The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFahterhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

Really Simple Syndication: there's got to be a better name

My friend Amy Gahran has been running a very interesting competition on her Contentious site seeking a new name for RSS, which is typically defined as "Really Simple Syndication". The problem is that the name doesn't describe very well what RSS has become, but if you have a news aggregator like NetNewsWire or NewsGator you know the power behind the syndication model, the value of the RDF and XML buttons on weblogs...

So why not consider a new, more friendly, accessible and descriptive name for the RSS capability? Contentious has done just that, and the first round of results have produced over 200 suggestions, which is overwhelming to read through, though mildly amusing (my favorite wacky suggestion: "meatball").

I'm a judge of the final set of entries and as a method of making the process more manageable, I've been asked to pick my favorite half-dozen or so, and here's what I came up with:

BackChannel
DeskFeed
FeedLine
flashfeed
InStream
LiveFeed
ReadFeed
SiteFeed
Webstract

Being a rebel who has a hard time following directions, I also contributed a new possible name that I think would work well too: BlogPulse.

Whether you like any of mine, or perhaps are interested in the favorites of the other judges of the competition, Amy Gahran, Cathy Dold, Steve Outing or Randy Cassingham, I nonetheless encourage you to pop over to the site and vote for your favorite choice.

Posted by Dave Taylor at February 12, 2004 11:47 AM

Comments

re: "BlogPulse" IMO thumbs down because RSS is not only limited to blogs...

Since it is too late to enter I enter my submission here: "FeedWhacker"

;-) -PC

Posted by: PeterC on February 12, 2004 12:39 PM

Jeez! I totally spaced that RSS != Weblog. Thanks for the reality check. But FeedWhacker? I think someone already suggested it.

Posted by: Dave Taylor on February 12, 2004 12:42 PM

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