They say second place is just an award to make losers feel better. In this case we couldn't disagree more. SEOMOZ.org has deemed Attensa for Outlook worthy of a 2007 Web 2.0 Award and we're tickled pink. First place goes to FeedBurner and who can argue with that?

Attensa for Outlook earned:

5 out of 5 stars for usefulness

4 out of 5 stars for usability, interface design and social aspects

An now you don't have to be exclusively an Outlook user to get in this goodness. When you download Attensa for Outlook you also get a stand alone Windows desktop reader that gives you the same feature set outside of Outlook.

GiddyUp! Download Attensa for Outlook. It's free.

When you boil it all down,attention is really about using technology and tools to pull the information we want toward us when we want it and to push things that aren't important away so we can concentrate on the task at hand and stay in the flow.

Our dev team has been working on article level prioritization since we launched Attensa and we'll be previewing the stellar results of their efforts at ETech. The Attensa for Outlook 2.5 Beta 2 is the first attention driven RSS reader that prioritizes articles (not just feeds) based on an individual's reading habits. This is a major step forward in our AttentionStream technology development.

You can read the news release here.

You'll be able to try it out for yourself (for free of course) on April 10th when we post Attensa for Outlook 2.5 Beta 2.

The new version integrates an AttentionStream® Learning Engine that automatically pulls articles that are most important to you to the top of the River of News. Stars indicate the estimated relevance based on your reading habits.

Attensa’s unique AttentionStream Learning Engine observes and learns from the user’s feed and article reading behaviors and works on the principle that past and present actions predict future behavior. Deep analytics of article content are matched to a personalization system that automatically prioritizes and recommends new articles that will be of interest to the reader.

The new approach matches content cues with personas (readers and deleters, skimmers, active readers and more) and matches their content choices and behaviors to rank the articles. The goal is to deliver a powerful, personalized, attention-driven reading experience.

This is much more than the popularity contest social networking sites use to suggest content. That can be interesting, at best, but when it comes to quickly getting up to speed as part of a work flow, frankly I'm more interested in cutting through to what I'm interested in.

There's more The 2.5 Beta 2 is a bottleneck breaker that significantly improves the RSS handling performance of Outlook 2007 (it also works with XP and Outlook 2003). The new version gives you two options for channeling articles into Outlook. User can stores their articles in a separate file or they can bypass Outlook’s storage completely by pulling articles on demand into the Attensa for Outlook River of News. Both methods speed up Outlook performance significantly and cut PST file bloat which drags down Outlook performance.

I sat down with Robert Scoble at PodTech a couple of weeks ago to bring him up to date on all things related to enterprise RSS, reading feeds in Outlook 2007 and Attensa. Here's the interview.

And, here's a demo of the Feed Server, Attensa for Outlook and the beta of Attensa for Outlook working in Outlook 2007.

Configuring Attensa 2.1 to publish using Windows Live Writer is easy, so you can republish to your blog with one click. While still in beta, Live Writer is a flexible and powerful tool for publishing and, so far, has performed well in my tests.

P.S. My boss made me write this, and I also wrote a short and sweet How To on using Attensa with Windows Live Writer to publish to your blog.

On Wednesday we quietly refreshed our website and posted Attensa for Outlook 2.0. You can download the new version of Attensa for Outlook here. It's free.

We thought we'd come out of the 1.5 beta on roll so we jumped right to 2.0.

Unconventional? Perhaps. Decide for yourself. Here's our reasoning for the version leap.

Tens of thousands of enterprise business users have put Attensa for Outlook 1.5 to the test. This new version is built on top of the 1.5 code that has been enterprise hardened and meets the requirements of the most demanding IT pros for an RSS reader that means business.

Here's their short list - rock solid stability and minimal memory impact on Outlook performance, ease of deployment, advanced compatibility with the Microsoft RSS Platform, seamless synchronization and a feature set that covers the spectrum of use cases from reputation monitoring and management, gathering competitive intelligence, keeping up to speed on project collaboration, staying on top of rapidly critical corporate data, all without leaving Outlook.

What's new in 2.0

Deep connectivity with the Attensa Feed Server for seamless synchronization across Attensa for Outlook, the Attensa AJAX web reader and mobile devices and more meaningful attention analytics and reporting.

A mini player that lets users listen and watch audio and video content in Outlook, directly in the River of News. As more businesses take advantage of on demand video and audio to create and deliver specialized information, Attensa for Outlook let you choose how you want to consume rich media content. You can get instant access to the content using the new River of News player. Or, you can access the content when it is most convenient using the Attensa for Outlook Pod Catcher. The Pod Catcher automatically downloads audio and video attachments and puts them in a clearly labeled playlist in Windows Media Player or iTunes.

A desktop alert toaster keeps lets you track fast breaking business information whether you are working in Outlook or not. This Desktop Alert is smart. You can pick the feeds you want to be alerted to as soon as new information is available. When multiple feeds are updated, the alert box works the way you want it to work. It groups your alert notices so you can see at a glance when new information is available without being driven to distraction with constant interruptions.

Oh...and it's free. Did we mention that? We have made the move to a free download coupled with a premium support model. Premium support is $24.95 a year and gives you guaranteed response time to your issue and priority treatment. If you have purchased a previous version of Attensa for Outlook you are instantly covered with premium support.

You can extend your use of Attensa for Outlook 1.5 beta by downloading and running the latest installer.

You won't need all the extra time we built into it, however, because Attensa for Outlook 2.0 is right around the corner. We decided to make the jump straight to Attensa 2.0 because, along with improved performance as a result of the 1.5 group's feedback, we've got a couple of exciting new features that make Attensa an even more powerful tool for enterprise RSS: River of News Podcast Player and Desktop Alerts and more.

What will these new features mean to you?
No more switching to another application to consume podcasts/vodcasts.
No more switching to Outlook so you know when you have updates to your high-priority feeds.

Michael Arrington has created a phenomenon building his TechCrunch readership to 80 thousand in less than a year. Impressive.

Attensa's history with TechCrunch goes back to our launch last summer. Last Thursday we sat down with Marshall Kirkpatrick who recently joined the TechCrunch team. Marshall just moved to Portland and we were delighted connect and bring him up to date on our products and progress and talk about all things related to RSS, social networking, Web 2.0 business and where he should eat and drink now that he's here. We even offered to help him.

Marshall got right on it and posted on the Attensa Feed Server and Attensa for Outlook 1.5 on Saturday. We really liked this line..."Attensa's use of attention data in both its Attensa for Outlook and Attensa Feedserver products is impressive now and the potential for the future is really exciting. Just about any source of information can be delivered by RSS and as the practice becomes more common we're going to need more sophisticated ways to take advantage of the medium." You can read the rest of "Attensa Offers Two Rich Enterprise Products here."

There's a project at Attensa called Project Dogfood. We've set up internal wikis and blogs to help us track fast moving projects, collaborate a little more cleanly and to give everyone on the team experience applying Enterprise 2.0 tools to our real world programs and projects.

Part of the motivation for Project Dogfood comes from our work with Six Apart. After sitting through three Business Blogging seminars, you can't help get caught up in Anil Dash's enthusiasm and wanting to apply the practical pointers on approaching business blogs that flow from DL Byron.

As part of Project Dogfood, I wanted to get more people involved in telling the Attensa story. I'd like to introduce Michelle, our customer service lead and author of the Flog Blog posts. I've asked Michelle to share her knowledge of Attensa for Outlook to help people get more out of the 1.5 beta.

We'll be sharing more about our learnings from Project Dogfood as soon as I flog the next victim into blogging.

We are frequently asked about the impact of Outlook 2007 on Attensa for Outlook. Tris Hussey shares his experience using Outlook 2007 here. Tris is the Director of Strategic Partner Relations and unofficial Chief Blogging Officer for Qumana software, a great blog editing tool that I'm using.

I'll spoil it for you by jumping to the punchline. Tris has gone back to Outlook 2003 but supercharging it with X1 desktop search and Attensa for Outlook 1.5 for feed reading.

Tris has been using the Attensa for Outlook 1.5 beta instead of FeedDemon for about a week and has this to say.  "Attensa. I think they are on to something here...I think my feed scanning is getting better."

Michael Gotta of the Burton Group sums up the role of Web feeds and attention in addressing two of the major issues facing IT organizations and information workers.

"Providing users with the right information, at the right time, in the right context has been the holy grail for IT organizations. At the same time, users have been frustrated with either too much information, too little information, information that isn't timely and information that isn't relevant."

Attensa is announcing two new products that address these issues head-on.

For enterprises and IT organizations,  Attensa is introducing the Attensa Feed Server, the first Enterprise Feed Server Appliance. The Attensa Feed Server is an appliance that can be easily installed behind the firewall and enables IT administrators to easily set up and manage feeds for groups and individuals enabling improved collaboration and knowledge sharing. 

For knowledge workers, Attensa is announcing the public beta of a new version of Attensa for Outlook, the first RSS reader utilizing AttentionStream technology to automatically prioritize information based on the user's behavior history to automatically bring the most important RSS feeds and articles to the top.

You can read the news releases here:

Attensa Introduces First Enterprise Feed Server Appliance

Attensa Announces Public Beta of the First RSS Reader to Intelligently Prioritize RSS Feeds in Order of Importance to the Reader

Take a look at our new Web site update. You  can find detailed Attensa Feed Server information here and you can download the beta of Attensa for Outlook 1.5 here.

Chris Garrett on Performancing says the new version of Attensa for Outlook 1.5 with the river of news and AttentionStream predictive ranking that automatically prioritizes your Web feeds based on their importance is "all smart and stuff."

He sums up his first take with "If you are an outlook user like me it is well worth trying out. I wouldn't be without it now."

You can try the beta free for 60 days. Active contributors to the beta program will get a free copy of the final product.

At Syndicate in New York we gave a preview of Attensa for Outlook 1.5, the first version of Attensa for Outlook that uses our AttentionStream technology to automatically and intelligently prioritize RSS feeds and articles and bring the subscriptions and articles you find most interesting to the top. We said the public beta would be announced in June. We were off by about two weeks.

We are opening the public beta today and we'd like to invite you to give Attensa for Outlook a try.

Download the beta here.
You can download a getting started with 1.5 guide here
You can see screenshots here.

Attensa's predictive ranking AttentionStream technology continuously observes and analyzes explicit and implicit behavior as you read and process RSS articles. By constantly analyzing AttentionStream data, including the time and frequency that feeds are accessed and articles read, deleted and ignored, RSS articles can be displayed in a prioritized list based on the likelihood that they will be of interest to you. Feed priorities are constantly refined as the continuous stream of attention is processed.

Attensa for Outlook 1.5 lets you choose how you want your feeds and articles presented.

Subscriptions can be displayed in a "River of News" view that simulates a single news feed, regardless of how many RSS feeds you subscribe to.

Articles can be read in order of importance based on:

• Priority - This view uses Predictive Ranking to intelligently predict which subscriptions and articles will be most important to you at any given time.
• Favorites Articles are displayed based on which subscriptions are read most frequently and consistently. In addition to viewing prioritized list based on AttentionStream analysis. You can manually rank feeds by simply dragging and dropping the subscription to the top or bottom of their subscription lists.
• Date - This view displays articles based on the most recently updated newsfeeds.

Of course, you can also read their articles using a standard Outlook view.

If Outlook is the first application you open in the morning and the last one you close at night, you need Attensa for Outlook, the RSS reader designed for business users looking for an easy to use, secure RSS reader for Outlook that helps track and monitor critical business information- automatically.

Participate in the beta - Give and Get

Active contributors to the beta program will get a free copy of the finished product.

Once you experiment with Attensa for Outlook you'll probably have suggestions for features and improvements. We've set up an Attensa for Outlook 1.5 beta forum where you can post bug reports and provide feedback.

For the first time since we introduced Attensa nearly one year ago we are delivering on the promise of less is more. At Syndicate we are previewing Attensa for Outlook 1.5 which displays feeds and articles in the order you want to read them.

Attensa for Outlook 1.5 uses a "river of news" to simulate a single news feed, regardless of how many RSS feeds the user has subscribed to.

Version 1.5 uses our predictive ranking AttentionStream technology. By continuously analyzing implicit and explicit AttentionStream data, including the time and frequency that feeds are accessed and articles read, deleted and ignored, RSS articles can be displayed in a prioritized list based on the likelihood that they will be of interest to the reader at another time.

Feed priorities are constantly refined as the continuous stream of attention is processed.Articles can be read in order of predictive ranking, sorted by date or customized by the user. This new version of Attensa for Outlook gives users the control to manually rank feeds by simply dragging and dropping the subscription to the top or bottom of their subscription lists.
 
Attensa for Outlook 1.5 synchronizes with the new Microsoft RSS Platform. By leveraging the Microsoft Common Feed Store, RSS feeds added using Attensa for Outlook, Internet Explorer 7 or Windows Vista, will automatically be synchronized for a seamless user experience.

You can see for yourself in June.

A Valentine's Day thank you from everyone at Attensa is heading your way.

To show our appreciation to everyone who actively participated in the Attensa for Outlook beta program we will be emailing an activation code for Attensa for Outlook on Tuesday, February 14 to everyone who registered in the Attensa Forum between June 2005 and January 2006.

This will provide you with one free year subscription to Attensa for Outlook with synchronization to Attensa Online.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Once again, thank you for your participation, we couldn't have done it without you.

It's the real thing. Attensa for Outlook 1.0

After eight months in Beta, Attensa for Outlook has emerged and is now a real product. We want to thank everyone who participated in the beta program and helped us create an RSS Reader the experts are calling "Next Generation." We couldn't have done it without you. If you were an active beta participant who registered in the Attensa Forum between June 2005 and January 2006 we'll be sending you a free activation code as a thank you.

What's New in Attensa for Outlook

The big news is the addition of AttentionStream article level synchronization with Attensa Online. Attensa for Outlook works hand-in-glove with Attensa Online our new Online RSS reader, so you can enjoy the convenience of using any computer with a web connection to read your articles. Every action from updating feeds, reading and deleting articles, subscribing to new feeds to adding tags is instantly synchronized in Outlook. You can stay on top of the news that matters to you on multiple computers without weeding through the same articles.

What else is new:

· Overall quality and stability.

· Improved user experience with clearer icons.

· Better podcasting support

- More powerful search with an expanded list of search engines for unlimited searching.

Attensa for Outlook is only $20 and includes a one year subscription to synchronization with Attensa Online. For those of you who don't like subscription software or who don't need synchronization, Attensa for Outlook will continue to work in Outlook after one year and so will the toolbars. If you don't renew your subscription synchronization with Attensa Online will time out. You can still use your Attensa Online account but articles won't synchronize in Outlook.

When you run the update you will be given the choice to:

- Buy Attensa for Outlook

- Or take Attensa for Outlook on free 30 day test drive.

If you decide not to update your current version of Attensa for Outlook will continue to run.

We always want your feedback. There's a new feedback link in Attensa for Outlook. Use it.

Why so quiet you ask?

Three Reasons

1. We've been working on Attensa for Outlook - the Real Thing
2. We've been working on Attensa Online
3. We've been working on a new website

And today you can see exactly what we've been doing.

After eight months in Beta, Attensa for Outlook has emerged and is now a real product. The big news is the additon of AttentionStream article level synchronization with Attensa Online.

Attensa Online, our free Web based reader, is live and open to everyone. Sign up and try it at attensa.com

It's free.
It's clean.
It's frickin fast.

It works hand-in-glove with Attensa for Outlook so you can enjoy the convenience of using any computer with a web coneection to read your articles. Every action from updating feeds, reading and deleting articles, subscribing to new feeds to adding tags is instantly synchronized in Outlook. You can stay on top of the news that matters to you on multiple computers without weeding through the same articles.

How much will this cost, you ask? We listened when we asked for your input on pricing. Attensa Online is free. Attensa for Outlook is only $20 and includes a one year subscription to synchronization with Attensa Online.

For those of you who don't like subscription software or who don't need synchronization, Attensa for Outlook will continue to work in Outlook after one year. Synchronization will time out.

You can take Attensa for Outlook on a 30 day test drive.

Seems reasonable, no?

You can Download Attensa-for-Outlook-Getting-Started-060131.pdf. It's 2 megs and will get you up and running fast.

Check out the new Attensa website. It's fresh and chock full of information on how to get the most out Attensa for Outlook and Attensa Online.

"Attensa ... ist der absolute hammer!"

"OK, the name (I meant "Attensa" - since it's not known for German users) does not yet say very much, but what's behind is the absolute hammer ("Hammer" means on one hand the hammer as you may now [sic] it, but in combination with "absolute" (engl. absolute(ly)) it's colloquial language - we use this word in Germany if something's tremendous, amazing, incredible or outstanding)."

                   - Eric Haas

I think that says it all. Let's get right into it then, shall we?

Here it is... Attensa for Outlook 1.0 Beta. It's feature complete and rarin' to go.

Search More...Work Less

Need to find something? Now you can add search feeds from these engines: Blog Digger, Daypop, Del.icio.us, Feedster, flickr, Moreover, MSN search, Technorati, Wired News, Yahoo! News, Plazoo, SeekItAll, Google News, Google Blogs, Wikipedia, Feed24, IceRocket, Digg, and Yahoo! (whew!). With such a variety of search engines you're sure to find what you're looking for and have it delivered right into clearly labeled folders in Outlook.   

There's so many engines, we had to make two screenshots just to show them all:

Bug Fixes

There's significant improvement in Outlook performance when working with a large number of subscriptions and when switching folders located on Exchange and other remote servers.

We've fixed memory leaks in AttensaEngine.exe. Memory use holds steady without spiking.

Implementation of auto-delete preferences in the configuration menu pane is now cleaner and easier to use.

The problem which prevented the Publishing feature from working properly, for some users, has been fixed.

Finally, we've fixed a potential crash for users upgrading from You Subscribe: RSS.

Also!

In addition, we've added one more great feature. The version number has been changed from 0.992 to 1.0! We give a hearty applause to our engineers for working this one out.

Hammer on it

   - The Attensa Team

(Images borrowed from http://www.toymania.com/columns/rtmisc/ssthorhammerpics.shtml)

I returned to Attensa's galactic headquarters today after three days in San Francisco attending the Syndicate Conference. Coming off the heels of our Series B investment by RRS Investors and SmartForest, Syndicate was a bit like our official coming out party.

We spent the time demoing the 1.0 Beta of Attensa, showing off Attensa Online for the first time in public and meeting with lots of great people and partners. I've been so  busy preparing for the show and working the show that I haven't had time to write about our announcements and the great reception to our products and strategy.

We used the Syndicate Conference to announce two more steps in our on-going work to create an RSS network that uses AttentionStream synchronization to cut through information overload.

You can read the news release Attensa Introduces AttentionStream Synchronization at Syndicate Conference but here's the Reader's Digest Condensed Version:

We are taking the veil off Attensa Online, our free online RSS service that can be accessed anywhere on any computer. Attensa Online is an AJAX web based application that works like a dedicated RSS reader application to make keeping on top of RSS news and information easy. Subscriptions and articles load quickly and marking articles as read and deleting articles is easy.

Resizable panes and multiple views let users create an RSS workspace that is flexible and intuitive. Options for displaying articles include headline only, headline with one-sentence introductions, headlines with first paragraphs or complete articles. Users view the article source Web page without opening a new browser window or tab.

We will opening up the Attensa Online beta shortly after the conference. We want to test in stages. Sign up here and we'll notify you to set up your account.

We are introducing Attensa for Outlook 1.0 beta. The feature set is complete and we want to give you one more chance to get it for free and put it to the test.

We've come up with a pricing program that takes into account your extensive and valuable feedback. Attensa for Outlook 1.0 Beta is a free download. When it is released commercially Attensa for Outlook 1.0 will cost $19.95. The price includes a one year subscription for AttentionStream synchronization with Attensa Online.

For users who only need RSS in Outlook, Attensa for Outlook will continue to work inside of Outlook at the end of the first year's subscription. Synchronization with Attensa Online won't unless your subscription is renewed. For less than a double cappuccino a month at Starbucks, being able to access your feeds on any PC seems like a good deal to me, but you'll be the judge. 

Attensa for Outlook and Attensa Online use our unique lightweight AttentionStream synchronization for fast updating of subscriptions at the article level and frequent synchronizations across multiple RSS clients. Every action from subscribing to new feeds, updating articles, reading and deleting articles, to creating categories and adding tags will be synchronized in Outlook and on a personal, privacy-protected Web page at Attensa Online. The AttentionStream also includes near real-time analytics which, as we continue our development, will be the key to providing you with prioritized, more relevant articles.

We also announced our strategic partnership with FreeRange Communications to bring Attensa to mobile phones and PDAs. FreeNews is a dedicated RSS Reader app that works with Blackberries, Palm and Java enabled devices. It's fast, it's easy to read and it saves you money because it pulls your feeds and articles down all at once and stores them on your phone so you can read without racking up air time. Will put the Attensa brand on their reader and send the AttentionStream data to our backend so when you read articles on your phone everything will be synchronized and down the road the AttentionStream data you generate will add more fuel to the prioritization filtering.

"It's funny, Attensa does exactly what I thought RSS readers were supposed to do but it seems no others (that I could find) came close to the functionality and ease of use. I use Outlook, I surf the net for news and blogs on varied topics. Now I do it with less time wasted. Nice work. Thanks."

If this is what Stig from Woolloomooloo says about 0.991, just wait until you see 0.992.

We've updated the interface:
The new interface makes it easier to add feeds, search and browse for feeds, import and export OPML files, and access the Options menu. Now you can see your settings for each individual feed every time you click on one.

Improved Performance:
There is a significant speed improvement when working with large subscription files (100 or more feeds.) It now takes one-third of the time to integrate large subscription files.  We've done more work on Outlook stability and performance, too, so your feeds will load lightning quick.

More Powerful Search Tool:
With our improved search tool, you can now select all search engines at once, enter your keyword, and have continuously updating news delivered to you into neat, clearly labeled folders. Now you can rummage through all of these search engines to find news that's right for you:

• Blogdigger
• Wired News
• Daypop
• Flickr
• Yahoo! News
• Moreover
• Feedster
• Technorati
• MSN Search
• Del.icio.us

New Tag Manager:
Now you can manage your tags from right inside Attensa.  Change the status of a tagged item to public or private, alter the description, add comments, or even add/delete tags from previously tagged items. Along with our tagging toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer, this makes using del.icio.us' social bookmarking even more delectable.

You asked for it: Customizable Firefox Buttons
We received lots of requests for a choice of where to put the Firefox toolbars. So now you have it. You can now customize the toolbar buttons completely, now they work like native Firefox buttons. Or, do away with all of that and keep the buttons in a discreet corner of the status bar. Customize it how you like, go crazy! But not too crazy. Whichever you choose, you'll be able to quickly add feeds as soon as you find them from the Web, and easily tag sites for reading later.

Drag & Drop OPML:
Got an OPML file from another aggregator that you'd like to stick into Attensa for Outlook? No problem! Just drag the OPML file into the main Attensa for Outlook window.  Then check off the feeds you want to add, and which categories you want to put them in. If there's duplicate feeds, don't worry, they won't be added twice.

We think Attensa for Outlook is superfly.

But don't take my word for it. We want your word. Hammer on it.

I've been waiting for this one and I bet you have too. Here's the complete Firefox toolbar for Attensa. The new Firefox toolbar makes it easy to find, preview and subscribe to RSS feeds and it includes full support for Del.icio.us tagging.

It works with Firefox 1.0 and 1.5.

Every action performed using the Firefox toolbar is immediately synchronized in Outlook and with Del.icio.us.

You can see your subscriptions and read articles without leaving Firefox.

	You can easily tag a page or post by selecting from a list or by creating new tags. Your Del.icio.us tags are updated automatically.
	Here's the tagging list. You see all of your tags, See your tagged articles and jump to you Del.icio.us bookmark page from the toolbar in Firefox.
	You can quickly access the Attensa configuration window by clicking on the Attensa icon in the Firefox Toolbar

With .991 you can use your browser of choice IE or Firefox and get the full feature set.

We also fixed these bugs in .991

Address an issue that could cause Outlook to crash when it's closed.

Got rid of the pesky dialog when forwarding an article

The security alert when forwarding an article in Office 2002 is gone.

The Outlook Datafile is Closed message has been banished.

Firefox windows behave the way they should, popping to the foreground as expected.

When you remove a subscription in the Attensa app, the subscription and articles are deleted from Outlook.

Here's the news release.

Attensa for Outlook .99 is off to a strong start and we're flattered by the great reviews. Take a look.

From Marc Orchant at the Office Weblog
"An incredibly cool idea."

From Rok Hrastnik at the RSS Marketing Diary
"Attensa moves one step closer to RSS aggregators of the future"

From Digital Inspiration
"Attensa could pose a big threat to Newsgator Outlook Edition"

From TechCrunch
"Attensa is aggressively adding features to compete with other readers and has an excellent product suite."

From Scott Quick at All Things RSS
"Looks like the boys at Attensa have been busy indeed.  They just published v0.99 and there are significant improvements over the previous versions." (Disclosure - Scott's an investor and a friend but he knows what he likes)

We've just posted the latest version of Attensa for Outlook, version .99.  Download it here.

We've integrated an incredibly easy way to tag articles and feeds using the Attensa Toolbar forInternet Explorer. Tags are simply keywords you add to add context to RSS feeds, articles, Web pages, blog posts, photos, even music you discover online.

The new tagging feature can be used in Attensa to keep feeds and articles organized but it also works with Del.icio.us. Del.icio.us is a great way to keep track of anything that captures you attention on the Web and to share those things with people with similar interests. When you set up your bookmark page on Del.icio.us, not only can you see the pages you've you tagged, you can also see related articles from other people who tagged the same pages or used the same tags as you have. Since every Del.icio.us page has an RSS feed, you can also subscribe to feeds based on a given subject, user, URL, or tag. It's a pure attention stream that you can explore.

You can add tags to articles and access them using a pull down list using the Attensa Toolbar for Internet Explorer. When you tag articles with Attensa your bookmark list on Del.icio.us is updated and synchronized automatically. With the addition of tagging, Attensa gives you a set of tools for organizing your feeds and articles. Categories let you create a hierarchal structure using folders to keep feeds organized. Tags give you a more free form tool for keeping articles organized and they connect you with the del.icio.us social network.

Here's a screenshot of the new tagging tool. This is how you add tags:

This is how you can see your tagged items in IE:

Sweeet.

Now you can publish to multiple blogs using TypePad, Blogger and LiveJournal.

We've made major changes to the Attensa engine to improve performance and efficiency. We've added a throttle to the General Settings that will let you control how much of your CPU processing you are willing to allocate to Attensa when it is updating feeds. You can allocate as little as 10 percent to as much as 60 percent.

We've also given you control over how Attensa interacts with Outlook. There's a throttle control in the Outlook Default settings that you can use to adjust how much of Outlook processing is devoted to importing your feeds into folders versus using processing power for sending and receiving email, creating new email, updating calendars and other typical Outlook activities. Play with the throttle until you find the right balance for your work style. We think you'll see a big improvement in Outlook responsiveness and stability. For our internal testing we consistently ran with 400 feeds in our test OPML file. Thanks to Marc Orchant and Mike Gunderloy for sending us their OPML files. We also fixed a major memory leak in the Attensa engine.

You'll also notice we've changed our look and feel. Frankly the orange and black was a tad halloweenie and the longer we lived with it the less we liked it. (a definite case of more was less). So here's a new logo and new look. Hope you find it more pleasant to look at. We do.

I spoke with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington last night. TechCrunch is "dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing every newly launched web 2.0 business product and service." It's a great resource with a clean design.

Michael wrote an upbeat profile of Attensa that starts off...

"Attensa is a world class RSS reader that is attacking the multi-platform synchronization problem (I'll explain that) and is also looking very seriously at the attention issue from a unique perspective (a good thing)."

Gives me goosebumps just reading it.

During the interview I gave Michael a sneak peek at our pricing strategy. What can I say? It was a great conversation and I was on a roll. To get the pricing plan you'll just have to read the article.

Thanks Michael.

Submitted for your consideration...Attensa for Outlook .98. Download it here.

What have we been doing since we launched .97?

• Knocking down 105 bugs in a prioritized list starting with the "Criticals and crashers" and working our way down to the rarely annoying. We're not done yet. That's what .99 is for.

• Improving performance in Outlook.  Faster launch and smoother integration when you use Word as your email editor.

• Improving the publishing feature so it works consistently. Now publishing actually works with Blogger.

• Fixing date and time issues.  Now international date formats make sense in Attensa for Outlook.

• Adding new features like:

• Categories: Attensa for Outlook now supports categories or hierarchical folders that keep your feeds organized. You can easily create folders and sub-folders, name them, and move feeds between folders. You can import and export OPML files and keep the folder structure intact. You can import OPML files from Newsgator and Intravnews and keep the same organization structure.

• Image support: Images included with articles will show up and you won't have to right click to see them.

• Web Page View: Now you can see the article source Web page without leaving Outlook. This is a great feature for feeds that just give you a snippet and don't support full text. With .98 you have a choice of three views: plain text, Attensa default (html, images) and Web Page Source View.

What's next, you ask?

• Tag support: We are talking with Joshua Schachter, the author of del.icio.us, to integrate del.icio.us tagging in Attensa for Outlook. Tags are a great tool for creating a personal collection of links to Websites and blogs that you really like. You can categorize the links with keywords and share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others. It's an essential tool for increasing the value of your attention stream.
   

• Invitation beta of Attensa for Web: the free online RSS reader providing a personal and privacy protected Web page for reading and managing RSS articles and subscriptions. Attensa for Web and Attensa for Outlook will use a uniquely scalable bi-directional synchronization system to keep subscriptions and articles up to date whether they are accessed from the Web or from Outlook.