I’ve been advocating a helper-application approach to RSS for at least 18 months. (Which is not to say that I invented the idea. Others have talked about something similar, and the idea of a helper application is obvious to most people who’ve done any kind of web programming.) But now that Jeremy is advocating it (and opposing Dave’s needlessly complex version), maybe something will happen.
Dave’s idea is kind of neat, but it doesn’t pass the “will my mom understand it?” test.