Microsoft's Dean Hachamovitz right now is on stage at Gnomedex. He basically announced widespread support for RSS in Longhorn and Internet Explorer 7.0. This includes: 1) improving basic RSS experiences for users, 2) RSS tools that empower developers to RSS-enable applications, and 3) adding new extensions to RSS that broaden it (all available via Creative Commons). I was pre-briefed earlier this week, however, Scoble just told me there's a full video demo posted on Channel9.
My initial take is that by embracing RSS in Longhorn and supporting "developers, developers, developers," (as it usually does) Microsoft will evangelize the platform in a way that no one else can. No one else is in the same position to bring RSS to the masses the way Microsoft is - and they will!
However, Microsoft needs to be very careful not to push the technology
too far so that it only benefits them. It will be interesting to see if
the extensions they are planning to add to RSS are truly open to
everyone on all platforms (e.g. Linux and Mac) - not just
Windows. Otherwise, it could be a repeat of embrace and extend
- which got Microsoft into a bit of trouble back in the heyday of the
browser wars.
My optimistic view here though is that they will get it right and keep it open for everyone and that today we witnessed a milestone day in the history of the Internet.
