Google innovates by rebranding RSS

From Slashdot: Gmail Gets RSS. Everyone with a UID and Paul Stamatiou writes “Google’s Gmail email service now sports a new feature for displaying RSS feeds, dubbed Web Clips. You might remember this name, as it is the same name Google Desktop refers to RSS feeds. Web Clips for Gmail were announced a long time ago sometime during the summer but they were finally stable enough to release to the general public. You can check out the what’s new page for Gmail here. Essentially, you subscribe to a bunch of feeds and everytime you log into Gmail it loads the lastest title from each feed which you can scroll through with left/right arrows. Don’t forget to check the actual post about Web Clips for Gmail on the Google Blog.”

Google is doing evil. Why rename RSS? It seems like the same hubris that haunts Microsoft: they believe their users are idiots who can’t handle a new term. Is RSS an obscure acronym that will cause the technology to be rejected? People didn’t have a problem with “TV” or “ATMs” or “SUVs” “FM” radio works just fine, even if you’re not sure what it stands for. “RADAR?” “LASER?” Seems OK to me. Call RSS what it is.

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This work by Ted Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.