"Do we really need another aggregator?" - This is a question I've been asked alot lately, in regards to Information Center.
My answer is Yes. I hope yours is too. Let me tell you why I think this, and then I'll show you some pictures from the UI that underscore the point.
I think there are a couple of things that set InfoCenter apart:
(a) featured feeds. This isn't just a client, it's pro-active - new feeds find you.
(b) media is a first class citizen in InfoCenter. The future is in media. Audio in the form of podcasts, video in any number of forms. Look at the success of podcasts on portable media devices, look at the popularity and growth rate of places like YouTube. In most aggregators, media is viewed as an attachment. in Information Center, media is a first class citizen.
(c) Information Center is designed to support just about any type of mainstream media out of the box (or can readily support it something like, say , quicktime, with a download from that vendors site). This means it will play MP3s and WMAs, it means it will play WMVs, MOVs, and other video files, and it also will play shockwave and flash. What does this mean? You can play podcasts, vblogs, and even embed YouTube's player in a feed.
(c) Information Center heavily leverages categories. You'll be able to leverage this for discoverability, and dvr-like suggestions based on your tag preferences.
(d) As stated earlier, InfoCenter will come with feeds out of the box - but you can change them and re-mix them. AND you can share them. Think about television - tv shows like Friends, Law & Order, the Brady Bunch, are all in syndication (remember that last S in RSS?) You can effectively become your own network. You can build your own feed of *links* - even if they exist across multiple sites - and take that feed and publish it as your own network. You can generate IC files (these are familiar RSS files) and share them however you like online, via email, CD/DVD, etc.
(e) Speaking of DVD, you can ship a DVD with an IC file in root, and with InfoCenter defined in the autorun, and it will start up in a kiosk mode. Allowing you to use this for content that exists offline, online, or both.
(e) InfoCenter is going to be delayed a few more days, such that I can ship a tool to allow you to easily mix your own feeds on Day 1.
Take a look at the screenshots below, it shows how powerful RSS and a new style aggregator can be. You can see that this readily displays Microsoft content (Going Deep on Channel 9, a GnomeDex video from On10.NET, and ARCast with Ron Jacobs from Skyscrapr.NET), as well as content from other third parties - including TWiT, Digg, and YouTube.
How difficult was it to do? One line in a configuration file. You just point to their feed direct or add it to your subscriptions, and you're in business.
Oh, before I forget, alot of people assumed this was done in WPF. I WISH! This is a Windows Forms application that leverages a number of controls that I've written (12, at last count). There will be a full .NET FX 3.0 version of this once those bits ship.
