Boston.com / Business / Technology / 'Push' technology gets a nudge

Boston.com / Business / Technology / 'Push' technology gets a nudge: "It's a new year, the tech economy is growing again, and we're just about due for a new digital fad -- or the resurrection of an old one. Think back to a simpler, stupider time -- 1997, to be exact. The Internet craze still hadn't peaked. Each new issue of Wired magazine featured several zany new business ideas, and nutty investors proved willing to give them a go.
One of the favorites was called 'push' technology. The idea was that millions of people would grow weary of typing their way to favorite Internet sites. Instead, they'd install software on their machines that would automatically download data from popular websites, then flash it on their monitors.
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Because RSS-compatible products are based on open Internet standards, anybody can produce them. So there'll be no RSS media empire or RSS billionaires. That's just as well, as it eliminates the hype that exaggerated the merits of push technology, and helped to destroy it. Instead, we can see RSS for what it is -- simple, powerful, and helpful. It's an idea from the Internet's adolescence, reborn into a world that's grown up."