August 17th, 2004
RSS: It slices. It dices. It even makes julienne potatoes
The RSS specification, otherwise known as Really Simple Syndication, is slowly working its way into other applications. One of the more promising ones, according to a News.com report, is RSSCalendar. A trial version of it was just released by its developer John Pacchetti. Over 20 years has passed since the first group calendaring product hit the market (I used IBM’s Profs in the 1980’s) and somehow, Internet-based group calendaring where users of completely different calendaring technologies (such as you and your doctor) remains an impossible dream. Is RSS a jack-of-all-trades that will, amongst other interoperability obstacles, break through the calendaring logjam?
RSS maven (and fellow blogger) Steve Gillmor thinks it could be the official standard for the quid pro quo personal information-for-services exchange that, right now, often takes place without the end user’s knowledge (with RSS, there would be disclosure). Where else can RSS-cum-chief bottle washer step in and solve a thorny problem? How about spam? Much the same way NewsGator delivers RSS-based feeds into our inboxes, is there a way to flip the e-mail standard so that spam is stored on the sender’s server until the recipient explicitly requests its full content? That’s a question that WithGlee’s Todd Marshall has been asking me for almost a year. Maybe RSS is the answer. Pinpointing spammers, phishers, and the propogators of viruses could get a lot easier.
