First, let's review.

RSS: A simple way to push web content to all your readers, easily. Give them one URL and a program that knows how to read the format, and they can get real time notification as you add content. Particularly useful for - although by no means limited to - sites with frequent updates and bite-sized chunks of content (ie blogs). With a good RSS reader, you can track dozens of sites at a time very easily. More from Wikipedia.

IMAP: A method of storing email on a server that mirrors message deletion and filing on any email program you use to read your mail. If you delete a message at work, it will be deleted at home. If you file a message to a folder in your webmail, it will be filed to a folder on your PDA. Really, it's the only way to go if you use more than one box to read your email. Used only sparingly, much to my chagrin. More from Wikipedia.

So, do you see where I'm going with this?

I use RSS all the time and really like it. I really can keep tabs on dozens and dozens of websites with very little effort. It's gotten to the point where if you don't have an RSS feed, I'm not likely to read you. Daily Quickie is about the only thing I read regularly that isn't syndicated.

What has frustrated me in the last couple of days is that since starting my new job with the DSCC last week, I've been regularly using a second computer, this one running Windows XP. The system is pretty locked down, so I couldn't immediately install a good stand-alone XP RSS Reader. Plus, I didn't have a way to suck down my list of feeds from my iBook while I was at work. So I started exploring my options.

First, I learned that getting my feeds was pretty easy. Most of the major stand-alone software programs, browser plugins, and web-based services can read a format called OPML. I just exported the file from NetNewsWire at home and was able to use it with any new program I used.

I had heard about Bloglines, a web-based service that stored your feeds, notified you of new items, and displayed summaries of content as it came in. It worked OK, but had three drawbacks:

1. The OPML file didn't import correctly. For example, all of my friends blogs just disappeared. Strike one.

2. It doesn't support hierarchical folders. I don't go overboard with my organization, but seems to make sense to keep my favorite Apple sites separated from my favorite gadget blogs.

3. It's a web-based app. I essentially hate web-based apps because they are invariably slow and not very full-featured. This is no different.

Bloglines does a couple of things right. Most prominently, they have a robust set of developer tools that allows the current version of NNW subscribe to Bloglines feeds. Ideally, this would allow you to read blogs at work all day and then come home and have an updated list of read and unread items. Bloglines has a funny way of presenting only unread items that makes this not so easy to use. Essentially, as soon as you click to view the new items from a site, all of the new items are marked read. This is a pain if you're only able to read one or two new items at a time.

At about the same time I realized Bloglines wasn't for me, I had the IT guy at work install Firefox on my computer. One of the best features of the new open source browser is that it has a very robust developer platform that has allowed for an explosion of "extensions" that add functionality to Firefox.

I knew about Sage, the popular RSS Reader extension, and had even used it once or twice before, but I didn't really like it. In particular, I thought the way it displayed items in each feed was pretty screwy. The default settings used a two column view that went top-to-bottom then left-to-right, like this:

1	6
2	7
3	8
4	9
5	10

A two column view for content just doesn't quite work on the web. Browsers are made to scroll vertically through long lists of content. That's why virtually every blog is tall and narrow. Frankly, I think this was a pretty screwy decision for Sage to adopt.

Then I stumbled on the final piece (for now) of this puzzle. John Hicks is a designer who specializes in CSS stylesheets for websites and other applications. He's probably best known for designing the official Firefox logo. He also designed a much better custom stylesheet for Sage. His design is intended to make the extension look and feel more like OS X, but after using it on XP, I know it looks great no matter where it lives. In particular, the entries appear like they should, one on top of another vertically.

So, now I've got a pretty darn good RSS reader at work. It's an actual application (even if it's just a mini-app within Firefox), so it's snappy and full featured. It displays the entries gorgeously. It is built in to the browser, so reading full versions of entries is just a quick click away. It has the potential to reconnect design to content, addressing a major critique I have of RSS. It even imported my OPML file with nary a hiccup.

Here's where it gets fun.

Sage smartly stores the feeds you are subscribed as part of the Firefox bookmark structure. This means that you can use another plug in called FTP Bookmarks Sync to synchronize the feeds you subscribe to between multiple installations of Sage. Since Firefox is cross-platform, that means I can always be sure that I can read new items at home from feeds I subscribed to at work.

I haven't tried this yet, but that is pretty sick. There's no reason to expect it won't work.

This implementation is not, however, perfect. For starters, there's no way to synchronize the read/unread status of individual items. This means that as you move from machine to machine, feeds you've already read will show up instead as unread. That is not ideal.

Additionally, I don't really like Firefox for OS X. I just think Safari is snappier and feels more like a native OS X app. What we really need is a server-based (?) standard that will allow any program I want - Sage, NetNewsWire, Bloglines, or MyYahoo - to connect to a single RSS profile that synchronizes subscriptions and read/unread status. What we need is (Warning: Conversation coming full circle!) IMAP for RSS.

So, programmers of the world, get to work! I have confidence you can address this request in no time!

Actually, I think there is real hope for something like this from a familiar face. Apple has already announced that the next version of Safari will ship with Sage-like RSS capabilities. In fact, Hicks said that he pretty explicitly ripped off the Safari RSS design template for his Sage stylesheet. Safari RSS is set to ship with Tiger, the next version of OS X, in the first half of this year.

I doubt that the initial release of Safari RSS will include something like this, as it hasn't been discussed in the demonstrations Steve Jobs has presented so far. But Apple already allows users of their .Mac service to synchronize their bookmarks across multiple macs. Since Safari RSS will also leverage the bookmark architecture to keep track of RSS feeds, it seems only natural that someone at Apple will realize that it sure would be nice to synchronize more information about those feeds than just their existence.

And when that person invents "RMAP," I'm gonna be a happy camper. Sure, I'm gonna use it like a fiend. But I also figure I'm due some royalties.