How not to promote RSS « Life is grand

How not to promote RSS

Ian Forrester’s “The Perfect RSS Aggregator On Any Platform” list is quite something. It could quite easily be condensed into a list of TLAs. APML, OPML, WebDAV, RSS, Atom, FTP, Samba, XSL, XML, eRDF, RDFa, CSS, Microformats, XUL, XPath, PDF and finally, WTF.

As Apple surges ahead in usability, as 37Signals succeeds by focusing on simplicity and What You Need the rest of the computing world adds acronyms and puts technology front and center.

The perfect RSS aggregator wouldn’t have RSS in the title and wouldn’t be a list of features. It would be usable, elegant and simple, able to manage the glut of information without revealing a single TLA to the user.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 11:35 am and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 3 Comments

Chris Saad 1 year ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Paul, the value of all these TLAs is not the technology, but the value they represent for the user.

Even 37Signals use HTML, CSS, AJAX, Microformats, RSS, JPGs and PNGs - doesn't mean the user needs to know about it.

The trick is for product vendors to leverage all the technology to create human experiences. That's all that matters in the end.

reply edit reblog flag record video comment

http://www.faradaymedia.com

Paul Watson 1 year ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

But 37Signals doesn't sell their app. on the basis that it does HTML, CSS, Ajax etc. They sell it on usability and as a tool for the job.

TLAs are for us developers to use in the background to deliver functionality tot he user. Not to put on the apps. box.

reply edit reblog flag record video comment

http://www.paulmwatson.com/

Chris Saad 1 year ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Certainly - there comes a time when these technologies mature and need to "cross the chasm". At that point the TLAs need to give way to simple value propositions.

In Ian's case, however, he is in the Early Adopter category and would like a tool that pushes the limits using all the raw technologies at his disposal.

For the mainstream there is Live Bookmarks :)

reply edit reblog flag record video comment

http://www.faradaymedia.com

Trackbacks

(Trackback URL)

Life is grand