Apple's WWDC Keynote is now complete and it appears as though the new mail app is getting a lot of new features. The demo (and updated web site) focuses on html templates and interesting features for turning email into to-dos...but the real news for me was the addition of RSS support. This wasn't a big surprise I suppose, as it is becoming increasingly evident in both business and with consumers that RSS belongs in this type of environment. I wrote about this in March, and combined with Microsoft's efforts across IE7, Outlook, etc. there was no way Apple would not integrate it this time around. I also blogged about the Outlook 12 inclusion of RSS too, and, explained a bit more why this is a good thing for Attensa and our business model of value-add (vs. generic RSS plumbing.) While we will continue to develop our enterprise class, attention-laden clients for business users, I feel even more strongly about our opportunities today with the major OS vendors delivering the basics.
Apple's Safari got things started on a large scale for Mac users, and NetNewsWire before it (which previewed a version 3.0 today I just learned) for power users, but OSX 10.5 will bring RSS into use for many more users.Let's face it, the majority of users are not willing to pay for this capability.
RSS integration with the mail app - without overloading the inbox - is the ideal and proper place for consumption. This now opens up exciting possibilities for Attensa to play in the Mac market more effectively and ultimately allow us to bring intelligent, scalable, network enabled discovery and recommendation to the platform. We've got some folks down at WWDC and I'm sure we'll learn more about the opportunity to interface with Apple's mail app and bring sophisticated attention data capabilities to the Macintosh masses. Come to think of it, perhaps we can do the same for NetNewsWire, NewsFire, and Endo?
The net, net is that MSFT and Apple will soon have RSS throughout their offerings covering the basics and there is significant opportunity for Attensa (and others) to improve both the individual user's experience and overall corporate productivity as RSS becomes a mainstay of modern communication.
Tags: Apple, WWDC, RSS, NetNewsWire, Attention, Attensa, Microsoft Outlook
