A stable RSS.
At some point, I hope RSS stabilizes, people stop fighting over it, and just let it be. It's very useful, really very simple, and it belongs to users, not techies. It's unique in that regard, most XML specs are incomprehensible to people who use the stuff. RSS is quite comprehensible, by design. [Dave Winer]

I'm not really following the software industry long enough to say, but it seems to me that every format either evolves or becomes obsolete. Am I wrong here? If I'm not, is there something different about RSS that this rule doesn't apply?

Update: After getting some feedback I realized I meant superseded, not obsolete.

[Sjoerd Visscher's weblog]

Related to this is the idea of RSS as a Killer App I fisked in by blog at:

http://blogs.salon.com/0001455/categories/rss/2003/08/07.html

and establised the Fisking topic on it at:

http://www.quicktopic.com/23/H/cHqGu4tNdNxYi

The Stones Down with RSS
I figure if the Stone "get it", than other mainstream media are not far behind, here is Dave's post on this:
http://davenet.userland.com/2003/07/30/rollingStoneSupportsRss20

Rolling Stone supports RSS 2.0
Wed, Jul 30, 2003; by Dave Winer.

Sex, drugs, rock & roll?

In the last piece I talked about the transfer of the RSS 2.0 specification from UserLand to Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. That's interesting, of course, to people who are concerned with technology, but what about people whose concern is sex, drugs and rock and roll? Well, we have something for them too.

Another Computerworld article only this time by Dan Gilmor relevant to this Fisking topic, again with an abbreviated URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jbmr

"RSS is starting to catch on"
that was blogged by Ranchero as follows:

Computerworld: RSS Starting to Catch On. Dan Gillmor, writing for Computerworld: “People will discover, sooner or later, that this format can save time and money—and may be one of tomorrow’s keys to communications.” [ranchero.com]

Another article of including in this Fisking topic is:

RSS killed the infoglut star
which originally appeared in an article "RSS killed the infoglut start" by Chad Dickerson at Computerworld
I shorted the URL for your convenience:

http://tinyurl.com/jbmd

RSS killed the infoglut star "...When I started using an RSS newsreader daily, some remarkable things happened that I didn't necessarily expect: I began to spend almost no time surfing to keep up with current technology information, and I was suddenly able to manage a large body of incoming information with incredible efficiency. My newsreader has become so integral that it's now sitting in my Windows startup folder along with my email client and contact manager. I'm humming 'RSS Killed the Infoglut Star' when I fire up my RSS newsreader in the morning. "

A relatively simple article that touts the advantages of RSS. Sadly, this article doesn't have an RSS feed... (jobert)

[via Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes]

This was my response to Dave's article, which I posted to my blog at:

http://blogs.salon.com/0001455/categories/rss/2003/07/24.html

Mere Mortal's Response to What Changed with RSS

A Mere Mortal'S Response to "What Changed With RSS?"

http://scriptingnews.userland.com/stories/storyReader$2122

First off, let me be clear I am not a coder or much of a geek. I am though a professsional and have a certain degree of expertise. So my response comes from that perspective. My recent revelations with RSS serve to illustrate why severely normal users are getting so excited about RSS. For me it has all the feeling of when I first saw an Apple Lisa, in 1983. Sophisticated power to the owner of the information!!!!No longer would I be at the mercy of the IT professionals, who forced me to use, gag, DOS! Of course the Mac delivered on that power to the people theme, and then the combination of the Mac, Laserwriter and Pagemaker were the clinchers, so that personal computing would never be the same!

This past weekend was a clincher for me, in that I discovered the myRSS, which gave me the ability to damn it, create feeds for my favorite sites, so that I could use my favorite newreader with them and not have to wade through unecessary webpages!

http://www.myRSS.com

So once I rolled my own feeds using myRSS, I got then use Radio to both read the feeds, and post them to my weblog! Essentially creating some form of professional journals on my areas of expertise, that would effectively monitor my specific area of expertise on a global level!!!!

Not too shabby! Global monitoring of an topic area, all done by a professional, not contrained by waiting for IT professionals, that I would never be able to afford!!!!

Yahoo, Power to the Professionals!!!

Yahoo, Power to the Owners of the Content and Knowledge!!!

No longer restricted to begging for IT support, but able to "JUST DO IT!!!NOW!!!!

That is the kind of power that RSS offers the professional, to both create knowledge, and to set it up for easy distribution and discovery by other like minded professonals!!!!

To be able to both publish, and to share information in your topic area, and to read others writings with the least hassle and the maximum impact!

With the rush of success using myRSS this past weekend, I went about and created an RSS category on my blog:

http://blogs.salon.com/0001455/categories/rss

This coupled with the new search capability provided by Feedster, starts to have a RSS Google like feel to the capability that is being generated right now with RSS!!!

http://www.feedster.com/

article is very short, and simple, its power is in the power of the technology to give power to the owners of the content-knowledge-expertise!!!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE WITH RSS!!!

From Mere Mortal to RSS Powered Super Professional!!!!

This Fisking topic has its origins in a post by Dave Winer, here is Dave's post that stimulated my creating a Fisking topic on it:

The Source of the following Fisking topic article, apprered in Dave Winer's blog at:

http://scriptingnews.userland.com/stories/storyReader$2122

What changed with RSS?
Thu, Jul 24, 2003; by Dave Winer.

Something remarkable changed with RSS in the last few weeks. Everyone has their own point of view, so far we've mostly heard from the detractors, but here's a couple of things that have changed that are major positives.

1. Other developers stood up to defend it.

2. Users are explaining it.

It's good that people other than myself are standing up for it. The more people do this, the less personal the discussion can be. Do I have supposed character flaws that are shared by Jon Udell and Brent Simmons? We all couldn't be more different from the others. If you want to object to RSS, keep the discussion on the merits of the technology. The personal issues have been taken off the table.

And since users are explaining it, it matters less what developers think. This is the magic part of RSS. It was designed so that users could understand it. But users are so easily intimidated. I promise you, RSS is not complicated. Anyone who makes it sound complicated is misleading you.

One thing that isn't new is that new applications are coming online daily. RSS has always been a very deployed format, right from the start. And the format isn't so interesting as the ideas and information that flows through it. RSS gets richer all the time.

People who talk about it in the past tense remind me of evangelists of previous failed technologies. You never get anywhere, creatively, by trying to destroy creativity. Okay, so RSS needs defenders and explainers. Good news, it has them. For me that really is good news.