You can syndicate any boat you row

Christian Crumlish

I know I just linked to Lockergnome's RSS Resource the other day and I'm also aware that I once said I was done posting about RSS here at Radio Free Blogistan. That turned out not to be true, of course, and was mainly a result of frustration about the funk wars.

Now I feel good, like there's some forward motion and even if I lost a few friends along the way, I've made a few others and so the universe is balancing itself out the way it tends to do.

I think that competition is good. If Pie ends up merely cloning all that is good and nice about RSS (and the MetaWeblog API) then it will have demonstrated no need for itself. If Pie identifies areas where RSS is deficient, then RSS may stretch itself to compete in those areas.

Already there's motion from both the independent SSF mailing list and wiki and the new RSS 2.0 advisory board. This is all cool. (For the record, I do have faith in Jon Udell). I think syndication and smart content exchange will only get more important as we tend this evergrowing archive of records of the thoughts and words of humankind.

Currently, RSS is at the heart of it. For a while I've thought there ought to be a website/publication dedicated to RSS - and, for that matter, a canonical list of aggregators - and I even discussed that idea with Chris Pirillo a month or so ago when he started coming out of the closet as an recovering-email-newsletter dude and born-again RSS evangelist.

Now Chris in his inimitable way (P.T. Barnum has nothing on Pirillo) has launched the definitive RSS site, as I see it, and I've accepted Chris Pirillo's invitation (so OK, I twisted his arm) to become a contributor to Lockergnome's RSS Resource.

My plan is to post shorter RSS news as it crosses my desk over there and save the Syndication category here at RFB for longer entries and more discursive writing about syndication, RSS, Pie, and so on. When I get a moment (I'm on a deadline right now), I'll also add headlines from LRR to my sidebar here.