It seems that MSN Search will integrate a RSS reader to his interface! – A prototype project by Microsoft

Frederick Giasson

I came across these prototype projects by Microsoft this morning. I already saw the names in some feeds but I didn’t take attention to them. I just tested the two projects; they are awesome! The first one is a web based RSS and Atom reader. The second seems to be a hybrid of the first one and a bookmark interface (the goal of his development seem more obscure; probably he lacks features).

This is by far the best web based feed reader I saw for now. It’s fully integrated to the MSN Search website. It didn’t take place in your browser with a sidebar. The way they have done the interface give you the maximum space in your screen to see what is going on.

You can easily show or hide your categories by clicking on a single button.

You can add new feeds to the pre-syndicated list of feeds. These feeds are added in a My Feeds section.

All feeds are open in a single window and you can have as many windows as you wish. This feature is really interesting because you can see the headers of more than one feed at the same time.

Another, really cool little feature is the search string saving possibility. All searches you perform are saved in a section called Recent Searches. When you click on one of these recent searches it open a new “feed window” with the result of your previous search. Then you can see some feeds and search at the same time.

Try this: go to the start project one. Click on show. Then click on the Entertainment category. After click on the Dilbert link. Finally click on one of the Dilbert’s feed entry. His that not so cute?

Okay, this is a prototype project and it is not perfect; so there is a list of things that I would enjoy to see in this web base feed reader:

  • I would like to be able to add or remove categories.
  • I would like to be able to remove pre-syndicated feeds.
  • I would like to have the possibility to have more than 5 feed entries by feed.
  • I would like to have a URL to add a feed to my reader only by clicking on it (like the MyMSN button at your right).
  • I would like to see if a feed entry is read or not. After, if such a system would exist, I would like to have the possibility to make all entries read.

My wish list end there for the moment. It’s like asking gifts to Santa Claus in a shopping mail. Will someone that works on this start project will read them? I don?t know but they are here in case of.

Finally what make this prototype project really interesting is that it seems that it will be fully integrated in MSN Search. It’s what makes it more interesting than the MyMSN pseudo feed reader and what make it different from services like Bloglines and NewsGator.

By the way, the first project now works on Firefox; for the second they are correcting it.

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Spamming problems on Del.icio.us; you don’t really need to validate your account

Frederick Giasson

I was surprised to see, this morning, a sort of bookmark spam attack in one of my Del.icio.us feed (tag:writing). I had around 30 bookmark entries with user names like: rollofle500, rollofle502, rollofle503? etc. All the messages have been sent at a minute of interval with different tags, different topics and all linked to the same website: http://torrents.on.nimp.org/?u=rolloffle that redirect us to http://www.gnaa.us/. I think the attack have been performed with an automated script that worked like this:

  1. He creates an account with a random name and a random email address.
  2. He login to this newly created account.
  3. He post a bookmark with this newly create account and put random tags that he get in a special word dictionary created for this effect.
  4. Finally he restarts the whole process.

It seems that the administrator of Del.icio.us had deleted these users and entries. They probably have been alerted of the situation and deleted them on the spot.

The problem is that erasing all the entries hadn’t repaired the entire problem because their feeds have been infected and distributed to hundred of subscribed users.

We are in right two ask this question: Why this situation happened? The answer is ease: because their authentication is not working properly. You can post bookmarks without validating your account. This is the real problem and why the spammer had been able to perform this sort spam attack. Even if you see this message:

» A verification email has been sent. Please check your mail. If it does not arrive shortly, go to the settings page and ask for another verification email.

You can do what you wish with your account.

What’s the solution to prevent future bookmark spam attacks on Del.icio.us? They will need to upgrade their registration and validation system to prevent the new users to be able to post bookmarks without being validated by the system.

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The way we are using the internet is changing; we wait that information come to us

Frederick Giasson

Thank to RSS feeds and other information broadcast channels

Internet is changing. The way we use it is also changing. In the past, the main application of Internet was to search for stuff. We used search engine. Now the role seems change. As I observe what is going on, I perceive that people are now using internet not just to search for stuff, but to wait that the stuff comes to them. They don’t search for information; they wait until that information come to them. They seem to be, in a sense, less active and more passive. Search engines are now sending information to their users (not the results of a specific search but information that can interest his users); think of MSN Search. People now have the possibility to have a bookmark inbox and wait to receive new cool links that are in relation with subscribed tags (interests). It’s getting rare that I perform search on search engines. I only do it when I search for technical things, like while programming or on specific subjects. Paradoxically I never before spend as many time as I spend on all kind of websites; I never found before as many stuff on the Internet as I found now. Why? Because I subscribe to some information channels and I wait that information come to me. Many unexpected stuff arrive by some information channels; I read it and I enjoy it. I would never find it with a traditional search, because I would never think about it. Thank to RSS feeds.

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New version of MSN Search – Some cool innovations in the engine

Frederick Giasson


New version of MSN Search
Some cool innovations in the engine

Microsoft just released the new version of MSN search. I was using the beta version since some months. I’m really impressed by the work they done. They started from scratch and do this in 2 or 3 years (don’t remember the exact numbers). His look and options make him look like Google; but he is not. One of the main features of a search is that you have the power of how you want to perform your search. All indexed links are composed of 3 new characteristics: the update frequency, the popularity and the accuracy of the match. You have many more power on the result you’ll get. The one I particularly like is the popularity tag. The problem with Google is that most of the time you always have the same 10 or 20 first results; always on the same sites. If you want an obscure website, you need to scroll 500 pages. But with the popularity tag, you can put it at 0 and you’ll have all the obscure sites you want. This search flexibility is the real innovation for this type of search engine. It gives more power in the users’ hands. How can you change them? Click on the “search builder” then click on the “results ranking” tab and you’ll got it. There are also other cool features like the integration of Encarta entries in your search results.

A new feature that is not essential but is so cool is the RSS search feature. You can build a query like this:

http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=SEARCHTAG&;format=rss

SEARCHTAG is the search query string. Replace it by “moleskine”, put it in your RSS reader and check the result.

Finally there are many other cool things. You just have to play with it and read the help section. It’s sure that it’s not ease to change your searching habits but I just tell you to try it for some searches, and after some you?ll know if you like it or not.

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