« Shaking IT Up in Utah | Main | Tag Consensus »
One-Click Subscriptions to RSS
Dave Winer is proposing a one-click subscription service for RSS feeds. The problem with the current set-up, as stated by Dave is:
Yahoo sends emails to bloggers with RSS feeds saying, hey if you put this icon on your weblog you’ll get more subscribers. It’s true you will. Then Feedster says the same thing, and Bloglines, etc etc. Hey I did it too, back when Radio was pretty much the only show in town, you can see the icon to the right, if you click on it, it tries to open a page on your machine so you can subscribe to it. I could probably take the icon down by now, most Radio users probably are subscribed to Scripting News, since it is one of the defaults. But it’s there for old time sake, for now.
Anyway, all those logos, when will it end? I can’t imagine that Microsoft is far behind, and then someday soon CNN is going to figure out that they can have their own branded aggregator for their own users (call me if you want my help, I have some ideas about this) and then MSNBC will follow, and Fox, etc. Sheez even Best Buy and Circuit City will probably have a “Click here to subscribe to this in our aggregator” button before too long.From RSS:
Referenced Tue Jan 18 2005 07:42:36 GMT-0700
Dave proposes a service and a single, non-vendor specific icon that when clicked would add the feed to the user’s OPML on the service. Dave even has a prototype to prove it works: feeds.scripting.com.
This differs from what Bloglines does in a few important respects:
- First its non-partisan, as it were.
- Second, it should tie back to the aggregator so that the aggregator knows to automatically go check the OPML at this service whenever its starts up and update the subscriptions. NetNewsWire, my aggregator doesn’t play with Bloglines.
I support this plan. I think its a small step that provides real value. Furthermore, it begins a cooperative dialogue among various parties. Because Dave is proposing to make the code to the service public, this has the potential to become a lightweight version of UDDI for RSS and other RESTful Web services. I like that.
Posted by windley on January 17, 2005 4:38 PM
Comment from Boris Mann at January 28, 2005 10:18 PM
Argh! We have this already. It's called the Syndication Subscription Service. Any reason we shouldn't use it? It:
1) requires no centralization
2) doesn't depend on me storing *my* OPML files out in the cloud
3) works today
Comment from Boris Mann at January 28, 2005 10:20 PM
And it ate my URL: http://purl.org/net/syndication/subscribe/
Comment from Brian Carnell at January 28, 2005 10:25 PM
In what way is creating some centralized OPML repository in any way a solution to this "problem"?
Comment from pb at January 28, 2005 11:15 PM
"NetNewsWire, my aggregator doesn’t play with Bloglines."
It's sorta there:
http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/bloglines.php
I likewise don't understand the problem or the proposed solution. Shouldn't this just be handled with mime types or filename extensions? The one additional bit of functionality needed is the ability to route to web-based helper apps.
Comment from nb at January 28, 2005 11:55 PM
Why is this called the Yahoo problem on Dave's site? This is the Radio Userland problem as his post says.
Also the proposed solution says that there will be competitive directories. So we'll have a list of OPML directories and they will be the same companies (and more). The URL solution of using feed:// is terribly elegant - and uses technologies already in place and truly gives control to the user.
What will prevent the proposed directory from deciding it's too much work one day and shutting down? Not possible? It has happened to free blogging sites already.
Comment from John Robb at January 29, 2005 8:07 AM
Guys, this system would support two types of behavior. The standard cut and paste behavior and a simple automated system that supports both server side and client side aggregators.
Comment from pb at January 29, 2005 8:06 PM
Wouldn't feed publishers have to make modifications for this to work? Is there any chance of that happening?
For a glimpse of how this should be done, browse the web on FeedDemon and notice that when you come to a web page that also has a feed, FeedDemon provides a button to subscribe to it. All FeedDemon is doing is looking in the HTML for a link to a feed. Don't even need all the mime type and "feed://" mumbo jumbo.