RSS By Any Other Name...

Maybe it’s because Bloglines has, in a very short time, become almost part of my DNA, but I’m not cottoning to Google’s just-launched Reader.

It’s the interface — all clicking, no scrolling. Lots and lots and lots of clicking. If you subscribe to as many feeds as I do, it kind of makes RSS into work.

Interesting name, though, and interesting to watch the big guns groping to rename RSS to this utterly simple technology to a mass audience. Yahoo! doesn’t really call it anything. You just edit “modules” on the My Yahoo! page.

I hear MSN is gunning for “Subscriptions” as a more consumer-friendly moniker. I have my doubts. Aren’t subscriptions usually something you pay for — or is that old school think? Not according to a few people I’ve had this discussion with. The other thing about that word is the implication you have to give up something: a name or an address. That might intimidate.

And “Reader”? The Web is a text-based medium. You read e-mail on Google, you read search results, heck, you read a lot of stuff. That name doesn’t grab me, either.

All in all, I don’t think RSS is really such a scary acronym. Do you? Got a better term? Reply in the comment section, please.