Johnny Angel's Tech Media Blog

RSS vs RSS vs Echo Project -- stop wanking and let's drive

Just when RSS is heading down the runway -- major technology journalists "get it" (and even minor ones like me), and important content publishers are pushing feeds .. hell, even marketers can understand it -- something called the Echo Project comes along. The factions behind it say "never mind the months of working for momentum, the national press, the excitement and good will -- RSS can't do some of the things we think it should, so we need to throw it away."

Oh, and in the best tradition of software f--k-ups throughout history, let's make the backward compatibility questionable or nonexistent. And just so those great unwashed members of the public who might actually have used and enjoyed this new method of information access remain confused, let's change the name.

You might want to read Jon Udell's Web log entry about this.

But I have a message from the rest of the world for the boys (I use the world deliberately, since that's what they act like) who are tinkering with his:

You need to stop rejetting your carbs, tinkering with the rear springs, arguing about whether Mopar is better than Chevy or who makes the best motor oil. Instead, get out there and drive. Take people for rides. Stop acting lik brothers in a dysfunctional family.

Otherwise, that rich guy down the street called Bill Gates is going to show up with his 2004 Corvette and steal your dates for good. Worse, you'll have to hear from the grownups forever about how great he is and how much he knows about cars.

My metaphor might be imperfect -- since a specification such as RSS is not just analogous to a car, it's also like a road, defining where things go -- but the fact remains that the world does not want to wait while you argue. about RSS versions and dialects. (And heaven help us when people in the open-source community start playing marketer and dicking around with names. Hasn't the Mozilla/Phoenix/Camino/whatever-the-heck-that-browser-is-called-today debacle taught anyone anything?)

This is a little XML variant, not rocket science. It's much simpler than HTML, and few ordinary people care about the different versions of that, either. Without content, HTML would be just another forgotten terminal emulator.

Again, in RSS you already have a car that gets from point A to point B. The important thing is content. Content is the girl, her lovely reddish-blonde hair just waiting to flow in the wind, tapping her fingers with impatience just hoping that you'll take her for a ride.

Stop inhaling gas fumes in the garage, wanking and wondering what a girl without staples in her navel looks like. Get out there and drive.

Posted by Jonathan Angel at July 8, 2003 03:04 PM