Microsoft Getting Serious About RSS
After visiting the Microsoft Internet Explorer team and their RSS group, Dave Winer was surprised that Microsoft was thinking bigger than using RSS for lists and bookmark aggregation and management. Winer, the Godfather of Really Simple Syndication, writes “I found out, when I visited Microsoft in April, that while this is one of the applications they were considering, they were actually thinking bigger.” Dave found out that he was not meeting the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft but actually an RSS team devoted to new applications and innovations in RSS.
I asked what part of Microsoft he worked for. He said he was on the RSS Team. I gulped. You mean there’s an RSS Team at Microsoft? Yeah there is.
On Friday you’ll see how deeply integrated RSS is in the architecture of the browser. But that’s just the tip of what may turn out to be a very big iceberg. The people at Microsoft noticed something that I had seen, only peripherally — that there were applications of RSS that aren’t about news. Like Audible’s NY Times Best Seller list, or an iTunes music playlist, or lists of Sharepoint documents, or browser bookmarks. Lists are all over the place, and people are starting to move them around via RSS, and they are not the usual kind of data that has been carried by RSS in the past.
Anyway, there’s a lot more to what they’re doing, but I wanted to say in advance that I think what they’re doing is cool. They apparently were concerned about what I would think. I want them to relax and give a really great demo on Friday, and know that the OPML Editor will support the very simple extensions to RSS that they are developing, and I look forward to collaborating on further extensions and perhaps even new formats as we go forward. I am pleased that Microsoft is working with the community, this is a new model for them, and it’s hard for big companies to turn this kind of corner. I see that they’re really trying, and I appreciate that, and welcome them.
Looks like somethings brewing at Microsoft! Thanks for the heads up Threadwatch.
