Jane Kim, program manager for RSS in Internet Explorer, has written a useful post detailing the new RSS features in IE7. A few comments from me...
1) Microsoft has decided to call RSS "web feeds", at least for now. Jane says they're "still actively exploring what is the right name to use for RSS feeds". Although I agree that end users need not be concerned with knowing what RSS is - they just need to see the benefits of syndication and subscribing to information - I don't think 'web feeds' is any clearer than 'RSS'. Personally I think RSS and its orange branding has gotten too much traction on the Web already and it's too late to change it now.
Don't mess with the brand Microsoft - it's bigger than you. Even the Atom proponents admit that RSS is the brand name.
2) Discovery: "If a web feed is found, the web feed button on the toolbar lights up." Additionally it can play a sound. Bing! This is good stuff - it will help promote RSS feeds to normal Web users if it is highlighted in this manner. Apparently publishers will be able to control this setting. Naturally the user also can tweak their browser settings.
3) That format thing: "Beta 1 of Windows Vista and IE 7 for XP currently supports the web feed formats RSS .9x, RSS 1.0, and RSS 2.0. As Sean mentioned, Atom 0.3 and Atom 1.0 support will come in a later release."
I suppose the Atom folks will be slightly miffed. But how many feed-enabled blogs and websites don't have at least one varient of RSS .9x-2? (I actually don't know the answer to that, so someone feel free to enlighten me).
4) IE7 will display a browser-friendly version of the RSS feed - much like Feedburner does with my RSS feed. Again, this is a good way to make sure RSS gets adopted by the mainstream.
Not a bad start by Microsoft. It doesn't appear they have all the functionality they promised at Gnomedex ready to roll out yet - e.g. there was no mention of support for Simple List Extensions. This Beta 1 seems to be aimed at users, rather than developers. Having said that, there was also little mention of the RSS Reader functionality that IE7 will have. I expect we'll hear more soon.
I love to read Steve Gillmor's posts - he has a unique way with words and it's fun (OK sometimes frustrating) to decipher his messages. But I really wish he would look beyond his Silicon Valley-tinted glasses and mention/link to some new blood now and then. Take this extract from his latest post, referencing what he calls the "new content kids on the block":
"Yes, it's the Dog Days, where the print books glide toward the soft landing of the new fiscal year while laying off the last remnants of the Golden Age of tech journalism. Replacing the old print bands are the new groups: the Maliks, the PaidContents, the AlwaysOns, the Battelles, and the session players: Beattie, Zawodny, Mernit, Clavier, Obasanjo, Canter, the Monkchips. Greasing the skids are the SuperSessions: Robert Scoble and the Flying Berlind Brothers, Wave Diner and the OPMLs, Jonny Schwartz and the CIOs, and Sergey, Mills, Jobs, and Yang."
The above names are all very worthy ones - and I count some of them as blog buddies (and employers in a couple of cases). But I'd like to add my own 'Alternative bands' to the mix - some Generation X and Y.
A few of my favourite "groups" include (in totally random Bloglines order) Phil Pearson, Charlie Wood, Anastasia Goodstein, Lilia Efimova, Andy Baio, The TechCrunch Crew, Charles Coxhead, Tim Yang, Dina Mehta, Alex Barnett, Josh Porter, Tom Coates, Janet Tokerud, Lucas Gonze... there are MANY more I want to mention (sorry, but this is my lunch hour and I gotta get going!).
My point is: there's a whole world of music, er I mean blogging, talent. Don't forget to give us a shout-out now and then Mr Steve "Casey Kasem" Gillmor. And that goes for the AlwaysOn Top 100, or whatever the name of that Billboard-like chart is.
Rock on everybody! :-) (rant over)
update: I didn't have time to give my picks some rock n' roll nicknames. That would be fun though - how about you suggest some in the comments? And of course please feel free to extend my (short and hurried) list of alt rockers...
update 2: Steve has updated his post, to include "MacManus' Youngbloods" :-) I like the sound of that - maybe we're the new Blogger Brat Pack! Now if I could only get Tony Perkins and Dave Sifry to include some of us Brat Packers in their Open Media 100... ;-)
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This week: Walled Gardens, Ajax backlash, Widgetmania, Asia update, The Web - Past, Present and Future.
Lately there's been some progress towards overcoming one of the main issues of Web 2.0 - data lock-in. It's also known as the "Walled Garden" approach, or the "Roach Motel". The gist of it is: a traditional way for websites and apps to 'lock-in' their users is to make sure their data can only be maintained and used from within the site/app. So even though users think they 'own' their data, in reality it's not easy to export it to other systems. A classic example is Amazon reviews - once you enter a review of e.g. a book, the data is essentially locked up inside Amazon's site.
There are signs of progress though. Yahoo 360 is apparently moving towards making the content that users enter into their system more open. This from SiliconBeat:
"Yahoo tells us tonight that users of their Yahoo 360 blogging/networking service can now publish content to their personal pages from other blogging or bookmarking services, such as LiveJournal or del.icio.us, using RSS. What is more, 360 users will still be able to alert friends and family members of new content on their 360 pages, even if the content is from somewhere else."
The Yahoo 360 Team explains more. Reactions: The Blog Herald thinks it's an "acceptance from Yahoo! that 360 is a failure is a blogging platform". Michael Parekh is more positive. Jon Turow has some interesting thoughts on Walled Gardens in other systems.
As for me, I think it's a positive sign that Yahoo is opening up its platform for data to flow into 360 from other systems. But what about allowing data to flow out? This reminds me that I never did get a response to the question I posed on the Yahoo My Web 2.0 Messageboard. Here's what I asked back on 3 July:
"Out of curiousity, is it possible to export your My Web 2.0 data - just as you can import, say, del.icio.us data?
The reason I ask of course is that it's a sign of a trustworthy Web 2.0 app if users have the option of exporting the data that they 'own'."
It'd be nice to get an answer to that. It's the main reason I'm still using delicious for my social bookmarking - because delicious allows me to export my data.
Which brings me to AttentionTrust, the initiative run by Steve Gillmor and Seth Goldstein and others. Their mission: "promoting the basic rights of attention owners." It's a bit nebulous as to what that means exactly, but I don't doubt it's a worthy cause. If it's got anything to do with crashing down the Walled Gardens of web apps that lock-in our data, then sign me up!
I've noticed some folks are questioning how relevant Ajax is to Web 2.0. Jon Boutelle came right out and said it: AJAX != web 2.0. Jon wrote:
"Web 2.0 is about making websites machine readable so that content can squirt seamlessly between unrelated sites. Technologies like RSS, RESTian APIs, and XHTML/CSS are the core of Web 2.0. Social networks and tagging and attention are at the core of Web 2.0. Not rich client technologies like AJAX."
While I agree with the general gist of Jon's argument, I do think Ajax is an important technology for Web 2.0 because it gives web apps the type of rich functionality that desktop apps are known for. So in that sense, Ajax is an enabling technology for Web 2.0 (the Web as platform, or Web as OS if you prefer). But it is just a tool, with good and bad sides to it - e.g. Jon made a good point about Ajax making things less machine-readable / linkable.
As Anil Dash pointed out recently, in response to a new Web 2.0 service fueled by Ajax and Ruby on Rails:
"A lot of the links to the service say things like "full of AJAXy goodness!" or "guess how small the dev team was?" or "it's Ruby on Rails!". People, this is a tool for helping your business make more money."
News this week that Yahoo bought widget-maker Konfabulator. Widgets are little desk-top apps, but one interesting Web 2.0 use for these is as a branded RSS Reader. My previous sponsor ThePort Network is in the business of providing skinned RSS Readers than sit on a user's desktop. RSS Reader widgets are also popular with news media organizations, as a way to get involved in the world of RSS without losing their branding or influence (they get to choose the default feeds, as one example). Ron Jeffries has an interesting take on the Konfabulator deal:
"Konfabulator, now part of the Yahoo empire, is a frontal assault on Microsoft desktop dominance. The future is web services, and Konfabulator provides VERY easy to develop desktop widget technology with a completely open API."
I noticed a couple of Web 2.0 and RSS things happening in the Asia region this week. Firstly Feedburner announced what looks to be a highly strategic partnership with China's biggest blog network Bokee. With 2 million blogs and apparently growing at a rate of over 10,000 new blogs a day, Bokee is a huge new customer for Feedburner. But more than that, it gives them a great foothold in the Asian market. Thinking globally is going to be become ever more important in this Web 2.0 world (which admittedly sounds odd coming from me, Mr 'I-Wanna- Move-To-Silicon-Valley'!).
Another company making moves in Asia is Pheedo, who this week made a presentation in Tokyo. Pheedo discovered a growing and ready market for RSS:
"RSS is growing in Japan with no promotion. The Japanese RSS adoption rate is higher compared to the US market. Overall penetration is lower but according to Tsukada, "the environment is ready.""
I decided to ask for some feedback from my Asia correspondent and blog buddy, Taewoo Danny Kim. In an email, Danny pointed to the growing number of Chinese and Japanese titles on the del.cio.us/tag/web2.0 feed as evidence of a ramping up of Web 2.0 fever over there. Blogging is big in Korea, where Danny lives, but he said RSS and Web 2.0 is still nascent. This is the same feeling I have for the New Zealand and Australia markets. Of course, this means a whole world of opportunity to early adopters - such as people reading mine and Danny's blogs!
If you're looking for a thought-provoking article about the Web as a social tool - past, present and future - Kevin Kelly's effort for Wired magazine is highly recommended. He wrote that the "destiny of the Web" is:
"As the OS for a megacomputer that encompasses the Internet, all its services, all peripheral chips and affiliated devices from scanners to satellites, and the billions of human minds entangled in this global network. This gargantuan Machine already exists in a primitive form. In the coming decade, it will evolve into an integral extension not only of our senses and bodies but our minds."
Later in the article, he has this prediction for the Web in 2015:
"By 2015, desktop operating systems will be largely irrelevant. The Web will be the only OS worth coding for. It won't matter what device you use, as long as it runs on the Web OS. You will reach the same distributed computer whether you log on via phone, PDA, laptop, or HDTV."
Inspiring stuff.
That's a wrap for another week!
Doc Searls grabs the Web 2.0 meme by the horns and gives it a good shake. He's posted a thought-provoking piece in which he frames Web 2.0 in the following way:
"I propose a goal: Make Web 2.0 the best possible commons for supporting free markets and free culture."
I'm glad Doc has weighed in on the ongoing debate about what Web 2.0 is. So far we've had mainly techies and business folks pecking away at the definition, but it hasn't really been approached from a 'social commons' point of view. And who better to do that than Doc Searls.
Doc wrote his post in response to one by Martin at Mediatope, who is creating a "a cumulative Web 2.0 definition" which he says is:
"Mainly based on the proto-definition work of richard mcmanus' writereadweb, still the most imprtant resource for Web 2.0. The wikipedia-entry is also valuable, despite being "disputed"."
Very nice of you to say so Martin, thank you!
btw the 'Web as platform' definition is a bit misunderstood, by some people who say - well, Web 1.0 was a platform too. So let me try and clarify a little. When I say Web 2.0 = 'Web as platform' - I'm referring to shared infrastructure and standards such as RSS, XML, API's, structured microcontent, read/write web tools like blogging and podcasting, web services, etc. None of that was around in a usable state in the first edition of the Web (in the 90's). You could put up a static or interactive website, do e-commerce transactions, participate in message boards and so forth. But you couldn't build on top of any of that... it wasn't a true platform. So when I use the word 'platform', I mean it must provide an infrastructure - and a network - for people to build on top of it. Build what? Communities, collaboration, communication, and (yes, don't forget) commerce.
Perhaps 'Web as OS' is a more accurate description, but I prefer to use the word 'platform' because it's not as techie and it can be expanded upon much better - e.g. as a business term, or to explain how for journalists the Web can be a platform for new news media. It's not as effective to say "the Web is an OS" to non-geeks...
Anyway, I'm very glad to see the definition of Web 2.0 being discussed openly and from all sorts of angles. The Wikipedia definition is still a (disputed) work in progress, but that's OK. This is what we have weblogs and wikis for - to thrash out concepts in public and build on them ;-)
