can be organized by various names or the
user can also import subscriptions from other RSS aggregators or online services
and easily subscribe to feeds just by entering the RSS feed’s URL. They have
also started to distribute the trendy “Add to Google” button, an addition to a
collection of many others provided by different readers.
Google’s entry into the RSS reader market will
definitely shake well-established companies like Newsgator and Pluck. Since
Google has complete power over the sponsor ad listings in the search results,
advertising this new service wouldn’t be a big deal. Just type in “RSS Reader”
in Google and you’ll know for yourself.
On a last note, Google is surely taking in on
RSS and is trying to take the technology to new level. This clearly shows that
RSS is here to stay. Something for all of us to sit up and take notice!
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