Some might call me a neo-Luddite, but I don't think anyone should be too worried about being "left behind" by not adopting RSS. Is it a very useful tool? Yes, I think it is. But so is a chainsaw, and I'm not about to go buy one just because I don't want to get left behind in the world of power tools. I have no use for a chainsaw. If you have no use for RSS, it is wasteful to try to employ it.
I think there are more uses for RSS than you'll find in common (or any) use currently, but I don't think it's as revolutionary as the Web itself. If it were the 90s and you were hosting all of your content in Gopher, and you were worried that you were getting left behind by not putting it on the Web instead, I'd agree without hesitation. That's because the Web takes what people did with Gopher and does it much better, and expands it in countless ways. Once you have your content moved from Gopher to a Web site, there's no need or desire to go back. That's not at all true of RSS. It's just XML data, so it's not going to replace the user interface of the Web (nobody wants to read XML). It's a flexible and powerful tool that can be used with the Web (and other systems and interfaces), but it's not a replacement. Even if there was a danger of RSS becoming a do-or-die technology to adopt, I think there are specific factors that work against it in that respect. Things like massive amounts of noise in the system (noise being somewhat relative/subjective, although feeds from spam blogs are probably noise to all but the spammer), a confusing set of versions with various compatibility problems, full-text feeds that virtually wipe out some core value of RSS (from both the publisher and network perspective), and so on. Just some thoughts to ponder, kick around, or summarily ignore... :-) -- Stuart Whitmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.just-stuart.com/ On 1/23/06, James Crotty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I too am having trouble trying to understand the complexities of RSS Feeds. > It seems as if this next development of internet communication is talked > about in a way that makes it appear much more complex than it really is. > > One resource that I've found to be somewhat helpful is Seth Godin's blog over > at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ . On a recent post Seth > recommended a program called Feedcraft for creating and managing feeds. I > haven't tried it yet (it's $200). > > I, like most everyone else, who was pretty basic in knowledge and usage of > the internet, am becoming worried that suddently I'm going to get "left > behind" in this further development of the web. > > It also seems like the two major players in the game - Yahoo and Google - are > both putting their development resources toward interactive, blog communities > where communication between members and interested parties will take place > primarily via "feeds." > > If you're getting "too much mail" then send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (this will tell it to stop sending you mail) To change your membership use THIS WEB PAGE: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/join (here you can set your mail to digest, no mail or LEAVE the list) To find more info about Syndicated XML newsfeeds visit http://www.syndic8.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndic8/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
