Russell Beattie

Hey look, I'm famous! :-) Now I know why people go to fancy-schmancy conferences, so they can accidentally sit next to reporters who call them later. I think the article is very good for what it is - an introduction to RSS for people who may not be on the cutting edge.

Russell Beattie, who writes software used on mobile phones, reads 170 Web sites, ranging from the BBC's to An Obsession with Food. Visiting each one daily would consume much of his free time, so he enlisted the help of one of the Internet's emerging technologies.

Beattie gets all the new postings from the Web sites sent to a single place online, via RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication. It allows users to get free, automatic feeds from legions of blogs and an increasing number of news services.

"I just read 190 items from three or four dozen news sources, and it didn't take me all day to do it," said Beattie, a San Francisco resident. "It's just been a boon for people to keep up with what's going on."

Verne did call back about Podcasting, which he describes near the last paragraph but not by name. Phew! I was killing myself over that one.

Since it's out there, I might as well point out that Dave seems to be completely pissed off about Web 2.0, the fact he wasn't invited and I guess the fact that RSS was prominently mentioned. Having had the absolute privilege of being there, all I can say is that RSS was not really the main focus of any presentation, though it was obviously referred to a lot. RSS was always mentioned in the context of Web Services in general, I think. Nothing to be annoyed about - RSS has won the syndication feed wars and is now expanding to other places. Not a bad thing.

-Russ