Give me Dave Winer's Reader because GWebClipsSux

nat perfection
Originally uploaded by benbarren.

Dave is right when he says there have been "not so many new ideas" in the RSS Reader segment. Now why Dave's product is perfectly positioned to kick a few goals, the competition in some ways, have in fact regressed, let alone new ideas. Google (check marissa interview) seem to be forever catching up to products developed years ago at Yahoo or getting others to release unfinished APIs. So today, I was getting sick of the random "web clips" advertising/items on gmail, so I clicked to customise : I cant import OPML, nor can I even import my feeds from the Google Feed Reader. Then you have to delete 15+ default feeds like Yahoo News, Wired, SI, NYT etc. With no other configuration options. (btw good interview transcript with Batelle on blog networks)

Time for that Google P/E to get a hit (founders are now focused on film), and I think the 2006 driver will be an expose of clickfraud - I've just been building an index of Australian sites to demonstrate some RSS technology, and the amount of fraudulent blogs - across mainstream platforms : typepad, blogspot, wordpress, spaces is pretty pervasive. Anyway, cant wait to try Dave's new reader on OSX : "My main reason for doing this work is to help bootstrap some new features in the market, specifically in two areas: Podcasting and Reading Lists. But first, I need to get a basic release out, get it running on some servers and desktops, and get feedback from users."