I’ve been using Onfolio as my RSS aggregator. As tools for this go – its a reasonably good tool.  I like the fact that as a desktop application which means it has all the convenient right click actions etc.  The only serious beef was, like most techie people – my computer life is spread across several machines, so I want a consistent view of what RSS entries I’ve read to be in sync on both machines – only trouble is Onfolio doesn’t offer that facility. I used to use Pluck, which although not as good as Onfolio on the desktop it did have that sync capability via their server. But they went through a phase of server problems which caused no end of problems with the tool – it didn’t seem to fallback very well to a standalone tool.

Anyway, with Google having its Google Reader, personalized home page with its portlets and Desktop and Desktop Gadgets the chances of synchronisation for RSS feeds – desktop hooks to my Google Analytics had to be good.  However it would seem to be a long way from that situation.  Yes the desktop has several gadgets for RSS – but none currently sync with Google Reader, in fact these gadgets don’t come from Google. I couldn’t find any Gadgets to work with the Analytics, although there is a portlet for the homepage – although doesn’t appear to be Google’s own implementation.

Yes Google Reader does have an AJAX front end which means it has a richer interaction, but can’t beat the low latency responses of a desktop application.

I think Google are missing a real killer opportunity here – linking/providing desktop tools that can work through their own APIs to services they provide on the web means the potential for a really synchronised world.