RSS support in Longhorn: no big deal
Tags: Communication, Marketing, Blogs, RSS
The buzz about Really Simple Syndication (RSS) -- a technology that allows people to subscribe to content -- has hit a fever pitch this weekend. The announcement, here noted by the BBC, that Microsoft's Longhorn will support it has spurred a large number of Web and blog articles. Judging by the reaction in various developer blogs, you'd think this was the announcement of peace in our time.
Get a grip everyone. While RSS is a very nice technology, it really isn't that big a deal.
I know this is heresy. And as someone who runs Safari with RSS feed built in, you'd think I would on board. But what I've discovered from looking at a few months of RSS feeds is that their utility is way oversold. Most RSS feeds just provide me with lots more information for me to look at and say, "not interested."
Why the disconnect? Because RSS throws away much of the editorial information that provides clues as to whether you want to read a story or not.
Here's a test. Take a look at the RSS feed data you get from the New York Times or the Washington Post via your RSS reader. Now look at the front page of either of their Web sites. Which one allows you to focus on on what you want to read? The Web site has big and small fonts, pictures, bold headlines, and typography. The RSS feeds provide none of those clues, leaving you to figure it all out from plain text. Great for computers, lousy for people.
Now undoubtedly, someone will note that this is simply a base technology that some wonderful killer application that hasn't been invented yet will exploit to create the next Google. Perhaps. But when I look at it through the lens of The Tyranny Of Too Much -- the fact that we are overloaded every day with too much information, not too little -- I see RSS taking editorial value out of blogs and postings and then propogating that low-value data farther and wider. It's just adding noise to the Internet, not judgment and thought. Having Longhorn support it doesn't mean that this is good, even a year from now.
Meanwhile, I'm looking for more sites that add value through thinking, design, and careful editing, not aggregation. And I predict that by the time Longhorn appears, RSS will be a feature in Internet Explorer, but one that will practically be lost in the noise of a new Windows release. Until it grows more intelligence and more ability for people to exercise editorial judgment, it will just waste people's time.
The buzz about Really Simple Syndication (RSS) -- a technology that allows people to subscribe to content -- has hit a fever pitch this weekend. The announcement, here noted by the BBC, that Microsoft's Longhorn will support it has spurred a large number of Web and blog articles. Judging by the reaction in various developer blogs, you'd think this was the announcement of peace in our time.
Get a grip everyone. While RSS is a very nice technology, it really isn't that big a deal.
I know this is heresy. And as someone who runs Safari with RSS feed built in, you'd think I would on board. But what I've discovered from looking at a few months of RSS feeds is that their utility is way oversold. Most RSS feeds just provide me with lots more information for me to look at and say, "not interested."
Why the disconnect? Because RSS throws away much of the editorial information that provides clues as to whether you want to read a story or not.
Here's a test. Take a look at the RSS feed data you get from the New York Times or the Washington Post via your RSS reader. Now look at the front page of either of their Web sites. Which one allows you to focus on on what you want to read? The Web site has big and small fonts, pictures, bold headlines, and typography. The RSS feeds provide none of those clues, leaving you to figure it all out from plain text. Great for computers, lousy for people.
Now undoubtedly, someone will note that this is simply a base technology that some wonderful killer application that hasn't been invented yet will exploit to create the next Google. Perhaps. But when I look at it through the lens of The Tyranny Of Too Much -- the fact that we are overloaded every day with too much information, not too little -- I see RSS taking editorial value out of blogs and postings and then propogating that low-value data farther and wider. It's just adding noise to the Internet, not judgment and thought. Having Longhorn support it doesn't mean that this is good, even a year from now.
Meanwhile, I'm looking for more sites that add value through thinking, design, and careful editing, not aggregation. And I predict that by the time Longhorn appears, RSS will be a feature in Internet Explorer, but one that will practically be lost in the noise of a new Windows release. Until it grows more intelligence and more ability for people to exercise editorial judgment, it will just waste people's time.
posted by Carl Howe at
10:42 AM
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