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I did about three minutes of digging this morning on what companies not named Microsoft call "RSS feeds". I didn't spend more than three minutes because after about three minutes, I realized Microsoft isn't trying to rename RSS and I stopped. RSS stopped being used long ago...

Firefox calls them Live Bookmarks. They use a cool little feed icon when a site contains a feed and they have no mention of RSS anywhere in the subscribe process.
Bloglines calls them "feeds" everywhere. RSS isn't even mentioned in the "Add a feed" page. I don't see any mention of RSS anywhere other than a single line on the "My Feeds" page indicating that you can subscribe via XML/RSS buttons on some web pages.
Newsgator Online calls them "feeds" everywhere. Similarly in the "Add a Feed" page, I don't see any mention of the term RSS. RSS is mentioned in the FAQ.
SixApart uses "Syndicate this site (XML)" on TypePad blogs. LiveJournal calls it "Syndication". RSS is mentioned in helper text.
Not surprisingly, Blogger's only mention of RSS is in their FAQ, "If you would rather have RSS, give Feedburner a try." Millions of BlogSpot blogs don't have any sort of RSS branding by default (or RSS feeds, but that is a different story)

Looks like millions upon millions of people are using RSS:the technology but not RSS:the brand. And this was long before IE7 "web feeds" were a twinkle in Jim Allchin's eye. But attacking Microsoft is just so much fun, isn't it? :)

So to quote Richard McManus, "The people have spoken - feeds is it." I could spend more of my Sunday morning explaining why I think RSS and XML are both fantastic technologies yet faulty brands, but Ed Bott summed it up quite nicely yesterday. So I'll quit now.

(For what it's worth, appx. 20 million MSN Spaces have an orange RSS button on the page AND the word RSS in the header. We also have an overview of RSS in the "pretty printing" of the RSS feed when you click on those links.)

8/14/2005 10:58 AM | View trackbacks (1) | Blog it | Blogging

Comments (21)

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	No namewrote: thank you. HTML clipboardkora الدوري القطري الدوري القطري منتدى الدوري الإيطالي منتدى الدوري الإيطالي 2 3 منتدى كوره tags Sept. 13
	Alanng wrote: Hey, As IE 7 and Office 12 team has decided to standardise the feed logo with Mozilla, when are we going to see the new feed button at the bottom of our MSN Spaces? Jan. 21
	Svein Kåre wrote: Live bookmarks (Forefox), News feed (Opera), Web feed or whatever - in the end it doesn't matter, and a dear child has many names anyway. Besides, Microsoft can't get the honour of having introduced "web feed" as a name, either. Amy Gahran of contentious.com has long been a proponent of this name, wanting to have a descriptive and appealing name that don't scare away non-technical people. Aug. 18
	Mike Reys wrote: I totally agree with Mr. Antonelli, it makes sense to not call it RSS-feeds if Microsoft will consume a variety of formats. Just calling them 'syndication feeds', 'web feeds' or just 'feeds' isn't such a big deal, is it ? Aug. 17
	Mike Torres wrote: "Microsoft’s dominance can easily force people to forget about the existing used names for RSS or other feeds." Is this about doing the right thing for users or about making sure to be "pure" and "true" to the original file format? Aug. 16
	Kikachi wrote: Because Microsoft have an influential control over the OS and web browser market, I think what people don’t want is seeing Microsoft making a brand name out of current terms for syndication using “Web Feed”. Microsoft’s dominance can easily force people to forget about the existing used names for RSS or other feeds. Aug. 16
	AlexDevNet wrote: >> Looks like millions upon millions of people are using RSS:the technology but not RSS:the brand. And this was long >> before IE7 "web feeds" were a twinkle in Jim Allchin's eye. But attacking Microsoft is just so much fun, isn't it? :) Ok, millions, billions, gazzilions of people are using RSS and calls it different, but why not? It isn's Microsoft's invention or I'm mistaken? Aug. 16
	Mike Torres wrote: Well put, TDavid. Aug. 15
	TD wrote: Good to see somebody taking this story this way. I'm going to blog more about this in a minute and link in. No matter what anybody else says, if Internet Explorer comes out with good, clear, intuitive ways of identifying to the user that an RSS/Atom feed exists for a given page/site (and perhaps even assists in helping them understand what to do with said feed) then that's a step in the right direction. I hope that's the goal, and it sure seems that way -- at least from the Microsofty comments I've read. Just please, please, PLEASE don't break out Clippy in the browser ... something a little less invasive, but still instructional hopefully. RE: this issue, what Dave Winer (or anybody else for that matter) say about Microsoft doesn't matter as much as what people inside Microsoft say -- particularly those working on the IE team who actually have the juice -- and it seems like no matter what is done somebody is going to have their undies in a bundle. Decisions based on bruised egos in business could have bad consequences for users. Keep the focus on the users -- or someday there might not be any. Aug. 15
	菩提树下bluesky wrote: 看新闻知道你这里的,不过很多看不懂,翻译过来又走样了,都不是真正的意思. Aug. 15
	Spitfire wrote: I love Firefox's live bookmarks as they are easy to use, simple, and do not require an RSS Reader client. So, it its integrated! Oh why don't teenage girls get into this? Meh, sounds like they don't have a clue what it is. Aug. 15
	Anil wrote: Not to belabor the point, but at Six Apart, we're defaulting Movable Type to say "Subscribe to this blog's feed" and we'll be updating TypePad to do the same. So even the mention of XML is going away from the customer-facing language. Aug. 14
	勇敢（Hopeany） wrote: Important: Please add "<a name=TITLE NAME">TITLE NAME</a>" for each title !! I think everyone need this funcation ! Thanks! Do you think so? Aug. 14
	Mike Torres wrote: Dare - if I had spent more than 3 minutes on it, I would agree ;) Aug. 14
	ChrisKaye1 wrote: I love FireFox's livebookmarks as opposed to feeds. I find it much more convenient than using an Email client or a client. Having the integration is really handy and I only view the entries of interest to me. One of the reasons I never got into the Opera browser were the fact it used e-mail feeds instead of live bookmarks. Aug. 14
	Ghrif wrote: With the new HTML power toy module I'd like to make some fancy buttons for my categories instead of using the plain ole category module. How can I link to a blog category? Any help would be muchly appreciated, thanks! Aug. 14
	Dare wrote: I think Dave Winer is trolling and you are biting...hard. Aug. 14
	Mike Torres wrote: Click Windows Media PowerToy in the Hot Topics list to your left. Aug. 14
	David wrote: hello Torres Talking, can I know how to put the video on the blog like yours Aug. 14
	Mike Torres wrote: Exactly right. Aug. 14

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