contentious.com

The term “webfeed,” which won the recent CONTENTIOUS RSS feed nickname contest, has been showing up in some interesting places. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly catching on like wildfire, but so far it does seem to offer some attraction in various parts of the online world. We’ll see how this unfolds over time.

Here’s a quick list of some examples of “webfeed” being used in recent online discourse, as well as some opinions both favoring and criticizing the nickname, plus a bit about how people are getting exposed to this term…

SITES AND BLOGS USING THE TERM “WEBFEED”

Here’s a smattering of recent appearances of “webfeed” from around the Web and around the world:

• Chosaq weblog, May 19: Adding Furl Links to Your Site. This is a very technical weblog entry. I’m surprised but pleased to see the term “webfeed” showing up in this context.

• Imminent death of webfeeds predicted, film at 11, A May 19 entry from the weblog The Power of Many. No, the headline does not refer to the use of the term “webfeed. Rather, this entry highlights an interesting (though geeky) article by Mark Nottingham that disputes doomsayers’ claims that webfeeds will eventually crash and burn with increased usage because the concept “won’t scale.”

• XML Webfeeds (RSS and Atom) are the News Equivalent of TiVo, May 14, from Scott Wessman’s weblog Thirsty People.

• This May 14 comment on Active Words Code Grabber by Chopianissima in the ActiveWords software online community.

• Webfeeds contra Newslettering, (”Webfeeds vs. Newslettering”), a May 6 entry to Dirk Weber’s weblog (in German).

• My Nominations for the MarketingSherpa Blog Awards, a May 12 entry from Dana VanDen Heuvel’s online marketing weblog.

• I am a Subscription, a May 11 entry to the Permanently Disco weblog. I particularly love this excerpt: “Here is a nice little article detailing the webfeed phenomenon. And yes, I do realize it’s more common to call it RSS feed at the moment, but then it wouldn’t drive my husband near as batty as I constantly refer to it. And it’s all about driving The Husband batty, obviously.”

• Webfeeds and Waterways Sites, a May 5 entry from the intriguing weblog Granny Buttons (which covers the travels of the narrowboat Granny Buttons along the canals of England).

WEBFEED: SOME LIKE IT, SOME DON’T

As I expected, there was a strongly mixed reaction to the winning nickname. Some people like the term and, as evidenced above, have begun using it. Many people are neutral or lukewarm about it, and some definitely hate it. Of course, the people who hate it proved to be most vocal soon after the winner was announced… but as their criticism has died down, the gradual increase in the use of the term gives me reason to believe that the contest was constructive.

Here are a few examples of each kind of reaction:

Positive:

• On May 20, Heiko Hebig wrote in his popular weblog, “RSS feed? Atom feed? Syndication? XML? Webfeed! Now that’s a term (and concept) that even my mother might understand.”

• What’s in a Name?, a May 5 entry by Harold Check in The RSS Weblog. Says Check: “Knee-jerk reaction: I like [webfeed]. And I’m usually very skeptical of neologisms. I usually think they’re either too precious or too hyperbolic. In this case, the term is neither. I also like the distinction that Gahran draws between the “medium” and the “implementations.” Personally, I’d like to spend more time talking about the medium, as opposed to the technical details, and it would be nice to have the vocabulary to do it smoothly.”

Neutral:

• Our Expanding Blogcabulary, May 18th, from Feedster’s blog The Story of Feedster.

• Forget RSS. Blow Up Atom. Here Comes….Webfeed?, April 30, from John Battelle’s popular Searchblog. Says Battelle, “The RSS renaming contest has a winner: Webfeed. I don’t not like it.” (Don’t be confused by the double negative, he’s just saying he’s neutral on the matter.)

Negative:

Will People Rename ‘RSS’ to’Webfeed’? Ugh, May 1, from Dan Gillmor’s famous EJournal weblog. Says Gillmor, “A contest to give RSS a better name has come up with a worse name, in my opinion: ‘webfeed – back to the drawing boards, I hope. Not that I have any better ideas, of course…” Yeah, OK, he’s entitled to his opinion, but personally I think the “not that I have any better ideas” is the key part to consider here.

UPDATE: On May 19, the Poynter Institute’s Steve Outing posted this E-Media Tidbits item where he says, “I was one of the volunteer [RSS nickname contest] judges, and webfeed was my top choice – though I said when it was announced and still believe that it’s not ideal. The term is descriptive, even if not sexy, so maybe it will catch on and I’ll eat my words.”

…Heh heh, we’ll see. I’ll bring the salt and pepper for that meal, Steve, should it ever come to pass. You want fries with that?

WEBFEED TUTORIAL DRAWS CONSIDERABLE TRAFFIC

Ever since I first published my webfeed tutorial in October 2003, it’s consistently attracted more visits than any other part of CONTENTIOUS (except my home page and webfeed file). This is because many other sites and weblogs now link to that tutorial as a standard reference for their own audiences – usually as an explanatory link that appears next to the main link for their own feeds. Others link to my tutorial as a general explanation of the webfeed concept from within weblog entries.

When I revised and expanded my tutorial on May 4, 2004 to reflect a shift in terminology to “webfeed,” those existing links to the tutorial (as well as the many new ones that popped up after the revision) introduced a new and diverse audience to the “webfeed” nickname, even though most of the sites leading them to the tutorial are still using the term “RSS feed.” Some examples of this:

• Metaforix weblog, March 31, 2004: Wordsmith’s Delight. (See link “RSS”)
• The Source, Geek section. Info services news from Curtin Univ. (Australia). See resources listed under the item, “RSS (Really Simple Syndication) newsfeeds.”
• Dylan’s Lectionary weblog (See the “RSS feed” link.)
• Inst. for Interactive Media and Learning (Univ. of Technology, Sydney): “What are Blogs, what is RSS, and why are they important.” (See the link “RSS Feed Readers” and the resource list.)
• Down Syndrome New South Wales (See the “what’s this” link after the XML button.)
• ConferenceWire.com
• Purportal.com: See the link “Wha?”

Only time will tell whether “webfeed” will catch on. Again, I really have no particular expectations or goals in this regard. But it’s interesting to watch the ripple effects of this linguistic experiment.