2005 August 16

The Brand Autopsy Surgeon General himself leaves Starbucks with this parting message to friends:

I've started my own business called Idea Sandbox. I'm going to help others develop wicked good ideas… Help businesses be more innovative about the way they stay innovative. Parting thoughts?

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Seems to be a mighty storm brewin' – a bit more powerful than a Nor'easter, too. Been a long time comin'. It's RSS, it's feeds, it's XML – it's all of the above. As an ex-English major, I'm torn. Does “Atom” really mean RSS? Does RDF really equal RSS 1.0? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop? The world may never know, but methinks RSS has officially entered the realm of Commodity. It's a digital Kleenex, a virtual Xerox. Some say “Coke” when they really want a Pepsi.
One guy screams: “RSS!” Another gal screams: “Feeds!” Another guy screams: “RDF!” Another gal screams: “Atom!” Joe & Judy Consumer scream: “I don't care!”
It wasn't bad enough we had to convince the world that syndication was a good thing? Here's the real problem: most of these arguments *ARE* correct. If I was forced to choose between one label or the other, I'd likely choose RSS. I hand out cute li'l RSS pins and cute li'l RSS t-shirts all the time – but I don't really care if a feed is Atom, RDF, RSS, or Bligmorp… so long as it works within my aggregator.

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