"Web." "E-mail." "Chat." Those are all wonderful names for components of the Internet -- easy to remember, instantly understandable. Then there's "
RSS," another great Internet technology that's burdened with a less-than-perfect (overly geeky) name. Several months ago,
Amy Gahran (an occasional contributor to this weblog) launched a contest to come up with an alternative colloquial name for RSS -- something as powerful (she hoped) as web or e-mail. She asked readers of her
Contentious weblog to submit name ideas and then vote, then left the final decision up to a small group of
judges. (I was one of them.) After delaying the decision on a winner for some time, Gahran has
announced the winner: "webfeed."
The colloquial name makes sense -- since RSS is at its core used for delivering custom feeds of website content, eliminating the need for people to remember to visit their favorite websites. But webfeed is far from a perfect name. The judges in this informal contest didn't feel overly confident that any of the names submitted were perfect. Will webfeed catch on as an alternative name to describe RSS? I have my doubts. I still think we need a colloquial name for RSS; the majority of non-geek Internet users don't have a clue what RSS is or can do for them yet.
Well, and what about the RSS competitors? What about Atom?...
