Microsoft to Embrace RSS in IE7

Microsoft is deepening its commitment to the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Web publishing standard and, according to a prominent blogger, will detail the level of its commitment on Friday at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle.

RSS, a standard used by bloggers and content providers to notify subscribers of new or updated content, is said to be of great interest to Microsoft.

Microsoft's interest lies in its desire to build upon the existing RSS standard and order syndicated data in different ways beyond "what's new." These new capabilities would benefit e-commerce and Web applications by enabling richer usage scenarios.

Some of these scenarios were touched upon in a blog entry by Dave Winer, one of the principals behind RSS.

"The people at Microsoft noticed something that I had seen, only peripherally -- that there were applications of RSS that aren't about news. Like Audible's NY Times Best Seller list, or an iTunes music playlist, or lists of Sharepoint documents, or browser bookmarks," wrote Winer.

Mr. Winer also revealed his prescience of Microsoft's strategy to integrate RSS deeply into IE7 and the existence of a working group at Microsoft devoted strictly to the standard.

"On Friday you'll see how deeply integrated RSS is in the architecture of the browser. But that's just the tip of what may turn out to be a very big iceberg," Winer said.