If you’ve actually been to my site in the last couple days, you’ve noticed that I replaced text-based links to my feeds with this: 
. You probably also noticed that my site’s template got a little uglier. I’m working on that.
Since both Mozilla and Microsoft have agreed to use the same icon, I think that it’s time to start replacing the countless variations of white-on-orange XML and RSS buttons with a single icon that doesn’t confront the user with jargon.
I urge my fellow bloggers to download the icon set (via Marusin) and start using it.
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YouTube
Um…
I suppose it’s all well and good that MS and the Mozilla team have decided to cooperate… But did any of them stop to look and see if the symbol they’re now promoting was already in standard use elsewhere? I think not.
That symbol — angled, tilted, or whatever — has been the accepted symbol for wireless sources for some time now, from RF to WiFi.
Hell, even Circuit City’s takeover of what many Canadians once knew as Radio Shack (now called The Source) has stolen the same iconic representation, added an additional 45 degree-or-so tilt, and claimed it as their logo as well.
Hmph. “Standards”. Does any organization or business even know the definition of the word anymore?
Not only can this too-often-stolen symbol cause confusion (I don’t particularly care for the letter icons either, if it matters) because of its’ incessant re-application, but I see this as just one more case of those who steal intellectual property being positively instead of negatively reinforced.
Surely the human race hasn’t run out of possible symbols or iconic representations already, that we have to redefine and dilute old tried-and-true ones?