Really Simple Syndication
I was first introduced to RSS via a blog that I visited many years ago. It recommended Google Reader for its readers, so that they more easily could keep up with their updates. At the time I wasn’t as geeky and as familiar with the internet as I am now. After I’d seen Google Reader’s website I chose not to come back in a long time.
Why?
Really Simple Syndication didn’t seem so really simple to me at the time.
A couple years later, I read something about NetNewsWire on Daring Fireball, a site I just recently had discovered. I had just gotten my first MacBook Pro, and was notably more geeky than the first time I had seen Google Reader.
When I went to the site to set up a new account I was surprised to see that I had been here before, and didn’t really need to do anything else than enter my login details in NetNewsWire. From this point and on, RSS was indeed really simple. I just clicked the blue RSS button in Safari’s tab or the orange one on a website, and NetNewsWire automatically added it to Google Reader.
That was it.
When I got my iPhone, I found that NetNewsWire existed here as well. Google Reader suddenly seemed genius to me, because I could sync all my read and unread articles between the two as I wanted. When I also discovered Instapaper, the function of RSS seemed much clearer and more purposeful to me. I could finally have a decent and understandable use case for it.
That was 2008.
My first encounter with RSS was in 2005.
It took three years for it to stick. Granted, I didn’t give it a fair shot the first time, but that’s not the point. The point is that it took more than a day, week or month for it to stick.
Whether it’s me or my mother, my aunt or my brother, it wouldn’t stick without us wanting it. It wouldn’t stick without an effort from us.
That’s why there is no more RSS support in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
Really Simple Syndication.
Yeah right.
