"Great Picture, But One Quibble" by Amy Hoy

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 17:41:56 -0700

I totally agree with you about RSS. I think that for the tech superstars like O’Reilly, it’s already entered the passé phase. But RSS for stuff other than blog updates is a newish and very exciting thing driving all that openness. All that openness wouldn’t have gotten started without RSS, I think.

Great Picture, But One Quibble

harrisj@nimblecode.com (Jacob Harris) — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 00:09:00 -0700

Courtesy of Tim O’Reilly’s Foo Camp (which I am definitely not cool enough to be invited to), there is now a picture to match the exciting flow of ideas and themes coalescing into Web 2.0. I think this assemblage of bubbles and trends is a great thing to see, especially since it serves as a better executive summary of high-level ideas than gleaning bits and pieces of the big picture from blogs and demo sites across the web.

That said, I think one thing is missing from the picture they provide. Maybe I am a bit preoccupied with the subject, but I think RSS (or Atom here, I’m just using RSS as shorthand for syndication) is really one of the biggest things driving Web2.0 services and adoption these days, but it hasn’t even gotten a mention in the top as an influencing technology (unlike blogs or Gmail). I think blogs were great at establishing RSS as a way of keeping track of changes, but the really influential aspect of Del.icio.us and Flickr is not just tagging, but establishing RSS as a mechanism for tracking any possible view of the system you might want in as light-weight and user-friendly mechanism as possible (as opposed to the awkwardness of SOAP or even REST to the end user).

I think the source of my unease here is that I’m mostly a backend guy. A lot of my work at Alacra has been making sure that all sorts of information flows agilely between processes and servers. Backend stuff. It makes it happen, but if it’s working, you never notice how critical it is to success. Similarly, AJAX and other front-end browser mechanisms are very nice in my mind. But the biggest joys and successes of Web2.0 are all driven by the fluidity and ease of RSS and REST. “Hackability”, “Data as Intel Inside”, “Right to Remix” ... RSS made this a possibility and these are what drives me to take Web2.0 seriously and not just as another wave of web hype. All I’m asking for is a little recognition. Thanks.

Update: The good news is that it seems like I’m not alone in this view. The bad news is my company is Dave Winer.

Nimble Code: Great Picture, But One Quibble

"Great Picture, But One Quibble" by Amy Hoy

Great Picture, But One Quibble