Trackback 就是你在寫文章儲存後，會再發送給其他地方通知人家你的文章內有引用的技術。

詳細可上 wikipedia 找找，有很多資料的。

RSS is designed as a boardcasting/info distribution function…. don’t you ever talk to your TV?

I think we are getting into the discussion of web 2.0 now…. yes, the buzz word of the year (or is that last year?)

On one hand, you have rss for boardcast to readers. On the other hand, comment/trackback etc allow your readers to talk back to you. Now you have interaction. I think that’s a narrow definition of web 2.0 (please correct me…)

So, I think one way to look at it is if someone use html editor to write their blog, without rss/trackback and such. The blog is live in a web 1.0 world, VS, most modern blog sw/BSP promote a more web 2.0 experience that interaction is encourage between author and reader.

I don’t know whether there is such a thing as “web1.0” blog or not… and I don’t want to argue about it. But I think I recall reading that back in the beginning some blogger pioneers indeed use hand-craft html to write their blog… or a simple scripts to blog (without rss/trackback… that’s before they are conceived) before they are being call blog.

just my 2 cents.

Actually Text version of RTHK news also have RSS

所以換下來的問題，就是「既然有這些缺點，那麼RSS是否必要？」我引豬欄於 HKBG 的一句回覆 (她是在回應拙文中提及的那個本地 Blog System)：

以現今standard，無rss / comment / permlink 的話會是一個很失敗的blog 囉。好似手提電話之嘛，依家你重會唔會買無彩mon無得影相既電話呢？

手機可以影相拍片是否必要？不是，為的只是方便，但這些功能都已幾近成為新手機的 standard。而一部手機隨身影相拍片這些功能，也為用戶帶來新的價值：他們可以更容易地捕捉生活每一刻，與人分享。然而，現時手機功能也有一定程度上的限制，用戶大都要在拍完照/片之後，回到電腦上載圖片。

道理相同，RSS 不是必要，只是讓你可以中央化地處理你的網上閱讀/追踪，為的只是方便而已。這些方便，使我們更「能知天下事」。RSS 功能有所限制，不能處理資訊過載，動作只是單向，只能廣播不能窄播，技術還有待進化。

其實，推 RSS 有一半是為了方便，有一半是為了推「閱讀」，讓大家知道是有這種工具，讓你彈指間能夠取得各種資訊，眼界是可以如此放大。圈子可以由個人漸漸放大到家庭、社群、社會、國家、世界，關注更多應要關注的事。(理想上是這樣說啦…)

然而，如你所說， RSS 的主要問題，就是不能告訴你讀的是否垃圾。

oookie so you’ve let me know how powerful RSS could be – i can get updates on any information i need in one place, be it blog, photo, weather, schedule!

Then my question would become: why do we need such a centralized way to get information updated? because we don’t want to miss a thing? But why we have to be so insisted on not to miss a thing? How do I differentiate information that I feel OK to miss, and those definitely not OK to miss?

RSS does not tackle information overload very well, why? where is the problem?

My two cents are – RSS are still dealing with data, not information. It does not differentiate the feeds I’m subscribing. It’s me who have to differentiate them myself, by “managing” my feeds – group them into categories, rename them to jog down my remarks if necessary (“this blog title is weird but it’s actually by my classmate”), change alert settings for feeds, etc. But don’t u think it’s tiring for human to manage things? Managing RSS is like making people documenting every meeting/appointment/social activity on Microsoft Outlook (ok it’s overstated here but i am just drawing an analogy), do you think it could really work?

To summarize, what i’m trying to say is
1. if you don’t differentiate the feeds you subscribed, you suffer from information overload very easily when the no. of feeds grows
2. if you want to differentiate among the feeds, you need to take extra effort to manage them, but RSS doesn’t have a way for you to easily manage them.

Either way, RSS is not working. That’s why I ended up escalating the problem to a more abstract level – Do we really need a centralized place to check all updates of info? Technology allows us to, but it seems that we don’t have the motivation. It’s different from “having the motivation but just don’t know how to do”. “普及” can cope with the latter case pretty easily, but not the former case. so is 普及RSS really the best way?

Sorry I have difficulty with my Chinese input here so i’ll just speak in English :p

北：你的主要意思，是不是說一般用家，其實不過是與親朋戚友聯繫，未必需要 RSS 吧？而且 RSS 也未必是一個好的辦法？

RSS 並非為 Blog 而設，除了 Blog 之外，很多新的服務也有 RSS 功能。例如，一些 Web Calendar 可以輸出 RSS，讓其他人知道你的行程。Flickr 相簿可以輸出 RSS，讓你分享最近拍的照片。Online bookmarking 可以輸出 RSS 讓你推介最近讀過的文章給朋友。所以說，用 RSS 讀 Blog 不過是冰山一角。

可惜的是 RSS 天生改壞名，雖然方便，但卻不是一看即明的技術，所以在普及化上有一定困難。

而 RSS 也很有局限，例如它不能處理資訊過載的問題，只有輸出沒有輸入，只能廣播不能窄播。這些都限制了 RSS 在個人生活上的應用。

(要出門，之後再覆)