Eye on Winer

Dave Winer today:

Ask anyone who’s worked on a RSS reader, for that matter, ask anyone who’s used one, what a PITA it is to subscribe to a feed. All those little buttons, or copying and pasting, and looking at urls, and trying to figure out whether you want this format or that format. It’s a miracle anyone actually subscribes to feeds it’s so damned complicated.

What the hell? Has Winer subscribed to an RSS feed in the last two years? Once the major browser developers adopted a feed icon over his idiotic objection, subscribing to a feed became simple. Click the icon to open a page; see a preview; decide whether to subscribe. In Firefox it takes two clicks and supports any web RSS aggregator or desktop client.

The only reason it’s a pain in the ass for Winer is because he’s using his own software.

Mozilla community coordinator (and major muckety muck) Asa Dotzler:

Dave Winer, an early user and fan of the rss internet format, visited Mozilla HQ today. I stopped paying attention near the end of the Q&A when Dave said, “You could use my time better than this.”