It’s like I said a few weeks ago: this weblog thing is neat, but if it’s going to be a real business tool, some authorization/password tools have to be invented.
Casual readers won’t know this, but there are some pretty sophisticated technologies behind his weblog. For one thing, every item I write here is automatically sent to any other weblog reader who’s asked to be kept up to date. Those bloggers can then pick up and reprint (for lack of a better word) my items.
But what if I only want some of my items to be syndicated, or if I want some items to be syndicated to one group of people but not another? As one poster pointed out, it’s possible to use the web’s built-in authentication tools, but that’s god-awful hack. Finally, someone else is picking up the banner.
From Masukomi’s site:
A username and password scheme could be built into the url of the feed but that’s a really poor method. The most obvious solution is for RSS clients to start supporting two things: standard HTTP authentication and secure HTTP over SSL (https:// connections).
Until this happens RSS will not be able to evolve beyond the stage of a simple news distribution system… I know I don’t want to give everyone access to my e-mail, or confidential company info, but I do want to transmit via an RSS feed. I think that this is especially important for products like Radio that generate RSS feeds and want to get companies to use it as a knowledge management tool.
I can’t support this more strongly. If weblogs are going to be a legit business tool, there simply needs to be better security for syndication feeds.
