Technology Review has an interview with Rael Dorfest. The primary topic of the interview is "alpha geeks," a term Tim O'Reilly coined to refer to the people shaping technology trends. At one point Rael talks about RSS as a Web services technology that's gaining traction.

TR: What makes RSS so important?

DORNFEST: It's one of the most widely deployed Web services around. It's easily decentralized. Blogging, because of RSS, has gone from a popularity contest--how many times has my site been pinged?--to discovery of information. The browse metaphor for search has gone by the wayside. I think that RSS and syndication and blogs broadened it out. There was a lot of hype about this a couple of years ago butÊit's only in the last year that things really startedÊbubbling. I use weblogs to find information more than I use Google. I follow trails. Google will find you obvious answers. Google will find you what you're looking for. Blogs, with RSS, will find you what you never expected to find.

From View from the Alpha Geek
Referenced Tue Feb 17 2004 13:15:07 GMT-0700

Other topics in the article center around topics from last weeks conference. Good perspective.