Microsoft’s previewing its new RSS icons:
The choice of what icon to use is challenging because it should be universally symbolic, but today there is no single icon for that represents feed. Instead there’s a variety of mostly orange rectangles with the words “XML”, “RSS”, “ATOM”, “FEED”, or “Subscribe.”
Our goal is to make sure that the icon is something that is understandable by all of our users: novice, advanced, developer, business, international, etc.
The whole concept is thought-provoking. I’m not sure Dave Winer is going to like this.
I’ve posted some additional thoughts here.
Updated to add: As predicted, Dave thinks Microsoft should “stop re-inventing.” I think Dave’s reaction is arrogant and short-sighted. It’s typical of the reaction of a lot of engineers and designers who are unable to think like users. I wrote this back in August when Winer was complaining about Microsoft’s public attempts to decide which name would be most helpful for users trying to subscribe to RSS-based Web feeds:
Winer thinks this is a battle, and that Microsoft is trying to change the name of a feature because they want to screw him. (I’m not making this up. That’s really what he said.) News flash: Microsoft is in business to sell software. The reason some people at Microsoft are exploring alternatives to RSS is because people don’t understand the term. You put an RSS button on a Web page, and most ordinary people just slide right by it. I’ve been to Microsoft’s usability labs, where they test features like this. My guess is that they’ve been testing RSS features in the labs, and they’re trying to find the words that will help people understand and use this technology. Software developers who’ve seen their features go through usability testing usually get a big wake-up call from the experience. Dave, you should schedule a visit to the usability lab and see for yourself.
When I worked for PC Computing in the 1990s, we spent over a million dollars building a state-of-the-art usability lab and conducting regular tests in it. The results radically changed the way reviews were written. An editor couldn’t just say that a feature was better or worse than its competition; he or she had to defend the conclusion based on watching the hands-on experience of real people who actually used the products under review.
If someone at Microsoft is reading this, I would love to see a public invitation to Dave Winer to review the video tapes of previous sessions involving the orange XML icon and to see a live test or two. In fact … maybe Scoble should stop in at the User Experience facility and tape one of those sessions for Channel 9, with or without Winer.
Ed Bott 
Does it matter what Dave Winer thinks about the icons? I mean, just because Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW doesn’t mean his approval is required for every little thing. Thank goodness.
He doesn’t. What a surprise.
I like the simplicity of the RSS and XML rectangular icons. Are we really ready to dumb down every single thing on every computer within every interface? I cannot imagine that someone would not know what an RSS feed is once it is shown to them in an RSS reader.
Microsoft’s icons remind me somewhat of the International Clothing Care Symbols.