So it is confirmed. The online RSS subscription service NewsGator has acquired the previously Rancherosoft’s NetNewsWire (press release) - which also happens to be the application I use on my mac to keep in touch with the hundreds of feeds I read daily.

This means NewsGator’s market share of readers will increase quite a bit in the mac world - most of my mac rss subscribers are using NNW (hey guys!). Greg from NewsGator has a pretty good summary of the motivations for the acquisition:

“(…) NetNewsWire really completes this story for us – we now have the best client on the Mac, which lets us serve this exciting part of the market as well. And make no mistake – we’re very excited about the Mac. Just looking at our data shows a huge penetration of RSS tools among Mac users – clearly you’re all early technology adopters, and that gives us a unique opportunity to try out new leading-edge stuff with you.”

He sure is right about the early adoption. As Paul Graham says, “all the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs”. It’s a shame that more companies (hey Google) don’t roll out the promised mac software. Not that we specifically need it, but it sure would be fun to have. In my opinion, it clearly is the superior platform.

One of my worst pet peeves is with the differences between software on different platforms, and how you’re supposed to be the one dealing with it instead of the developer. With software taking a shift from the desktop to the web, this is changing, but not at a pace that we can feel comfortable with.

Get the facts: Windows is the most used platform, but it sure as hell isn’t the best. (Regular) people just don’t know better. OSX is more powerful and Linux is more versatile. Microsoft is coming to a point where all it does is go with the flow, taking features from one or the other competing operating systems and glueing them on. Now I’m not saying they don’t have innovative stuff, but it sure as hell isn’t on the desktop operating system department.

So assuming that, here are some examples that tick me off:

• Skype: Why is Skype so different across platforms? Where’s the functionality that the windows version provides? Why does the thing crash *all the time*? We sure as hell don’t need all the bloat that’s present on the windows version, but a few things are really important.
• Windows Messenger: Why is the mac lagging behind 2 whole version numbers, with all the functionality issues that represents? Now I know we’re talking about a product for a competing platform but since there’s an effort to develop a powerful Office suite, there should be the same effort to build a powerful messaging product. And where the hell is linux support?
• Macromedia Flash: Up until now, even if Macromedia loves the Apple platform, their products on the operating system have been sub-par against their Windows counterparts. This is a shame, considering most of the creative masses are on Macs, anyway. Why is flash constantly making my cpu feel like an oven? This will probably change with the new Studio 8 but from what I’ve seen, not as much as it should. And, again, where the hell *is* linux?
• Hey google? Now one might assume an open and creative company like Google would be into satisfying everybody, but this isn’t the case. Where’s the promised google earth for macs? Where’s the video player for other platforms? Where is google talk? And, this is getting annoying, where the hell is linux?

This is not a plee. This is not a wakeup-call for corporations. This is the realization of a fact: it just isn’t global yet. While platforms besides Microsoft’s Windows get sub-par (or no) respect and attention from some of the most important projects and companies out there, it will never be global. Why I’m even writing this, I have no idea. But I still wonder how some people can ask me “why I love opensource so much”.

“Podcasting is like cappuccino,” said August Trometer, developer of iPodderX. “Gourmet coffee was around for a long time, but it took Starbucks to put it on the map. Apple is like the Starbucks of Podcasting and advertisers will take us more seriously now.”

Thats a direct quote from a press release by apple about their podcasting effort, that in two days delivered one million podcasts worldwide. I guess this is what happens when you add important value to something that’s ubiquitous like iTunes. Did Apple invent podcasting? Of course they didn’t (even though I can see a lot of people thinking otherwise), but they’re the ones who’ll be bringing the idea to the masses, because the marketing machine behind them is pretty much unbeatable.

This heavy impact has two major consequences I can foresee. First, other podcast oriented services will be seriously affected (Odeo might be one of those, unless they can come up with something that gives them the edge advantage), and second: companies will become aware of the strenght of podcasting - meaning we’ll probably see a lot of new corporate efforts in the area, like we’re seeing with weblogs.

Wow. I’ve discussed iTunes versus other podcasting services like Odeo before, and at the time I mentioned how any service based on the podcasting business model would have to launch before iTunes in order to get the necessary momentum to survive with such a big competitor.

Boy, was I right on the mark. I’ve finished upgrading to iTunes 4.9 and the new 3.1 software for my 4G iPod, and now I know why Steve Jobs was excited. He was excited not because that’s his way of marketing his ideas, but because he was on to something special. At the WWDC, people saw what he was talking about, but didn’t enjoy the experience themselves, and that makes a lot of difference.

iTunes 4.9 does in fact “just work”. I’ve been browsing the music store (which, unlike most other ipod users, I visited only once or twice before) to check out how they’re doing the podcasting thing, and I’m quite amazed. On a first look, it is an extremely powerful and well designed experience. And the way it works and integrates with the iPod itself is icing on the cake, something other companies will have to try harder to acomplish.

Here’s a few screenshots for those who haven’t seen it yet:

This first one is how the Music Store podcast section looks like. Slick indeed. I like how this integrates so well with the apple look, something that is important to me and many others.

And this is how a show page looks like. On top, you can see a picture related to the show as well as a description for it. On the bottom pane, you’re able to download each particular episode on its own. Pretty standard behaviour.

So this new podcasting service built into iTunes works. I have some concerns about it, like what kind of podcasts will be accepted into the directory (I’ve seen the link to adding a podcast, but haven’t done it yet). On the other hand, for most people with regular music and podcasting tastes, this will work just fine.

For other businesses - and particularly Odeo, which I’ve grown to be very fond of and have mentioned quite a lot in this blog - this may mean trouble. Competing against something as ubiquitous as iTunes is extremely hard, if you don’t push the envelope. Odeo Studio will allow users to create their own podcasts, but until that’s out there and working, I don’t see bright times ahead. I hope I’m wrong, though.

Will I stop using odeo? Probably not, because I like the social aspect of being able to comment shows. However, if that discussion as a social object isn’t able to keep the users on the service, something needs to be done.