When describing RSS to corporations and the state of the technology, I weave on the observation that all though RSS was a gift to us all when it emerged, the social evolution of the web today means that RSS no longer supports our need in the reader form. Recently I stumbled over Steve Gillmor´s article on TechCrunch, with the observation that RSS has been taken over by Twitter – and there it was, the obvious explanation to the state of RSS.

Unfortunately for Dave Winer – time has changed since 2002 when he released RSS version 2.0. Back then it was a major relief to have information pushed instead of pulled, but now RSS has turned into information overload with data that is quickly outdated. And since my Google Reader most of all reminds me of my inbox in worst of times – I stay away.

And yes – Twitter has taken its place. I want live information, from “real” people that I choose as my reliable source to information, with no sign of old data that needs to be processed. So thanks to Gillmor´s article I will be able to give a proper explanation of what happened to RSS – Twitter happened!