With the release of Firefox 2.0 and IE7, the world of RSS is changing. Stuff like USM are no longer relevant because both Web browsers will intercept those navigations to keep the user inside the browser. Previously, you could use techniques like USM to pass a click on an RSS feed to your native RSS client to kick-off a subscription request. Now, these browsers understand RSS and auto-discovery and they want to capitalize on RSS by keeping the eye-balls fixed in the Web browser.
Of course, Firefox and IE are absolutely horrid RSS readers, which don't compare to best of bread. This is leading to negative feedback, like Tim Anderson's "RSS in IE7: not too good." And here's another comment left by Bull, a reader of the RSS Blog.
What a pity that IE7 and FF2.0 developers do not explain how to make RSS readers compatible with one click subscriptions. I am still looking for any documentation on this topic...
And Tim and Bull are correct, in bringing RSS to the masses, the user experience has been compromised. In the next few days, I'd like to document what you should be doing as an RSS publisher and RSS developer in order to maximize your audience in this new Web.
