RSS as a feature
At a time when RSS is only getting more popular, the Safari 4 Beta RSS feature marketing section is void of “New” claims.Regular people still don’t use or understand RSS, so it’s understandable why Safari wouldn’t play that up very much.
I think we’ll see more products and features that are based on RSS but don’t call it that. RSS is valuable, but like other underlying technologies and data formats of the internet (HTML, HTTP, IMAP, MPEG-4), it needs to be packaged into consumer-friendly and consumer-relevant concepts, terms, and products.
It would be nice, however, if Apple themselves decide to take a crack at some sort of consumer-friendly, RSS-based app. NOT a NetNewsWire, but something that used RSS as an underlying technology.
As they are currently, the implementations in Safari and Mail are almost literal format representations - “here’s a list of items in this feed. Have fun!” For my money, Mac OS X’s RSS screensaver is a better RSS app.
I love NetNewsWire. No matter how many alternatives I try, I always come back to it. But I’m not most people. It is very difficult to explain to most folks why RSS Can Help You, even people like lawyers, who consume huge amounts of information in their jobs. RSS needs a killer app.
RSS is still an acronym that leaves most people staring back at you blankly. In a lecture theatre brimming with netbooks, macbooks and dells, postgrad students are still new to the concept and filled with questions on its uses for business.
It is definitely gaining ground though. Evidence of this can be seen in the mass market handset from INQ. “Feeds” features in the main menu of the INQ1, and the home screen can run up to three RSS widgets that scroll through posts. It even integrates with the contact list, which has a field for a friend’s blog/site RSS.
Mostly RSS is helpful for condensing the reading of various sites into one page or viewing portal. It often cuts down the quantity of adverts that we’d normally be viewing peripherially.
What bothers me though is truncating feeds. Whilst I completely understand why it is often tuned that way, to me, the whole purpose of an RSS feed is defeated if I am forced to click through to the site to continue my reading.
