Andrew Melder

Seeing a student with a MacBook of any kind used to automatically typecast them  as private school kids with well off parents. Not any more. These students, for example, are from a local public high school.

Now having worked in IT for the WA Department of Education previously I know that Mac computers have very limited functionality in public schools. All web-based components are designed for IE, and as such don't work very well on Safari; all software is Windows only, not Mac; and network connectivity is limited to basic file sharing and web browsing.

Yet despite it's limited compatibility with Department approved IT services, parents and, more importantly, schools are willingly choosing to forgo approved services to invest in Mac hardware and software for their students.

This should have Microsoft worried. The next generation is learning and experiencing technology with minimal Microsoft influence. While the exception maybe the Office suite now, Microsoft's move to a primarily subscription based model for Office and the rise of software such as pages/keynote/numbers provides a good value alternative for 95% of office users.

All this means Microsoft will become less and less relevant in time unless they do something to change the conversation back to Windows. And that's before we even mention the threat Chrome OS could pose to Microsoft in an ever connected world.

Google is not killing RSS, they're actually re-invigorating it

Geeks and nerds around the world are all up in arms over Google's decision to end their Google Reader service on July 1st. Many, including myself, have used it as their main RSS online aggregator over the years however I completely understand Google's reasoning for closing the service.

While many people have stopped using RSS feeds in favour of social services, power users still find reader an essential tool. However, think about how many of us access our reader feeds? I dare say most are using a third party tool like Reeder and Flipboard to import feeds via Google's Reader API. I can believe it when I hear that the return on investment for hosting such as service for a shrinking number of users is minimal at best.

Keep in mind, Google has been hinting at a move away from supporting Reader for a while now (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/10/20/big-changes-coming-to-google-reader/). While users can be a little surprised by the sudden announcement of the shutdown, they can't be too surprised that it's actually happening.

Bottom line: it's right for Google to kill off a product that's not going to provide them any greater benefit in the future. RSS isn't valuable to Google going forward. Killing a failing service is not an evil act, it's a responsible one.

Which leads us to the future and the reason I'm actually optimistic about RSS. Google Reader has been such a staple for RSS that many haven't bothered trying to create competition for it. Reader's closure opens up the game again for not only new players, but hopefully new ways of working with RSS feeds.
Sure initially there will be some teething issues and some mucking around trying new services, but there are businesses out there that are completely dependent on RSS for them to survive. Feedly has already prepared it's own service for storing RSS feeds and it looks like Reeder is preparing the same (https://twitter.com/reederapp).

Expect apps which previously relied on the Reader API to also update their apps to allow importing from an XML file if they haven't already.

I expect companies/developers to fill the void that the shutdown of Google Reader is about to create for the power users who rely on it. I just hope it can also breathe new life into forgotten protocol.

This piece was originally written on Google+