Steve Gillmor on Idiot Wind

 

Steve Gillmor says I was way off with my recent post about RSS (Reads, Not Feeds). (In fact, he titled his post, Idiot Wind, which might be his characterization of my speaking voice, but I doubt it.)

Stowe Boyd’s post about RSS is flawed. Flawed in that it is totally wrong. Scoble is right. Stowe is not. RSS will continue to dominate and eventually suck all the oxygen out of the glorious Web as we currently adore it. We as in Stowe. What possibly leads Stowe to the conclusion that RSS will not absorb all of the wonderful (sic) Web characteristics like blogrolls, whirling beanies, and other smoke and awe? RSS is the Web, Stowe. It’s the Web on steroids. It saves time. It wins.

It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

Hmm. As I recall the context was Dave Winer trying to rally support so that RSS would “bust through” if certain fundamental changes take place in the Web, including fairly major ones, like centralization of all subscriptions. Dave was responding to Fred Wilson’s opinion that RSS is not “brain-dead simple” enough for everyone to get.

My argument is simple: I don’t like RSS readers, and unless someone comes up with a set of appliances (which could certainly exploit RSS, note) that match the way I like to wander around on the web, I don’t think they will come to replace the foraging mode that I have found to be most productive. I am holding out for something closely allied with instant messaging, where RSS feeds related to buddies would alert me to new posts, and then I could click-through to read them in situ (this is the fabled Nerdvana client I have been wishing for out loud for so long).

And, no, Steve, I haven’t forgotten how to breathe just because I think this first generation of RSS tools are inadequate, even if Robert Scoble’s use of them has become as natural as breathing for him.