Generally, most followers of RSS and weblogs and syndication and the living web consider that the RSS tipping point has already been reached. There is mass buy-in to the approach.
Even Atom advocates generally view Atom as simply a flavor of the broader RSS concept (regardless of what the letters stand for, point to, denote, or connote).
It looks like Dave Winer has launched a site called Really Simple Syndication to put the broadest possible stamp on RSS as the name of this new idea, and most especially to start talking directly to users instead of getting bogged down in the insider cant of other developers and ubergeeks.
His post from over the weekend could be viewed as a kind of manifesto for RSS in general and RSS 2.0 in 2004 in particular:
- A format.
- Content management tools that generate feeds in the format.
- Aggregators and readers that subscribe to the feeds.
- Search engines and utilities that crunch the information and ideas.
- Services from technology companies like Microsoft and Apple.
- Authoritative publications like the BBC, The New York Times, CNET, InfoWorld, PC World, Time, Wired, Salon, Yahoo, Reuters – that distribute news and opinion in RSS.
- Many thousands of weblogs covering virtually every aspect of life on this planet.
- A vast and growing community of thinkers, writers, educators, public servants, and technologists.
The revolution of RSS is what people are doing with it, what it enables, the way it works for people who use technology, the freedom it offers, and the way it makes timely information, that used to be expensive and for the select-few so inexpensive and broadly available.
RSS is the next thing in Internet and knowledge management. It’s big. A lot bigger than a format.
This is the inaugural post for a new website devoted to the community of people who create and use RSS. It’s just a beginning.
Let’s have fun!
# Posted by Dave Winer on 5/29/04; 3:54:55 PM
So the race is on to brand this next big thing (we like to call it “the living web” of course) and Dave is putting his money on RSS. It’s got a lot of memeshare, for sure, and the site is a classic “eat your own dogfood” response to a challenge. This is Dave at his best, if you ask me, and by clicking through here, I suppose you did.
Comments
2 responses to “RSS 2.0 branding strengthened”
So how do we look at this in view of Sam Ruby’s call for a detente? Just wondering.
Also, Xian, you need to fix the url to http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/ otherwise it won’t work.
cheers
Fixed, thanks! I don’t think this conflicts with detente. Clearly Atom is a grab after memeshare. Nothing wrong with the guy most closely associated with RSS defending the idea of his preferred mark as the definitive, already accepted, standard term.
Personally, I think it’s fun trying to name things, and the contours of what people get attached to (“dot com” for example is nearly as dated a concept as an AOL keyword – most people today just type words into Google) can be interesting.
As long as more people realize that their voice can reach more people on the living web and that most importantly they can connect with other people who share their most dear concerns, the name of the next big thing almost doesn’t matter except in terms of bragging rights.