Redmond Ignites an RSS Fury

Microsoft refers to RSS as “web feeds,” sparking a controversy over its intentions.August 16, 2005
Microsoft’s decision to rename RSS as “web feeds” in the next version of its Internet Explorer browser has some influential bloggers accusing the software company of trying to reinvent web syndication technology and claim it for itself.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a tool that allows subscribers to keep track of new content that is added to a site by using an aggregator. RSS has become an extremely popular tool after an increasing number of news sites and bloggers have added the functionality to their sites.

Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon by offering RSS aggregation through its upcoming version of Internet Explorer, which is currently in the beta stage. The Redmond giant decided to refer to the RSS feeds as “web feeds,” doing away with any mention of the word RSS throughout the product.

Feeding Frenzy
Once noticed, this sparked a debate. Dave Winer, a rather influential blogger, was among the first to post a note about it on his widely read blog, Scripting News. Mr. Winer is one of the pioneers of RSS. His company, UserLand, ran one of the first web aggregators, My.UserLand.com, which allowed users to follow numerous blogs from a single web page using RSS.
In his blog, Mr. Winer also criticized Google’s decision to call its RSS content “feeds.”

"Like it or not Microsoft, the technology is called RSS. If you try to change that, for whatever reason, you will get routed around," wrote Mr. Winer in his blog. "Like it or not Google, the format is RSS 2.0. ... Go all the way, and just give it up, and accept the gift, the way it was presented, without trying to edit, revise, fold, spindle, or mutilate."

Other bloggers like Richard MacManus, whose blog Read/Write Web, have supported Mr. Winer’s stand but with a cautionary note. Mr. MacManus wrote that Microsoft and Google should not mess with the brand because "it's bigger than both of them."

“But that doesn't mean they won't succeed in turning the brand into 'feeds,' because as the two biggest Internet companies around—obviously they hold a lot of sway,” said Mr. MacManus.

Tempest in a Teacup?
Microsoft has tried to defend its decision in the blogosphere, the online world of blogs. Mike Torres, MSN Spaces lead program manager, responded that not just Microsoft but many other companies too have chucked the name “RSS” in favor of their own nomenclature.

For instance, Firefox has “Live Bookmarks” on its browser, which is basically aggregation of RSS feeds into the browser. Bloglines, a web-based news aggregator, uses the term “feeds” throughout its site without really mentioning RSS anywhere.
“Looks like millions upon millions of people are using RSS, the technology, but not RSS, the brand,” wrote Mr. Torres.

Technology analysts said that the issue of rebranding of RSS is a tempest in a teacup. They noted that the name RSS has itself evolved over the years.

In 1999, RSS was called RDF Site Summary, and the first to use it was Netscape in its "My Netscape" portal. Later, the name was changed to Rich Site Summary which finally evolved into its current name of Really Simple Syndication. “Another change would be consistent with RSS's evolution,” said Joe Wilcox, senior analyst at JupiterResearch.

Mr. Wilcox cited the example of HTML, where most people use the term "web pages" rather than HTML. RSS, he said, will go the same way.

“If RSS proliferates the way Microsoft envisions, it will largely become invisible the way HTML is today—used by many applications and in ways not necessarily obvious to the users,” said Mr. Wilcox. “The existing term would likely become meaningless anyway.”