Netscape loses interest in RSS XML?

[chiyo]

Not sure how long ago it happened, but it seems that Netscape is no longer supporting the RSS news feeds it pioneered in its "My Netscape" feature. Previously you could choose from any public XML RSS feed and have it display on your My Netscape Page as a channel. (Hence all the "Add channel to My Netscape" links on websites.)

Now they provide only feeds from what seems to be their partners.

The XML validator tool we used to check our code is now also down.

No great problem for us (we publish some RSS news feeds, so others can display our headlines on their own sites) as RSS is now well established with the likes of userland, manila, geekboys.org, O'Reilly's, newsisfree.com and many other on line and desktop tools.

However it is interesting that Netscape seems to have lost interest. Any comments.? Or maybe I am jumping to conclusions.

And also on RSS feeds, anyone know a quick way to validate our RSS XML files now?

[bill]

The RSS feeds are still on my MyNetscape page. However, the [url=mybeta.netscape.com]beta MyNetscape[/url] seems to omit them.

Back in January I got this:

Dear Webmaster,

We at Netscape want to take a moment and say thank you for participating in Netscape's "MyNetscape" program. This program allowed your viewers to maintain access to fresh content at your website - all through their personalized page at Netscape.com. Unfortunately, this program is being phased out due to its new specifications. But there is an exciting alternative that we'd very much like to bring to your attention: My Sidebar. etc., etc....

[chiyo]

Thanks Bill, must have missed that mailout...

I guess the beta will become the my nestscape in the future therefore all RSS feeds are off. I guess "My Sidebar" only applies to nestscape users - and then only those who use that feature not worth the effort for us for around 1 to 2% of users. My Netscape sent us hardly any click-ons from clickons anyway compared to speciaility news and RSS aggregators.

Time to remove my Add my Netscape channel link. They never listed us on the OPP netscape Channels directory anyway after many enquiries and submissions over 2 years.

[bill]

I'm going to miss the RSS traffic a little. One of my sites was among the first 300 or so to setup a MyNetscape RSS channel, and the ODP listing was a real plus.

The My Sidebar is only for Netscape 6 from what I can gather. I received all the development documents, but I'm going to wait for a real rainy day when I've got nothing better to do before I work on that... ;)