On April 13, Jason Kottke, author of the excellent weblog Kottke.org, published an intriguing article that explores the growing inadequacy of the label RSS feed to describe what CONTENTIOUS has begun calling webfeeds.
In “I think we should probably stop calling it syndication,” Kottke writes: “”Syndication” (via RSS and Atom) is about to hit the big time. It’s getting a lot of coverage in on/offline technical publications and will soon be covered in more mainstream glossy magazines and newspapers. …But is syndication really what everyone’s all excited about? I don’t believe so. …Things have changed since Netscape introduced RSS. RSS and Atom feeds are now largely read directly by people with newsreaders.”
Exactly!…
Average people care that webfeeds offer flexible and efficient access to fresh online content – not that they provide “syndication.” The word “syndication” is intended to impress publishers, not audiences. It looks at this valuable medium from the perspective of people who are already immersed in it – which is rather backward, I think.
(Thanks to Harold Check of TheRSSweblog for the pointer to Kottke’s article – and for his vote of support for the nickname “webfeed.”)
OTHER MEANINGS FOR RSS
The acronym “RSS” has enjoyed several prominent uses prior to the advent of webfeeds. Depending on which part of the world you’re from, some of these might come to mind first:
- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a major Hindu nationalist organization in India
- Royal Statistical Society, a UK organizations founded in 1834.
- Royal Scientific Society of Jordan
EARLIER USES OF “WEBFEED”
Admittedly, webfeed isn’t an entirely original term in the vocabulary of online media, either.
Recently in an e-mail, Nick Denton (currently president of Gawker Media, and a founder of Moreover Technologies) mentioned to me that Moreover trademarked the name “webfeed” in 2000, for an early RSS-based service. That trademark is now officially listed as dead (abandoned March 16, 2001), so CONTENTIOUS is not violating trademark by adopting and promoting its generic use.
Also, a quick Google search for “webfeed” turns up myriad uses, most of which relate to headline syndication. Examples include the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty, Planetizen, and IT Reseller News.
It’ll be interesting to see how the terminology continues to evolve and overlap on this issue.
