Notification/messaging software for news/updates?

Question

I think a package that would be quite useful is a centralised notification/news system.

This would run on a web server and client libraries could send messages to the server. Examples of messages might be:

• Commits to version control.
• Continuous build server failures (including logs).
• News from project management.

Users could create accounts on the server and decide how they want to view the messages, e.g. email, RSS, etc. There could be filters based on channels, priorities, regexs, etc.

Does anyone know of any software package that provides these features (or could be extended to do so)? (Preferrably Windows based, but please cover other platforms)

If I can't find one I was thinking of writing one in Python using Django.

Answer 1

What you describe sounds like a normal feed aggregator service, but with real-time?

I recently saw a video of a Google tech talk where they announced a product that hooks over the existing RSS/Atom structure but provides real-time notification. Didn't bookmark it unfortunately (hopefully someone will comment with it?), but that sounds like the underlying technology for what you want.

Answer 2

I found an XMPP protocol (xep-0060) from the pubsubhubbub link:

This specification defines an XMPP protocol extension for generic publish-subscribe functionality. The protocol enables XMPP entities to create nodes (topics) at a pubsub service and publish information at those nodes; an event notification (with or without payload) is then broadcasted to all entities that have subscribed to the node. Pubsub therefore adheres to the classic Observer design pattern and can serve as the foundation for a wide variety of applications, including news feeds, content syndication, rich presence, geolocation, workflow systems, network management systems, and any other application that requires event notifications.