My MSN adds RSS via blogs – doesn’t work

There’s been discussion over the last week of MSN adding RSS feeds to My MSN, the way My Yahoo allows users to receive RSS feeds they subscribe to. The problem is I do not think RSS feeds to My MSN work.

At this point I cannot recommend using RSS feeds at MyMSN to professional service companies using blogs, law firms included. Stick with news aggregators on your own machine or Web based solutions such as Bloglines or My Yahoo. I would also refrain from including a My MSN button on your blog indicating users could add your feed to their My MSN, assuming the set up is at My MSN or will be there soon for you blog publishers to do so.

I tried the feeds at My MSN last week following the RSS instructions at My MSN. I could not get anything to work and it may have been because the system was not even set up despite the instructions about ‘adding content’ via RSS being in the help section of My MSN.

Today though, Scobleizer, a blog evangelist for Microsoft, announced MSN added RSS to My MSN. You’ll also find a big notice at the top of My MSN that says: “What’s New? You can now get content for thousands of new topics right here on My MSN.To learn more, click here.” When clicked on you are taken to a page all about RSS and how to add content to at My MSN.

You then go back to My MSN home page (easy enough) and click on “Add Content” at the top right or use the search box on the front where it says “Add Content.” If you do the former, you reach a page where you search for sites offering RSS feeds. This is a slick feature which then displays a list of relevant blogs or news sources, with a brief description, which you check if you want to add the feeds to your My MSN interface.

I did it for my own blog but the problem was that the most recent post received in the RSS feed at My MSN was one from 6 days ago. 12 more recent posts from my blog were not included in the feed. At the same time my feeds at My Yahoo and any other news aggregator displayed my last post of 39 minutes ago.

Blogs and RSS thrive because of immediate feeds and the resulting exchange that follows. Feeds that are near a week old ain’t going to cut.

MSN is going to correct the problem but even for a strong believer in Gates and Microsoft like me, it’s sure goofy to launch something to the masses and not have it work. I have heard there is a history of this, but for a non geek it’s new for me.