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IE And Mozz Collaborate On RSS Icon
sylverboss writes "The Microsoft Team RSS blog is reporting that IE7 is adopting the RSS icon used in Firefox. They all agreed that it's in the user's best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser.
The increasing collaborative efforts between the browser vendors in the last few weeks is an honest attempt to create a standard Web interface for everyone, no matter what browser is used."
I wouldn't call it that. IE's trying to share the icon with Mozilla, so when IE7 comes out, it's easier for Mozilla users to migrate back to IE.
That's a FAR more important issue than, say, intrepreting W3-standards in one common way amongst all browsers. Really. I'm glad they cooperate in fields that tremendously important.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
Embrace: The company publicly announces that they are going to support a standard. They assign an employee or employees to work with the standards bodies, such as the W3C and the IETF.
Extend: They do support the standard, at least partially, but start adding company-only extensions of the standard to their products. They argue that they are trying only to add value for their customers, who want them to provide these features.
Extinguish: Through various means, such as driving use of their extended standard through their server products and developer tools, they increase use of the proprietary extensions to the point that competitors who do not follow the company version of the standard cannot compete. The company standard then becomes the only standard that matters in practical terms (a de facto standard), and it allows the company to control the industry by controlling the standard.
Pessimists will say that it will make it more likely for people to switch back to IE, but for people like my parents, now that they've got Firefox, they really like it and are unlikely to go back. However, switching from one to the other leads inevitably to "what does this symbol mean" here and there - and if that's eliminated, then it makes it even easier for me to move people to firefox, because it's not that radically different from what they used to see.
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
Honestly I think it's great that IE and Mozilla are "working together" on this one. However, having read the original posts some months back when the IE team was still deciding on an icon to use, they really didn't present a better alternative. What they did have was a mozilla-esque RSS feed icon and users were very happy to point out the similarities between the two. Out of the 5 or so icons they presented, the one that really seemed to catch on was the one that was most like Mozilla.
The icon just seems to work, and I applaud their decision to use it.
Mod parent off-topic, please. Parent has nothing to do with grand-parent; he is butting in up top for visibility.
Consider this if the IE team chose a vastly different icon:
IE is the dominant browser. The people who are most likely to be using Internet Explorer are also the people who are most likely to not realize that Firefox might have originally created the icon or even care about it.
All they will see is that when their friends try to switch them to this "newcomer" browser, it uses a different icon and poor old IE user gets confused and don't feel like switching. The less barriers, the less little things that add up, the lower the learning curve for people to switch. While it might not seem like much, these things pile on top of each other for someone who only knows IE as "the internet" and was not previously aware that there is something else out there.
"Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience."
On the other hand, why should an Atom feed have an RSS icon? The problem with using "RSS" as the label is that it's an implementation detail, not a functional description. It's just like referring to Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc. as "web browsers" rather than "HTML viewers." One describes the function, the other describes the implementation -- which could change (say, by using XML+XSLT instead of HTML+CSS).
FWIW, Opera uses a similar icon to Safari - a white "RSS" on a blue background.
While I think this is a 'good thing' for all concerned, I would not be sharing that icon for free. Microsoft should be required to license it from the Moz folks. I'm not talking anything uber-subtantial, but a reasonable donation for the rights to use this icon should be something the parties can figure out together. Sorry, but as an IT Director, I see how much money Microsoft sucks out of my company, and I think it only fair and rational for our friends at Mozilla to benefit from this. Pete
You think this doesn't matter? It's like the "want of a nail" story. Most people don't know about RSS. Coming up with a standard representation in the browser will allow sites to standardize on the icon. The icon will be seen more frequently, become more familiar, and then with that familiarity the awareness of RSS will increase. This is a good thing. Something small can have a big effect.
Their art department doesn't have to waste time and money developing their own icon and they get credit for "working together".
Personally, I just uninstalled FF earlier this week after getting fed up with its inability to load pages consistently. For reasons I can't fathom, even with default settings, FF will sometimes hang on pages that don't load fast enough. IE, on the other hand, is very robust in this regard. I miss the tabs, but I really like having pages always come up.
Yes, I filed a bug report. It was dismissed arrogantly with the statement "millions of people have no problem with FF." I wasn't the only person who filed such a report, either.
Once Microsoft started making web-apps one of their core strategies, browser compatibility immediately came to the forefront. Why? Because they looked at the trends. Eventually, Joe Public will wonder why everyone is using that Firefox thing, and will want to know how they can use it. Microsoft can't sell web-apps effectively, especially to the consumer level, if IE is the only browser that supports them. They would be alienating a huge amount of potential customers (the Mac users, or Linux users, or just windows users tired of IE shooting themselves in the foot), and considering that group is only growing, they must have realized it's just a plain stupid move.
So in other words, they'll only cooperate insofar as it helps their web-app strategy. Will we see XUL in IE? Nope, because they won't be making anything with XUL, and thus it would only help the competition. There's the trick right there; find a way for microsoft to make money and you'll spur them into action every time.
MS used the browser to get Windows on every desktop. They have done that now. They won, so why maintain their weapon (IE).
You have this one point completely backwards and so the rest of your argument is moot.
Windows was already on every desktop when they released IE to compete with Netscape Navigator. They used the fact that Windows was everywhere in order to get *IE* everywhere, not the other way around!
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Its funny... ms gets bashed no matter what it does. If MS left it unpatched, there would have been an article about that. With comments crying 'MS and Sony are paying each other off blah blah blah DRM blah'
you do know that you can open things in a new window or a new tab. Depending on the site, I do both. I like to have the choice. What reason could you possibly have to be against tabbed browsing as long as they let you open things in a new window as well?
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Semantics! It's actualy more of a news portal site. Also, Why do i give two shits what the RSS icon is supposed to look like? I mean, its nice that they want to get allong and everything, but shouldnt they be worried about other things?
And with all of the popularity for themes and customization, why are they working to make a single interface for all the browsers?
What they should be doing, is working with eachother to get each website to render the same...
Anyways, on to more important things... shall i use IE or FF... I do like IE's blue back button...
First, don't reply to the first high-score comment in order to get your comment to appear at the top of the page. That's just annoying. Your post had nothing to do with the parent.
Second, if you think about Microsoft's attitude towards previous competitors, this is an enormous step forward. I mean, I'm still in shock myself. Cooperating with the competition (though MS probably still considers Firefox, Konqueror, and Safari small fry) is unheard of and practically blasphemous. It seems to me that the MS is actually trying to take IE7 in the direction of a really decent web browser rather than just another tool to monopolize the desktop. If the result of this cooperation is that IE7 turns out to be a halfway decent browser, I might not be quite so adamant that all my friends and family use Firefox exclusively in the future. The one thing I'm still waiting to hear on is actual web standards compliance.
Third, how do you know for sure that an RSS icon is all they talked about? The icon is probably the only thing they decided on for sure. We don't know what issues they might have been discussing tentatively, but there must have been a lot more. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. This meeting opens the door for future collaboration.
If I take a quick look on history Microsoft already cooperated with IBM on OS/2 and later with Sun on Java.
And we all know how these cooperations ended.
Is it right? Not?
So how is it that, despite the Opera, MSIE, Netscape, Firefox and Mozilla icons all looking completely different, people still manage to get onto the web?
Besides, anyone interested in RSS is savvy enough to know the acronym without the need for a pretty standardized icon.
Heh, Christmas IS celebrated sometime in the summer(for us). Please don't move it.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Doesn't look like collaboration to me... last time I checked it takes two to collaborate, whereas here Microsoft is merely following Mozilla's lead...
I may be wrong but you're downright ugly!
From: jane@microsoft.com
To: john@mozilla.org
Subject: RE: Re: RSS Icon
Thanks!
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--- Original Message ---
From: john@mozilla.org
To: jane@microsoft.com
Subject: Re: RSS icon
Sure.
-John
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It always depresses me to see microsoft implement a standard. Because a standard microsoft implementation means proprietary extensions that violate the entire concept of a standard.
I don't get why Microsoft thinks "RSS" would be more confusing than "dot with quarter circles". Just use "RSS" like Safari does, make it blue, orange, whatever.
When I first saw that icon I didn't have any idea what it meant.. I thought it meant "connected to the internet". It's WAY too subtle and doesn't convey ANYTHING. At least "RSS" is the *name* of the technology.
Microsoft just doesn't have a fucking clue about usability. Do you really think people are even going to see that icon? It's just more noise on the screen. My computer illiterate mom knows what RSS is, but doesn't even notice the orange icon.
And if you are one of those geniuses who thinks "OH NO, TEH RSS IS CONFUSING LOL!" think about the following: DVD, VHS, CNN...? PEOPLE CAN REMEMBER ACRONYMS. And they can use them to ask questions like "hey computer guy, what's RSS mean?"..
Let's not standardize on a tiny, meaningless icon, please.