Forget RSS. Blow Up Atom. Here Comes....Webfeed?
April 30, 2004
The RSS renaming contest has a winner: Webfeed. I don't not like it.
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Comments
What happened to the combined
"Atom RSS Syndication Enabler" == ARSE
As in, "ARSE feeds"
(inspired by Andrew Orlowski)
Can't we just go with feed? Its simple.
Hi John. Sorry you "don't like" webfeed. It's not a perfect solution, I know. But there's no way to please everyone.
- Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS
It's not a perfect solution, but it's also just as silly as having three semi-random letters associated with it. "Webfeed" doesn't describe what the content is to someone unfamiliar with "the web" or the concept of data feeds, plus with all the various non-compatible syndication formats out there (with different delivery capabilities) we still need to explicitly state what format and version we're using in order to actually use the beast.
Might as well call it Ralph v1.0.
(I also still don't understand what the phobia people have regarding acronyms is. Sure, they can be confusing out of context, but then, so can anything else.)
No no, I said "I don't not like" it.
In other words, I'm not sure how I feel, but the initial response was not negative.
ROFL!!!! Serves me right for trying to give up caffeine this week -- I've lost my ability to process double negatives! Sorry about the misunderstanding, John.
As I noted in my blog entry yesterday, I too had mixed feelings about the winning nickname. So did the contest judges. But all in all, I do think the contest approach was worth trying, even if the results are rather lukewarm.
Well, we'll see what happens with the term.
- Amy Gahran
At the ends of the earth...
I agree with Chad - why not just "feed"?
"Web feed" is clunky and redundant in the same way that "internet web site" is.
Besides, language usually evolves and declaring something to be so, doesn't make it so. "Web log" became "blog" because someone (apparently Peter Merholtz) coined it and it caught on.
Which reminds me, remember the "information super highway" that was so popular years ago? That old thing. "The web" is so much easier, isn't it?
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