Into the RSS aggregator fray
Posted on August 19, 2003
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 60 views |
This article over at Wired has Dave Winer in a huff about the difference between aggregators and readers, who built what software before whom*, and which way is best and why the other ways short-change their users:
There are two schools of thought about aggregators. One says that they should work like a mail reader, the other that it should work like a weblog. The former shows you each feed as a separate thing, the latter shows all articles in reverse-chronologic order, grouping them by time. Imho we already have enough mail readers, wire up RSS to email and you’re done. Who needs another piece of software to do what an already-existing category does so well. But the latter, which is the approach I used in Radio’s aggregator, works incredibly well. People who are just using mail-reader style aggregators are really missing something. Articles that only write about mail reader aggregators are also missing something.
Sigh. Dave, if you’re not familiar with him, is an excellent software developer, has been developing Mac software for decades and has been extremely influential in promoting the adoption of RSS. With that pleasant preamble out of the way, Dave is also extremely obsessed with getting as much credit as possible and seems hell-bent on damning any approach that isn’t his own. He’s a man who’s word carries a sizable amout of weight, and he wields it mercilessly against his inferiors.
To Dave I suggest: it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter which aggregator came first. It doesn’t matter if the user chooses to use a mail-reader type app, a blog-type app or prints out each item of an RSS feed on paper and reads them on the subway. What matters is adoption, ubiquity and transparency for the user. Forget about being right, keep your eye on the user. Some want mail readers, some want blog-style, some dont’ want it at all. I say: let’s build what we built and let the users decide the victor. There’s no right way, there’s really no wrong way, there are just ways.
Brent Simmons also weighs in with some interesting, thoughtful observations well worth a read.
*For the record: on the Mac I figure the timeline of RSS reader/aggregator applications goes something like this: Plucky -> Pineapple -> NetNewsWire -> the rest. And before Plucky there were the web-based ones like Radio, Amphetadesk, and so many more that I can’t even remember them all. Or maybe they came after Plucky… and there might have been something before Plucky… ahh yes, the dockling apps… and… but like I said: it doesn’t really matter does it?
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