RSS, RDF, XML
I never really understood the whole site syndication thing up until today. I thought it was more-or-less another arbitrary web technology… a fly-by-night implementation of the XML standard which, although sounds great in theory, never seemed to have any practical implementation to me.
How wrong I was
A matter of hours after download NetNewsWire my tune has changed completely, and thanks in no small part to Penny Arcade for getting me thinking “Hey, maybe these RSS feeds are worth a looksee”. The ability, the sheer pleasure, of having all my favourite weblogs and news sites scoured for new content automatically every freakin’ half hour, is overwhelming. No longer will I load up my browser and bring up a favoured site only to be disappointed by the complete lack of new content, for now I am empowered. I’m still generally a little miffed that most sites only syndicate summaries of their new posts, so if I’m interested in what’s available I do still have to fire up Camino and read it… but that’s a minor gripe. What is unforgivable is the number of sites out there who aren’t syndicating. What the hell am I supposed to do? Go back to my website-visiting-every-half-hour-ass days? Hell no.