A Microsoft executive who set in motion a small storm in cyberspace over the future of RSS has moved to try and calm the situation.
Mike Torres, the lead program manager of Microsoft’s blogging platform, MSN Spaces, set out on Tuesday to convince bloggers and programmers alike that Microsoft had no evil intentions towards RSS and was not spreading FUD in an effort to stall the development of RSS.
"Despite the fact that the media thinks Microsoft doesn't like RSS... the reality is most of us love it, myself included.," wrote Torres in a posting to his blog, Torres Talks. "Don't believe the hype."
RSS is a XML-based service that alerts Internet users to the latest articles or postings on their favourite Web sites via a single feed reader. It's also convenient way for those who provide content on Web sites, in blogs and other places, to keep track of what they are providing and give users and customers appropriately structured content.
Microsoft came under criticism after it proposed calling RSS feeds "Web feeds" in Vista, the next version of its operating system.
Bloggers have argued that there is nothing wrong with the term "RSS", pointing out that the term has been taken up by The New York Times and the BBC amongst others, with the orange RSS logo becoming a familiar feature of many Web sites.
Torres, though, argues that it is wrong to accuse Microsoft of breaking with a prevailing standard since there is no real standard there, citing Mozilla's use of the term "Live Bookmarks" in Firefox, and Google’s use of "Feeds", among others.
Talkback
MS has always done this. Try find WebDAV in MS literature, for example. I'd personally be as worried about another attempt at the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" that MS has taken in the past with other technologies like HTML, Kerberos, TCP/IP, HTTP, and so on.
However, all this does bring up a point about the volatility of information these days. With journals more and more existing only in electronic form and print-based back issues disappearing from library and archive shelves, there is an increasing risk for loss of crucial records or even revisionism.
OK:
http://tinyurl.com/ar5au
Get your facts straight.
Prediction: in about 1 year from now RSS will be used mostly to push ads to the users.
That would lead to introduction of special RSS filters to disable unwanted RSS feeds.
Today we have filters for e-mail, pop ups and flash ads, RSS will join them soon.
Flash became pretty much useless as it’s mostly utilized to deliver annoying ads, RSS will follow.
What's the big issue here? I think it makes sense for someone to finally step out and give the RSS acronym a name that the general public might stand a chance of understanding.
After developing 'social software' for a year one of the biggest obstacles I've seen is that things like RSS have grown out of the 'geek' sector, bringing lots of meaningless terms and acronyms that people just don't understand. What you techie types often fail to understand is that half of the general public don't know what 'syndication' means, so if RSS functionality is ever to be widely accepted it needs to be made simpler and easier for Joe Public to understand.
I think that if anyone other than Microsoft had said this (e.g. an open source tree hugger) everyone would be in agreement, but as it was a Microsoft employee it has generated this reaction.
Do you want RSS to be used as widely as email? If so, you'd better wake up and think like a punter, as it's still way too complicated for your average user.
Doug is right - it could be named something better, something more catchy. But it's not. It's named RSS.
Just like www, or GTi or AC/DC or any one of a hundred acronyms I could mention where the public know precisely what is being referred to.
The point of this article was to raise alarm bells before another good idea gets mangled in MS's quest for dominance.
MS unfortunately has a history of plundering standards or products for their own pirate gain.
Java had barely established itself when MS came swashbuckling through and extended it into something different and as for what they've done with HTML and Internet Explorer only extensions...
I think MS will find plenty stand ready to repel boarders and stick with RSS.
Some are saying Firefox calls them Live Bookmarks anyway so what's the point? Well a Live Bookmark in Firefox is a bookmark that takes it's content from an RSS feed - that's not calling it something else, it's making use of a good idea.
Anyway I like RSS - it's really simple sounding.