blog.lmorchard.com

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RSS as a more generalized message queue for people

It seems that beyond carrying syndication information, RSS is a very useful and flexible way to get all sorts of application data pushed to a user over time. In the same way that a web browser is a universal canvas upon which limitless services and information can be painted, so (in an albeit much smaller way) an RSS reader/aggregator might also find its place as an inbox for time-related delivery of all sorts of information.
Source:DJ's Weblog: The universal canvas and RSS apps .

My thoughts exactly. Not sure if I've posted here about it, but I know during the whole RSS hubbub this fall, I'd babbled something about RSS being a messaging queue from machines to humans. Or a transport for timely ephemera to people. Or something like that. Basically, I'd like to see RSS, or something like it, used beyond just headlines. This is why I've leaned toward the RDF-in-RSS camp - I want to see lots of things besides titles and excerpts hung off the individual message events, and RDF seems downright nifty to me for this.

But either way, I like the expanded notion of RSS usage as a timestream-oriented stream of messages targeted at subscribed people.

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Archived Comments

  • Breyten

    Rss 2.0 modules are also down right for including information besides description and title.
  • l.m.orchard

    I really need to circle back to look at RSS 2.0 sometime soon. I remember thinking that it looked like a nice compromise on flexibility, albeit with still a few kinks to work out. So far, though, I'm still liking my stay in RDF-land, because once the "tax" is paid, all the data just falls nicely into the same pool and the same format. Whereas, although the non-RDF formats are simpler, they're not as useful to me.
  • Ehud

    I agree. For example, aggregators should be able to show calendars widgets, and syndicate date-based information. One use-case is an RSS feed for a department seminar. Doing something like this isn't hard, and there are RDF to Outlook convertors etc. I wish it would be more widespread.
  • BillSeitz

    I had similar thoughts. I seems like a pretty logical single format for reading... http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/UniversalInbox
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