Three days after my post predicting that major browsers would have embedded RSS handling capabilities within six months, Safari developer Dave Hyatt is discussing the idea in his own blog. The question is whether browsers should handle RSS feeds or should RSS readers display HTML previews? The latter seems like a no brainer, but the former is where I’m hoping to see all of this go. Thanks Sean for the headsup.
Music: The Incredible String Band :: There Is A Green Crown
I still don’t see the importance of Aggregation… I’ve even been running NNW for the past week or so trying to “get it”, but haven’t managed yet…
I really think this is one of those things that will be limited to a small segment of the net population, but that’s more of just a gut feeling. I’m not trying to go pundit-prediction style, as I simply don’t care enough about the issue to try. :)
Mhm, I think so, too: newsfeed aggregation is not a must-have for everybody; I can imagine that many people will continue to access the news sites directly instead having to learn how to use Yet Another Neato Gadget(tm) of their browser. This is particularly valid for folks like me for which the web browser is not the primary application (for me it’s vim, followed by MailSmith).
What would be nice to see if sites offering RSS feeds would also publish the information using a mailing list or local NNTP server. For the receivers this would have the additional advantage that they could stay off the net for a while and still don’t miss anything.
I forgot: the reason why some people won’t use RSS to get their news is of course that they are not interested into enough different news sites to make RSS worthwhile. There is such a thing as information overload.
I don’t buy the info overload argument because information overload is exactly the phenomenon that RSS does such a stellar job of addressing, which is why it’s becoming so popular so fast. With an RSS aggregator I can scan 10 or 20 news sites in the time it takes to view one or two bookmarks. It lets you cherry pick the best of the best.
So RSS is not so much about a neato gadget as it is useful, almost necessary tool to help us deal with the massive amounts of data being thrown at us from all sides.
So RSS is not so much about a neato gadget as it is useful, almost necessary tool to help us deal with the massive amounts of data being thrown at us from all sides.
I find myself that I just ignore most of the data thrown at me and I am no worse for wear. :)