Tipping Point: RSS is Raging
Regular readers of this blog know I'm a big supporter of RSS, to the extent that I believe that medical alerts should utilize this open format. Also, I want to make it clear that I believe that proprietary software can still compete in this arena, but the RSS model should serve as the standard against which they should judge their products.
Here is the evidence from the blogosphere: Dave's RSS is Raging; Doc Searls' The point tippeth over; and Jeff Jarvis' RSS winning over HTML.
Jeff states that RSS is getting more traffic than his HTML, and Doc says that "tipping point harbinger: Seth Godin has weighed in on (and with) RSS." Seth has talked about the topic of "virality" which is basically when word-of-mouth recommendations for a product reaches critical mass where enough people are interested to create general acceptance. I've long held the notion that HTML is inadequate, and for now RSS works the most efficiently, especially for smartphones.
The critical question to ask now is "Is this transformative or is it just buzz?" The RSS standard is only as good as its support for applications THAT change how you get your work done. It's time for the various verticals to prove that they can use it for changing work patterns for the better. The RSS mavens live and exist within their own developer culture (and you can watch them fight the RSS vs. Atom battle, although Dave has offered to create cross-compatibility between these two standards), but these developers must be willing to listen to the cultures of the verticals such as medicine to make sure that this standard addresses the particular problems that need to be solved. In the case of clinical medicine, one such problem is medication errors. Until the developers can understand and speak the language of these other idiosyncractic cultures, true success can't continue.
6:43:37 PM 
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