Tuesday, October 11, 2005, 9:27:53 PM, Rick Feltington wrote: > Ok...now how would you explain RSS feeds to your > grandmother in a haiku!
I can never resist a challenge like THAT. An RSS feed like a personal shopper for the world wide web Personally, I prefer my haiku to convey imagery and feelings of some sort, so I went for a simile rather than attempt a strict description. I also have a problem with the way so many people seem to imply that "subscribing" to an RSS feed means that stuff somehow gets _sent_ to you. That's rubbish. RSS is _purely_ a "pull" medium. A feed reader simply asks for a current RSS description from the provider, and then chooses whether or not to fetch items on your behalf. The important, real life, destinction here is that the RSS provider knows essentially nothing about the subscribers. There is no possibility of RSS "spam", because the provider never sends anything to subscriber. At any time the subscriber can unsubscribe (without needing to inform the provider) and will NEVER get any more from that source. I'd actually be quite wary of giving my address to the provider of a "free magazine" (for example), in the same way that I'd be wary of giving my email address out to a "free email newsletter". I'd be certain that it would increase the amount of junk mail coming through my door. I'm guessing that Grandma would be at least as wary. -- Frank Carver http://www.makevideo.org.uk ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Most low income households are not online. Help bridge the digital divide today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/cd_AJB/QnQLAA/TtwFAA/lBLqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> 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/
