Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo Email + RSS Integrates Blogs
yapplejax writes "In the new war of the Internet based applications, Yahoo is testing creating an email folder as the hub for RSS instead of using a web page for the feeds. " I've long thought this was the best way to do it- I've used web and application RSS readers for years, and email clients are simply a better interface.
The most fundamental difference between usenet and RSS is that Usenet is push, and RSS is pull. The push nature of Usenet makes spam really, really easy, and hard to fight. You end up accepting a lot of crap on your machine, and filter it out later. When you go to an RSS feed you know that there is control over it, and if one particular source starts spewing junk you stop reading it.
It also makes Usenet very democratic: anybody can say anything, anonymously. Those two things will always be opposite sides of the same coin. RSS requires more resources of your own (though there are a remarkable number of free blogging sites, so anybody anywhere can create a blog as long as they have Web access).
Unfortunately, the number of anonymous sources with brilliant information is infinitesimal compared to the number of people willing to spew crap into whatever data stream is available for free. And that's why bloggers won't go to Usenet: they lack the control necessary to keep readers. RSS gives them that control.