The RSS Chasm
I love RSS. I've purchased two RSS aggregators (Radio Userland and NewsGator) and I regularly use a third (NetNewsWire Lite). And I'm currently subscribed to well over 100 feeds. But I'm an early adopter. I've got the need and the inclination. And my most frequently used aggregators (Radio Userland and NewsGator) are integrated into applications that I already use everyday.
The next challenge for RSS is Crossing the Chasm and jumping from early adopter acceptance to pragmatic usage. And one of the major obstacles is the need to use a new application for reading RSS. The obvious solution – integrate RSS aggregation into an existing application.
That's why NewsGator is such a brilliant solution. It integrates RSS aggregation into an application that professionals already use every day. But I sometimes wonder if Greg Reinacker has chosen the right trial licensing scheme. The current license allows use of NewsGator for 14 days – what would happen if NewsGator used a cripple-ware license?
I suspect that limiting NewsGator Lite to three or four feeds and ten to fifteen articles a week would have a minor effect on NewsGator sales. But would be enough to support viral use of RSS within organizations. And once they start bumping into the limits you've reversed the issue from Why should we buy this new application to What are we going to take away?
And if anybody out there has any pull with Yahoo (or any major portal), then what would it take to add an RSS aggregator to the Yahoo page? I think that My RSS Subscriptions would make a very nice addition to http://my.yahoo.com/ – I'm just not sure what's in it for Yahoo.