Microsoft accused of usurping an emerging net application and info professionals are suggested to sit up and take notice. Not so abundant of the non-story in itself, but the underlying trends that spell basic changes to their industry.
To place things in perspective, here is a tech flashback: On top of the dot-com bubble, when billions of venture capital Greenback was blown on a fifteen-minute cyber fad reaches the next - and the Netscape and Microsoft were in each of the deferent’s neck the vicious Browser Wars - trade media caught wind of a brand new slogan: 'Push'.
Push technology was visiting redefine the Internet. Why should we pay hours just surfing (I mean, how much fun that would sound?) If we can narrow our claims, and allows suppliers to push what we were looking for our desktop?
For one whereas sounded pushed as the answer to all our Internet needs and in 1997, seemed to push the player Point Cast must actually worth 450 million U.S. dollars bid created by News Corp. Two years later, Point Cast went just seven million U.S. dollars when you run into in the type of revenue issues that can blow up world-dot-com bubble.
Push was synonymous with the dot-com fiasco. Necessary to sounds bum note on a Silicon Valley party in 2001? Just slip "Boo.com," "Irrational exuberance" or "push" in the conversation. So sit back and watch them choke on their frappuccinos.
While the push may be dead and buried, it lives on - in spirit, a minimum of - in an extraordinary technology that has been quietly taking the internet on the sly. When pushing tried the direct approach, and not the new contender - RSS - have crept in through the backdoor.
Here's the tech stuff in a nutshell: RSS (which stands for Rich Website Summary, RDF Site Summary or Web Extremely Simple Syndication, take your pick) has emerged as the dominant delivery technology to news websites and weblogs.
RSS is in the shirt, a file format XML (no marker with this one, so it is extensible Markup Language), and frankly, even info professionals can end the most difficult part of their RSS training here.
For public relations better, get detailed information about RSS and how to use it is an absolute no brain - great news aggregators waiting press releases right now, so long as they are provided in RSS format. And RSS feeds of search engine results will automate the daily press clipping chores.
Even the slightest news and information websites provide RSS full compliance. Which is why many different developers and early adopters were outraged by Microsoft's perceived high jacking of RSS last month.
Words hit the streets to fight Bill was planning to check the RSS feeds as "net-feeds" in a future version of Internet Explorer. Foul, cried the nerds. Microsoft was simply renaming an existing technology, and should not be allowed to pass the technology as its own innovation.
But the furor was short lived when your geeks realized an overwhelming majority of PC users do not have a clue what RSS was, initially, let alone how to put it to smart use. And when it was conjointly realized that Google and also the open tender Internet browser Firefox also gave the RSS feeds more user-friendly names, Microsoft bashing died down to normal background noise.
Obviously skimmed most commentators in the heart of Microsoft's scare: Net Explorer integration. It does not matter what it is called, as long as the main actors look enough potential in it to deal with and extend their support to it.
Like it or not, Microsoft still has the largest share of the browser market, and if RSS is to continue his conquest of the network, so a little light from Bill may just the ticket.
No comments:
Post a Comment