I read that Steve Jobs made mention of RSS in his WWDC keynote and it sparked a thought. When you get mentioned by important people, you know you're on to something important. When you get mentioned by self-important people, you know you're convincing people that you're on to something important.

Before I get completely misinterpreted and start a flame-fest, let me say that I consider Steve Jobs to be an important person. And a self-important person. Okay, maybe I won't stave off the flame-fest.

Here's my logic. Important people are important because they don't waste their time blabbering about things that don't matter--at least not in their visible public capacities. Their word is gold, or at least silver. When they talk, people listen. If they talk about you, you must be important. Being mentioned by them is worth a lot.

Self-important people talk about things that they believe people think are important, but it can be a two-edged sword. They speak positively of things they consider important, and their invective flows freely for anything they believe others think is important, but which they don't consider so.

The good news is that being mentioned either positively or negatively by such people is valuable, because either will get you noticed. Even if they tear you to shreds, there are tend to be a lot of people who make it a personal principle to disagree with them until someone else convinces them otherwise.

Steve Jobs has spoken. RSS and Atom are now important.