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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Thursday, June 23, 2005

RSS in Internet Explorer

Like many others, I was briefed this week about an upcoming Longhorn/IE/RSS announcement at Microsoft. It's happening Friday (tomorrow). Normally, I couldn't really discuss that kind of thing in advance, but the cat is already out of the bag, so to speak.

Last night, Dave Winer (insert megalomaniac joke here) wrote that "in April I visited Microsoft to hear about some interesting ideas they had about RSS. On Friday they will explain these ideas publicly. Today, with their permission, I have a preview of part of what they will talk about. I hope everyone who's interested in RSS listens carefully."

Here's some of what he wrote:

There's an RSS Team at Microsoft? Yeah there is.

On Friday you'll see how deeply integrated RSS is in the architecture of the browser. But that's just the tip of what may turn out to be a very big iceberg. The people at Microsoft noticed something that I had seen, only peripherally -- that there were applications of RSS that aren't about news. Like Audible's NY Times Best Seller list, or an iTunes music playlist, or lists of Sharepoint documents, or browser bookmarks. Lists are all over the place, and people are starting to move them around via RSS, and they are not the usual kind of data that has been carried by RSS in the past.

Anyway, there's a lot more to what they're doing, but I wanted to say in advance that I think what they're doing is cool. They apparently were concerned about what I would think. I want them to relax and give a really great demo on Friday.

CNET News.com, which was also briefed about this announcement, decided to run a story about the announcement today, since Winer had already publicly discussed it. As a result, I was given permission to comment on the small piece of news that was revealed by both Winer and CNET.

Yes, Microsoft is doing something cool with lists, including the way they are ordered. I will have more info available about this on Friday morning. Stay tuned to WinInfo Daily News for the full story.

But this is yet another example of the two edged sword that is my relationship with Microsoft. When I agree to NDAs, I often get screwed. This is a pretty good example of that. Oddly, it's usually CNET that sidesteps its NDA in these cases, though apparently this time they asked first. Good for them. As for Winer, he got this information "through other channels." Neat.

Update: Dave Winer wishes I would apologize for my earlier comments about him violating his NDA. Sorry, Dave. But as I noted to him via email, the information about the Friday embargo came from Microsoft and wasn't something I invented. On the same note, I've been screwed by CNET so many times I can't even count them. That they asked for permission this time is interesting, and welcome. The end effect is the same: I agreed to hold off on publishing information under NDA and that information was published online by others before the embargo deadline expired. I had found out about Microsoft's Longhorn/IE7/RSS plans outside of the normal channels and could have published something about it early as well, but I didn't. Life goes on.

My story about this is now available on WinInfo.

[ Posted at 3:47 PM | Permalink ]