Raw

A comment from James Corbett (in relation to feed-unsubscription) I reckon is worth repeating:

I'm actually coming to the conclusion that the whole subscriptions mindset is a problem and that in future we'll 'graze' for the most part instead of subscribing. As Zigbee sensors, RFID chips and GPS trackers proliferate we'll be drowing in an RSS-everywhere world if we don't change our approach.

We don't subscribe to all the sensory feed in physical world, we sample, nibble, taste, glance. Taskable and OPod (and whatever Kosso's working on) are first generation "Feed Grazers" IMHO. They allow you to graze feeds without ever subscribing. All we need is for static OPML directories to proliferate and for OPML search engines (like Gada.be) to improve at building multi-level hierarchies on the fly.

Ubiquitous computing is on its way, and interaction paradigms that reflect those of the real world certainly stand a much better chance of working.

I think the last couple of sentences miss the mark a little though : "static OPML directories"? - it's no harder to dynamically generate directory data, and they're likely to be much more interesting in this context. I'd drop "hierarchies" as well - the world is not a hierarchy, neither is the web. A hierarchical view can be useful, but the model just don't fit. OPML is fool's gold.

Having said that, when I next get chance to play with aggregator bits I think I'll set up one or two "Reading Lists" just to demonstrate that simple stuff like this can still be done simply, without having to dumb down your world entirely.

It has to be said that the "Simple" marketing trick is remarkably effective: "do you want it simple, or other?". Who in their right mind would choose other? 9/10 this isn't an accurate view of the options ( other may be no harder, simple may in fact be stupid), but by polarising things the perception is disconnected from the reality. (This isn't that far from the religious fundamentalist trick of saying the discussion of the arguments of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design should happpen in schools, it brings a perception of legitimacy through the back door, and makes any criticism appear wrong in principle).