Turns out the internet really is a series of tubes

I was 11 years old when I got my first 1200-baud modem. Shortly after realizing what a computer geek I had become, my parents asked for my opinion, “Scotty, do you think it’s worthwhile to get a CD-ROM for our computer?” “Naw,” I said, “That CD thing is just going to be a big fad, like those tape-backup drives.” That was 1988 and yes, every computer still has a CD-ROM as a critical part of its operation. I was similarly prescient when blogs and RSS technology first came on the scene. By then, I was a moderately-respected online media expert and my comment that blogs were nothing more than “…easy to update homepages and would never represent a valuable advertising opportunity.” Were thankfully never recorded, *ahem*, until now.

Now this RSS thing has really taken off. I was wise enough to poo-poo it only to myself. And sure enough, my life has become as inextricably linked with RSS feeds as it is with CD-ROM’S and making blogs into excellent advertising opportunities.  My particular set of tubes (feeds) are all interwoven and networked and run both directions. I can text message an update to twitter from my cell phone, Twitter then updates my facebook status, and the twitter feed you see in the sidebar of this blog, the mytwitter on my iGoogle homepage and of course the twitter app, back on my cell phone. It updates all my friends apps and their RSS feeds and then it displays a peanut butter and jelly sandwich pieced together from my Flickr photo feed. Okay, not really, but it sure distributes a one-liner in a lot of different places in a lot of different ways.

RSS stands for really-simple-syndication and is literally turning how people read and digest news on its head. Two companies, Feedburner and Pheedo have managed to make a business out of RSS feeds but it still feels like early days, especially for the twitters of the world whose user base almost assuredly does not want their one-liners broken up by even a one-word advertisement. Good thing for RSS it was a technology I thought little of it when it first came out, which absolutely ensures its success.