Don't Kill RSS! Please!

Facebook has been criticized for not letting data escape in the form of standard formats like RSS.

That's because RSS is a death sentance for any kind of privacy. Hell - the whole point of RSS is to be free as a bird.

The problem is that much of novice-level web 2.0 mashups have been made using simple RSS tools, and those aren't available for the Facebook.

So here's the suggestion:

Items that are of the "anyone can see" variety - the type that aren't protected by a user's privacy settings - those items should render into a user's news feed, which that user is then free to plug into different web services.


The only reason Facebook has to oppose this plan is because it is just after the pageviews, as some have suspected.