Private/Authenticated RSS Feeds
If you are reading this blog via an aggregator, you likely have come to love the advantages that RSS provides. No longer do I get my daily information fix by slogging through the various web sites I find interesting. Instead, I subscribe to their RSS feed(s) and let the content come to me. There are several advantages to this sort of model for both content consumer and producer:
Advantages to consumer:
- Aggregation of content (one tool, many sources)
- Automated notification of new content
- Much more likely to read content
- When content is in a format like RSS, consumer has a variety of choices when it comes to aggregation and to display/formatting of the content
Advantages to the producer:
- Making content easily consumable makes it much more likely people will consume your content
- Features like enclosures allow you to deliver not only HTML/textual content, but also associate other resources to content that consumers can easily consume
- Making anything easier for your target audience is likely to gain their loyalty
RSS as a content model has become very popular, not only for personal blogs but for a variety of news sources. Every day I use an RSS aggregator to not just read people's personal blogs, but also find out about the latest security threats and information that I can utilize as a developer. This is the public feed model, and provides content that is meant to be available to everyone.
How then do we handle the distribution of non-public information? I think of this in two distinct categories:
- Customized content. Imagine a situation where a content provider that provides a means of identifying yourself via some sort of authentication (NTML/Kerberos, Windows Cardspace, forms authentication, etc.) and then allows you to choose a subset of their content. You would then consume information that is customized to your specifications. In this category, the content is specific to the user but is still available to the public in general. A use case to imagine might be that anonymous consumers get all available content, while authenticated users get the subset they have specified.
- Secure content. This is content that is not only specific to the user, it is information that cannot be made available to all parties. Image being able to consume feeds about your eBay auctions, iTunes purchases, current banking records, or other content that you your normally consume by going to the provider's web site and after authentication would be able to view. In this category, the protocol/transmission path must be secured (SSL), and authentication must be provided.
Microsoft, Why Hast Though Forsaken Me?
I like FireFox a lot. It performs quickly and can be extended via themes and extensions. The Mozilla team has also taken a cue from Microsoft and is providing anti-phishing support. The reason's to stay with Internet Explorer are becoming fewer. The two big reason's for me are:
- ClickOnce support. I hope someday ClickOnce will support browser's other than IE. It will accelerate adoption of ClickOnce/smart clients.
- RSS. When I compare FireFox and Internet Explorer, the biggest thing that stands out to me is the built-in RSS support in Internet Explorer. It was the most exciting feature in IE 7 for me because it allows me to imagine a day when everyone has at least a general idea of what RSS is.
The support of RSS in Internet Explorer 7 is likely to finally bring RSS/feed syndication to the masses. As the big player in desktop operating system market, Microsoft has tremendous power to create public awareness of RSS. So after groking that RSS is important enough to be a first class citizen in IE 7, how can you not take the last step and support secured, authenticated feeds? You are doing great work in the Windows Cardspace/InfoCard area. Leverage this in IE 7 to make private feeds a reality. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity and let someone else have to pick up the ball you are dropping.
So in my humble and uninformed opinion, you should delay releasing a little and make subscribing to private feeds a priority. I want to be able to point to IE 7 and say "look, Microsoft gets it."
Additional Resources/Reading