Google News now has RSS feeds (finally!). It's great that all the big Internet companies now offer RSS feeds, but Google's move unfortunately signals a split in RSS branding amongst the big media and technology companies. Like Microsoft, Google isn't embracing the term 'RSS'. Microsoft wants to call RSS "web feeds", while Google is simply calling them "feeds". And there's no sign of any orange buttons on the Google News Feeds page.
The NY Times, BBC, MyYahoo and lots of other media sites already use the pervasive orange buttons and the term 'RSS' - so there's now a definite split (dare I say, fork) in how RSS/feeds are being marketed to the public.
As I mentioned a week ago, personally I think the term 'RSS' and its orange branding has gotten too much traction on the Web already and it's too late to change it now.
In that respect Microsoft and Google shouldn't mess with the brand - it's bigger than both of them. But that doesn't mean they won't succeed in turning the brand into 'Feeds', because as the two biggest Internet companies around - obviously they hold a lot of sway. Dave Winer suggested that Microsoft and Google's name changes "will get routed around", but I wonder whether that's more hope than logic.
I'm conflicted on this. I'd like 'RSS' to continue as the brand name for syndication and feeds. But I also want mainstream adoption - and if Microsoft and Google achieve that by promoting 'feeds', well I guess NY Times, BBC and the others will follow suit in due course and it'll be happily ever after for syndication.
Like it or not, the big companies will drive mainstream adoption. Two of them obviously are reluctant to stick with the status quo and call it RSS. So which way will it go - RSS or Feeds?
UPDATE: This post has attracted some excellent comments. Most people seem to prefer "feeds" as the brand of RSS (and yes I'm using the word 'brand' far too often these days!). MSN's Mike Torres pointed out that HTML pages are known as "web pages", so it's appropriate that RSS feeds be called "web feeds". Peter Cooper said that his own Feed Digest, and Feedburner too, have already gone down this road and refer to them as "feeds". IBM's David Berger commented that "it's an overstatement that RSS and the orange box have "established" themselves as an Internet brand". These and all the other great comments, which mostly support "feeds" over "RSS" as the brand, are compelling arguments.
Hmmm, so "feeds" has the momentum - in this thread at least. I'd still like to hear some more views on this...
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Sorry to be a pain again, but I don't know why you think MS isn't fully embracing the RSS "brand".
Almost 20 million MSN Spaces have an orange RSS button on them and the word RSS at the top.
MSN Search results pages have an orange RSS button on them.
http://rss.msn.com references RSS and has orange XML buttons everywhere.
There are at least a dozen more examples of this (MSNBC, MSDN, Microsoft Mindshare, etc.)
Posted by: Mike Torres | August 10, 2005 3:01 PM
Maybe they should adopt the same classification in RSS as Apple did by default ignorance for podcasting: "Professional" + "Indie" - So you could have "RSS" + "Feeds" plus other versions where either term isnt used because you just (like Newsgator DenverPostHound vsn) subscribe to 'channels' eg 'I want to subscribe to' : "Wellington" "Summer Break Podcasts" "Nasdaq Longs" (which could for argument sake be spliced, ranked, tagged, recency and popularity based aggregations of items drawn from an indexed RSS Feed) :)
http://benbarren.blogspot.com
Posted by: Ben Barren | August 10, 2005 3:03 PM
Fair point Mike. What I was specifically referencing was this quote in the IE Blog (linked to in my opening paragraph):
"In Beta 1, weíre calling them "web feeds." We're still actively exploring what is the right name to use for RSS feeds"
So I'm confused - if MS decides to go with "web feeds" for IE7, will you still call it RSS everywhere else?
But admitedly MS is sticking with the orange color for buttons etc, which is more than Google is doing.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 10, 2005 3:08 PM
Devil's advocate: I actually think "web feed" is fine... the underlying technology could be RSS, ATOM, CDF, or whatever.
We don't call web pages "HTML 4.0 documents" because sometimes they are XHTML/CSS and have JavaScript in them. In the future they might be XAML, XUL, or something else. HTML is just one format.
It is an interesting problem. Dave got one thing right; Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo won't make the call at the end of the day. And as it stands, RSS isn't just a technology, it is a concept. And that's probably fine.
I just personally hate acronyms - they are far too geeky.
Posted by: Mike Torres | August 10, 2005 5:43 PM
A couple of things just popped into my head when you said that RSS has plenty of traction (a valid point) and that MS and google shouldn't mess with it.
A Couple of examples of MS messing with the brand:
- Directories became Folders in Win '95
- The term Bookmark was avoided and Favourites used when MS released IE to compete with Netscape
There'd be others too.
Posted by: Dwight Gunning | August 10, 2005 8:48 PM
I rebranded RSS Digest to Feed Digest for this same reason. With Atom it got all cloudy. Other companies like FeedBurner have already headed down the 'feed' road, and so it goes.
Posted by: Peter Cooper | August 10, 2005 11:18 PM
I think it's an overstatement that RSS and the orange box have "established" themselves as an Internet brand. If you trust the Pew stats, it's clear that syndication (as we understand it) has relatively little penetration among Internet users. And if more are using syndication without realizing it -- via MyYahoo, etc. -- than that just advances the point that RSS isn't really "brandable."
I think we want syndication embedded throughout the Internet, as seamlessly as possible. Calling it out specifically via RSS (or Atom) is a conceit of the Web 2.0 lead adopter community. I'd prefer to see us get to a point where we don't need to see the orange box to make it happen. Starting to call them generically "Web feeds" is a step in the right direction.
And with all due respect, if that bruises Dave Winer's ego, so be it. As he points out so eloquently in his post on OPML, "create the tools for people with the ideas, then get out of their way."
Posted by: David Berger | August 11, 2005 1:50 AM
Some quick links here. You'll notice that Wikipedia has a definition for web feed, the term that Microsoft adopted, but not RSS feed. You can also see that the Wikipedia definition for RSS states that it is *incorrectly* used to refer to all types of xml based syndication formats. While Wikipedia is obviously not the only source available internet, it is generally very well respected and acurate. Answers.com, using the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia as it's source, defines syndication formats as "feed, news feed or Web Feed"--not RSS feeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_feed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
http://www.answers.com/topic/news-aggregator
The adoption of 'Feed' by Google and 'Web Feed' by Microsoft allows for users to understand and access syndicated content without limiting themselves to any one type of file format.
Posted by: Dana Janssen | August 11, 2005 3:14 AM
Whats wrong with the orange "xml" buttons- I thought that made everything perfectly clear! ;)
Really though, I don't think the RSS "brand" is bigger than the big Internet companies. Among bloggers and the technophiles, yes, but Mom and Pop still have no idea either way. I think the big companies (for better or for worst) will brand RSS for everyone else.
Posted by: Lee | August 11, 2005 3:28 AM
Sadly I get a feeling of "not invented here" reading Dave's Blog. Anyone who has taken the time to read the Atom 1.0 spec will know it is far and away a better syndication format because it offers many element features that RSS 2.0 simple cannot or will not be able to handle when we all start to use "feeds" more and more.
Personally I would prefer to bash the heads together of the RSS and Atom camps to come up with a joint spec to stop this school yard squabble and whether it was called Atom 2.0 or RSS 3.0 I would not care.
Oh by the way Microsoft don't like the term podcasting either - too Apple orientated. Not sure what they will call it?
I still call mine a Hoover but we all know I mean the Vaccum cleaner!
Posted by: Sam Sethi | August 11, 2005 5:19 AM
Finally! Having news alerts e-mailed to me never really interested me but having them as an rss feed! Ahhh, thank you Google! And thank you for bringing them to my attention ñ going to add them to my feed reader now.
Posted by: Sean | August 11, 2005 7:45 AM
Thanks everyone for your excellent comments! I've updated my post to summarise the views and encourage more feedback (no pun intended).
Feeds definitely is the prefered term in this thread. Any takers for continuing to brand it as 'RSS'?
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 11, 2005 9:30 AM
How painful is today's description of feeds to consumers. Here is something common on major sites:
"RSS stands for a couple of different things, but we like Really Simple Syndication. Oh, and it is XML and you'll need a feed reader?"
Wuh?!
To become mainstream:
1) The terminology should focus not on the technology, but on the value added to the user. Think "stay updated on new content by subscribing to our feed", not "RSS is XML based blah blah".
Referring to RSS or XML to the average Joe is not going to work.
2) Browsers need to be redesigned creatively and innovatively to ease subscribing to, organizing, remixing, and reading feeds.
Nobody wants a new piece of software to consume web content. However, web based aggregators to date have proven to be clunky and lack functionality a rich application would provide, like alerting the user when updates occur.
So, get rid of the orange buttons and the awful descriptions, integrate feeds into the browser, and communicate the benefits without the technical jargon.
Posted by: Brady Joslin | August 11, 2005 10:16 AM
Agreed, Brady. So that's another vote for "feeds", because we have to call them something...
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 11, 2005 11:35 AM
Maybe this isn't a case of either-or. For many people, probably mostly early adopters, RSS and the orange buttons are well established. For the majority that has yet to start using the technology they are most likely unfamiliar.
I think that branding work a little differently for these two groups. The first group I think cares a lot more about correct usage of terminology. The latter group I think mostly don't care.
So I think that RSS and the orange buttons will continue to be widely used, but that over time a more generic or another brand name will become more commonly used. Think e.g. about Rollerblades, Kleenex, and other brand names that are more commonly used than the generic words.
Posted by: Stefan Andersson | August 12, 2005 1:33 AM
Hi Richard
We're in "feeds" camp as well
We acknowledge that RSS is the primary "terminology" for conversational purpose between the early adopters - and the orange "RSS" button is not going to go away for a long time
With the existing growth, and anticipated impact of " rss reading" services as been workied on by Yahoo, Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, etc, i expect the terminology to be a mixture of "subscribe to feeds" "feeds" "webfeeds" -
we all need to hide the complexities of "RSS reading" from the consumer
Fergus
Posted by: Fergus Burns | August 12, 2005 3:12 AM
"Personally I would prefer to bash the heads together of the RSS and Atom camps to come up with a joint spec to stop this school yard squabble and whether it was called Atom 2.0 or RSS 3.0 I would not care."
That was a goal before Atom even existed, but the RSS community preferred that the standards-track effort have its own separate name.
For what it's worth, we went with 'subscribing to feeds' too.
Posted by: Anil | August 12, 2005 2:33 PM
Count another vote for "feed". I like it because it reflects the action rather than the format.
The one thing that winds me up a little is how people talk about "syndicating" feeds...when they actually mean "subscibing". I assume this is a long hangover from when RSS really was for syndicating content between web pages (before personal feed readers had been conceived).
I like "subscribing to feeds" (as Anil says)...non tech speak and actually describes what your doing.
Posted by: Charles | August 12, 2005 5:41 PM
For the average user, "feed" is more meaningful than "RSS", in the same way "Web" is a useful analogy, HTML+HTTP isn't.
For the technical user, RSS is misleading when you might be talking about Atom format.
Re. Dana's comment about the Wikipedia entry for RSS, it now has:
"...sometimes, by casual (though strictly speaking incorrect) use, alternative syndication protocols, such as Atom."
It is a Wiki after all ;-)
Posted by: Danny | August 13, 2005 1:53 AM
My own reaction is that Google has two sorts of feeds, atom and RSS. RSS is a sort of feed. If a site started calling RSS something else, I'd be concerned.
Posted by: Bud Gibson | August 13, 2005 8:03 AM
I'm sensing a pattern here :-) It seems like feeds, or web feeds, is indeed going to win the day - for RSS branding.
However it also seems like the orange button, synonymous with RSS, is going along for the ride. So all is not lost for the RSS camp. Not to mention that RSS 2.0 will continue to be the mainnstream format of choice, for the forseeable future at least. The only thing that may prevent that is Google and their preference for Atom (especially re Blogger).
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 13, 2005 9:04 AM
The orange button will be around until feeds become more integrated with the browser. Then, the browser will notify the user of available feeds through detection of link rel="alternate", or something similar. Firefox's little notice in the right of the status bar is just a hint of what is to come. There will be no need to clutter the UI of a web page with orange buttons. But, for now they are sort of a necessary evil.
Posted by: Brady Joslin | August 13, 2005 10:12 AM
Brady's right.... Safari already has this, and IE7's got it in beta.
Posted by: Anil | August 13, 2005 12:25 PM
Yes true, but the IE7 beta uses an orange button in the browser toolbar. At least that's what I saw when I viewed Robert Scoble's video demonstration just before Gnomedex:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002766.php
Here's what I wrote at the time - but do let me know if there's been an update since then:
"- there's a highlighted orange RSS button (and note it does say "RSS" and not "XML", as I do on my blog incidentally) in the top browser bar. This is automatically present whenever the browser picks up an RSS feed on a webpage.
- when clicked, the RSS button brings up a browser-friendly version of the feed (like Feedburner does for my feed)"
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 13, 2005 5:43 PM
New piece of info: Havi from Yahoo pointed out to me that Yahoo 360 has a "Feeds Module", so it seems even Yahoo is now using the term "feeds". More details here:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/product_360?p=570
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 13, 2005 6:03 PM
I'm not totally consistent but I think a text line like "Subscribe to Feed" and then a little orange RSS button (though for some reason I'm using a little orange XML button - I should probably change that), will suffice, along with any other button flavours you like, like Feedburner, MyYahoo, MyMSN etc. etc. is fine.
Apart from taking up space, and possibly too many buttons being confusing, it gives the reader options whether they know what RSS is (if they've seen it explained at the BBC, for example), or if they know what a feed is.
Maybe that's overkill, but a few options should increase your RSS feed exposure and make it available to the widest possible audience.
As an aside, Safari on Mac OS X uses a blue RSS button when a page contains a feed.
Posted by: Andy Merrett | August 14, 2005 4:07 AM
Both 'RSS' and 'feeds' are to geeky. 'Feed' implies you work for radio or TV broadcasting. 'Subscribe' is the least geeky, IMO. And that orange button is hideous.
Posted by: Xofis | August 14, 2005 5:16 AM
I agree Xofis, but "subscribe" doesn't describe the *what* of RSS feeds - as in "what are they?"
I like Mike Torres' analogy of HTML being called 'web pages', so RSS is likewise 'web feeds'.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | August 14, 2005 9:39 AM
"RSS" is a heavily trademarked term, while "feed" is too generic for that issue to matter.
For example, Userland tried to trademark "RSS" as a term for feeds:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=lhk2ot.2.6
Posted by: Lucas Gonze | August 14, 2005 2:41 PM
haven't seen anyone mention email yet, but that's what i first thought of. just as we don't refer to web pages as HTML pages, neither do we use POP3 or IMAP rather than email. generally speaking, i'm for making the formats as opaque as possible, because Joe User simply doesn't care. if my users like my parents were aware of the term RSS, it might be different, but they're not.
Posted by: stephen ogrady | August 14, 2005 8:58 PM
The terms "RSS" and "feed" are at opposite ends of the spectrum, one very specific, the other very general and open-ended. To me, "RSS" indicates a "feed" of HTML web page headlines and associated links. A "feed" could be anything--RSS, a podcast (or is that "webcast"?), or video.
Using this as the definition, I see no reason to change the term from "RSS," unless someone is worried about money exchanging hands because of the usage.
Posted by: Rob Leary | August 16, 2005 2:10 AM
I agree with Mike Torres on the name "web feeds" because it just makes sense. You view a web site which contains web pages that may contain links to web feeds among various other things. Creating a generalized term would allow for various formats such as RSS and Atom to exist under that term which would make it easier for the casual user to understand.
Posted by: Leland Rangel | August 16, 2005 7:28 AM