Thursday, December 29, 2005
RSS Gains Some More Ground
by
While plenty of nerds, geeks and techheads around the world appreciate the beauty of RSS, it’s having trouble gaining the type of mainstream acceptance necessary to change the way people access their data streams and ultimately change the way the Web works. I believe two recent annoucements will help push RSS into the minds of the masses where it needs to be if it hopes to achieve what it’s capable of.
One of the biggest problems in the past has been the confusing array of icons and terminolgy used. Tiny orange buttons with ‘RSS’ or ‘XML’ on them have led to confusion or worse people ignoring it entirely. There hasn’t been a standard way to denote a feed or for that matter to even subscribe to one. Microsoft announced they will be using the new icon created by the Firefox team which likely means the cute new icon will become the de facto standard. Let’s hope Apple plays nice and implements it in Safari sooner than later.
The bigger announcement, also from Microsoft, is that Outlook 12 will have RSS integration built right in. This means millions of people that have never been exposed to RSS will have it right at their fingertips and accessible in an application they already know how to use.
I know in the few years sinced I’ve switched from browsing the Web in a browser to managing my data streams with my favorite news reader NetNewsWire (which you should try out if you’re a Mac user, it’s simply the best out there) I’ve become a much more productive person with my time. Bookmarks are so 1998.
