InternetNews: Winer's proposal has two parts: technology initiative and industry alliance. The technology, he says, already is in use on his own feeds.scripting.com. Under Winer's scenario, the "subscribe" icon would be linked to a central server that engages in a confirmation dialog, then adds a link to the user's outline processor markup language (OPML) file.
Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster, a search service for blogs and feeds, doesn't like the idea. "The issue with Dave's proposal, both commercially and technically, is centralization," he said. Instead of a centralized service, he likes the idea of a cookie standard for aggregators.
And speaking of Yahoo, Jeremy Zawodny, the media company's blogging evangelist, responded to internetnews.com's query via his own blog, writing, "Dave's proposed solution sounds a bit complicated. In my mind, this has always been solely a client/side problem. The fact is that you click on an orange XML button and the browser does the wrong thing." "The obvious solution is to fix the browser(s) or provide a helper app that can do the job if there's no obvious way to extend the browser," Zawodny wrote.
Randy: A good summary of ideas to conquer the Yahoo! problem.
