10 Biggest Microsoft Surprises of 2005

IZ Reloaded writes "The Microsoft Watch has a top 10 list of the biggest Microsoft surprises of the year. Among the surprises are Internet Explorer rising from the dead, Microsoft gets RSS and Microsoft Office team blogging. From Microsoft Watch: MS 'gets' RSS: While some folks were less than overjoyed that Microsoft was tinkering with the "little orange RSS box," Microsoft ended up looking like a company with a clue when it came to outlining its company-wide RSS strategy in 2005. RSS support will be built into not just Internet Explorer 7.0, but also Outlook 12 and Windows Vista itself. Almost all Microsoft blogs and sites have RSS feeds these days. RSS is gospel in Redmond these days."

Comments

RSS wouldn't exist if it weren't for e-mail spam

[michaelmalak]

In the old days (c. 2000), website updates were promulgated through e-mail newsletters. But those e-mails confused spam filters. So RSS came along.

Why isn't RSS subject to spam? Because in RSS, the recipient pulls the information from a known server, whereas in e-mail an arbitrary sender sends the information to a known recipient.

Now in the era RSS, recipients have to check two places: e-mail and RSS. Thanks to e-mail spam.