Microsoft exec defends RSS rebranding

See correction below

A Microsoft Network (MSN) executive is defending Microsoft's rebranding of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) into "Web feeds" after a flurry of Microsoft bloggers accused the software giant of trying to recast the Web-site syndication technology in its own image.

In a recent post on his Web log "Torres Talking," Mike Torres, MSN Spaces lead program manager, made a clear distinction between the branding of the RSS technology and the underlying technology itself. He also said that Microsoft is adding its own functionality to RSS in the version the company is implementing in Internet Explorer (IE) 7. Because of this, its renaming of RSS is not a sign the company is trying to remake the technology for its own purposes but rather a way to make a distinction between RSS and a feature of IE.

RSS is primarily used by Web loggers and Web-based news publishers to keep subscribers informed when new Web log entries or news articles have been posted to Web sites. Microsoft is adding RSS functionality to the next version of Windows, Windows Vista, primarily through the IE 7 version of its Web browser. Both Windows Vista and IE 7 betas are available now.

"Just because one team at Microsoft (in this case, the IE team) is grappling with the naming of a single feature in a single product (that does a lot more than just RSS), it doesn't automatically mean we are trying to 'reinvent the technology,' Torres wrote in a Web log posting on Aug. 9.

Torres was responding to a post the same day by Dave Winer in his Web log Scripting News that accused big software companies such as Microsoft and Google of messing with technology they did not invent, a move he called "childish and self-defeating."

"Like it or not Microsoft, the technology is called RSS. If you try to change that, for whatever reason, you will get routed around," wrote Winer and a software guru who is credited with pioneering RSS and other Web standards. "Like it or not Google (Profile, Products, Articles), the format is RSS 2.0. ... Go all the way, and just give it up, and accept the gift, the way it was presented, without trying to edit, revise, fold, spindle or mutilate."
The debate raged on after Torres' response to Winer. In an Aug. 9 entry on his Web log Read/Write Web, freelance analyst and Web writer Richard MacManus wrote that he, too, believed that Microsoft and Google should not mess with the brand because "it's bigger than both of them."
However, he admitted that the companies will probably drive the adoption of "feeds" because as the two "biggest Internet companies around," they are extremely influential. And anything that drives RSS into the mainstream is a good thing, MacManus wrote.

This and other spirited debate in popular Microsoft-watching Web logs such as Robert Scobel's "Scobleizer" prompted Torres' most recent post Sunday, where he referenced a host of other companies and technologies that call RSS by another name.

In his Web log Torres mentioned Firefox, which calls RSS feeds "Live Bookmarks," and Newsgator Online and Bloglines, which both call them "feeds," in his defense of Microsoft's choice to rebrand RSS.