When will RSS really be successful? Like all fundamental technologies, RSS will be a success when it becomes invisible.
Chris Selland writes:
“RSS is still very much the realm of early adopters (which is why only early-adopter-focused companies like Audible, Woot and HDNet are using it). But as RSS readers become more powerful and more ubiquitous – and particularly as they become more closely entwined with e-mail applications – expect the use of RSS to dramatically accelerate.”
Agreed, but here’s the kicker. In the comments here, Adam Shapiro writes:
“As far as RSS – isn’t that an old Soviet secret service group? That would be the response of 95% of America. Like Web services, fuel injection and the spring inside my pen, it will be most useful and used when nobody needs to consider that it’s there.”
Spot-on, my friend.
The spot-on to the above mentioned could be the coming of age for RSS as feeds in spam-free collaboration tools that replace Email. (An effort currently led by IBM /Lotus and Google News with Microsoft dragging the tail.)
Apparently RSS visibility is due to lack of branding. A solution for this tech pollution that might give Mr. Selland his RSS invisibility is written by March (O’Reilly Radar) in May 2005, http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/05/atom_has_a_bran.html” , “…Use one and only one icon (the orange RSS XML icon) for one and only one feed format (whichever one suits your fancy) when you want to say, “There’s a feed here.”
Trendy did take her best spin of RSS in
If Technology is not a Brand, Rebrand?, http://bestoftrendy.blogspot.com/2005/08/if-technology-is-not-brand-rebrand.html