Microsoft Corp. today announced support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in the next version of the Microsoft® Windows® operating system, code-named “Longhorn.” The RSS functionality in “Longhorn” is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications. In addition, Microsoft announced Simple List Extensions, a set of extensions to RSS that can be used to enable Web sites to publish lists such as of photo albums, music playlists and top 10 lists as RSS feeds. Microsoft is making the specification freely available via the Creative Commons license, the same license under which the RSS 2.0 specification was released. The announcement was made in Seattle during Gnomedex 5.0, an annual conference for technology enthusiasts and industry influentials that focuses on RSS, blogging, podcasting and other new media models.

“RSS is key to how people will use the Internet in the future by automatically delivering the information that is important to them,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for “Longhorn” browsing and RSS at Microsoft. “We are investing heavily in RSS for Windows ‘Longhorn’ to make it easy for users to discover, read and subscribe to RSS feeds as well as enable developers to deliver powerful, smart applications that act on the information on behalf of the user.”