Many geeks (and I mean that term as a compliment) are focused on the burgeoning world of RSS, aggregration, blogs, and the swirling flux in the center of these phenomena. The question I have — and I really want to answer this — is whether the geeks are right to focus so much on this intersection. Will all of this interest, attention, and energy spread to a more general audience, beyond the parties involved? Beyond those who not only know what a newsreader is, but have a favorite? I’m in the niche. I want to know if/when/how this clustering of interests and technology will break through to an audience that does not subscribe to 71 feeds in a dedicated client. An audience that doesn’t feel obsessed with keeping up with the flow of information, an impossible task. I think the search for another name for RSS misses the point. It’s not about the format, it’s about the data. Yes, I’m paraphrasing Willison, who was borrowing from Ruby while commenting on Zawodny’s mention that My Yahoo support Atom right alongside RSS (“it took 30 minutes”).
Readers care about reading. Publishers care about reaching those readers. The technical linkage between publishers and readers should be invisible to the readers, at the least — and most publishers don’t care to spend much time on the mechanics, either. So what does all the technical blather boil down to? That’s what matters… and I think we’re still waiting for the dust to settle.