When you install Tim Knip's Groove/Radio interop tool you specify three tools in a shared space. First, a discussion tool whose items are sent to your blog. Second, a files tool whose contents are upstreamed. Third, another discussion tool that collects the RSS items fetched by your news aggregator.
That third step is a doozy. Last June, in a report on an experiment in using Groove and weblogs together, I wrote:
Hugh Pyle added something that made the experience truly Groovey: an RSS reader. Suddenly the experience became qualitatively different. This news aggregator was a group resource. I immediately saw it as a way to work more effectively with (for example) my new colleagues at InfoWorld. I know of no other way to focus the attention of a group on a stream of news which is guaranteed to be identically and persistently available to everyone, and at the same time to be able to support collaboration around that stream -- i.e., discussions about which items to pursue.
Tim's RSS-to-Groove feature accomplishes the same thing. But for me, and for most people, it does so in a much more accessible way. Hugh's implementation was a native Groove tool. Writing one of those is dramatically simpler thanks to Groove's latest toolkits and APIs, but it's still a fairly daunting exercise. With Groove Web Services, Tim was able to write his version in Radio's UserTalk. Very exciting!
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2003/02/05.html#a595
