Systems

Subscribe is the new search

Lorcan 1 min read

subscribe.jpgWell maybe a bit of an exxaggeration …
… but it is interesting reading the Microsoft discussion about how subscribe has joined browse and search as modes of interaction. This seems to be resonating, for reasons which will be clear to anybody who has set up watchlists in Technorati or uses PubSub.

With increasing adoption of RSS, the concept of “subscribing” to content on the Web is becoming more prevalent. As this idea continues to gain in popularity, users will be able to subscribe not only to blogs and news, but also to content-feeds (audio, video, documents, photos, calendar events) and lists (playlists, booklists, link-lists, blogrolls, wishlists, Top 10 lists, To-do lists). The next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, introduces rich support for RSS in the platform. [Longhorn Developer Center Home: RSS Support in Longhorn]

A major reason that RSS is gaining such traction is that it is at once a low cost option for surfacing resources in user-assembled workflows, and for inter-application communication.
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Image via Marc’s Voice.

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