RSS vs. RSS – A Tale of Two Icons

Software

A tale of two RSS icons

A blog entry posted on SomeRandomDude.net has got some pretty lively discussion about which icon is better suited for mainstream use to represent XML feeds on websites and in browsers.

Which do I prefer? Dave Winer's original XML one! XML. Why?

  1. It was the first one

  2. Its still [currently] the most widely used one on websites

  3. It can be represented with just CSS: XML

  4. Because it doesn’t say rss or atom it can be used to represent any type of XML feed. Aggregators these days are sophisticated enough to tell the difference; we as humans shouldn’t be fussing over what it is at this point… I would hope.

  5. I think the Mozilla (and now IE7) version with the lines is misleading because it implies a wireless signal, or it could be music, or it could be energy… in any event regardless XML feeds are client pull anyway, they don’t broadcast anything!

Eventually though I don't care which one wins. We're talking about tiny pixels on a screen, this is not an Earth changing event!

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