Four Island

Okay, the other day, Bluemonkey sent me an email with a few links to some articles about RSS Cloud, a long-forgotten, but majorly AWESOME feature of RSS that hasn't really been implemented. Until now.

Basically, RSS Cloud is a tag in the RSS root that defines a "cloud" server that the RSS feed exists on. RSS readers that support the feature, upon finding that tag in an RSS feed, will connect to the cloud server in question and "subscribe" to that feed. What does that mean?

Well, when an RSS feed has a cloud, whenever something happens that will result in an item being added to the feed, a message is sent to the cloud saying "hai thar, i've got a new item!" And when a subscriber subscribes, it recieves all of the updates from that feed in real time.

Now what does that sound like? Yes, InstaDisc. But it has a few advantages and disadvantages over InstaDisc.

For the advantage, RSS Cloud is adding onto an existing method of data discovery, RSS. It doesn't require you to download some kind of new program, just the newest version of your favorite RSS reader. This also means that webmasters don't have to work as hard at making their feeds real-time. They would just have to add a cloud server to the feed and set one up instead of the complicated Subscription thing I had going on with InstaDisc.

However, it has a disadvantage. RSS Cloud only works if the subscribers' computer is web visible. Hey, that also sounds familiar! Yes, that's the reason why the first specification of InstaDisc failed. If RSS Cloud wants to succeed, it needs to take a leaf from the new specification: Use Reverse AJAX. Keep the connection open, use a heartbeat. Because the majority of people nowadays use routers and NATs and thus cannot be web visible.

So, there's my rant on RSS Cloud. It's awesome, but it has it's disadvantages.