Microsoft set off a storm of comments and feedback – both glowing and damning – this weekend when officials requested feedback on a proposed RSS icon redesign for the Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 toolbar.

Details about the planned RSS icon redesign emerged on the Microsoft RSS Team's Web log on Saturday.

"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," according to a posting on the RSS Team blog site. "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 team said it set out to create an icon which encompassed three principles. They wanted to represent the key aspects of RSS feeds (newness, activity, subscription, and continual information); build on the most consistent and identifiable element, namely, the orange rectangle; and avoid the use of text in order to work well with a global audience.

The Microsoft RSS team suggested five possible new buttons, sparking a debate across the Internet.

All five options featured white non-text images on an orange rectangular background. While most were lambasted for aesthetical reasons, Web commentors seemed to key in on the fifth, which debuted as part of IE7's Beta 1 release this summer. Some commentors complimented the fifth design suggestion for its close resemblance to the Firefox RSS icon, a commonality which could encourage standardization.

Other Windows watchers chimed in on the debate on their personal websites.

RSS pioneer Dave Winer gave Microsoft's proposal a "big thumb(s) down." Winer said "Use the white on orange XML icon and stop re-inventing."

Yet, Dwight Silverman, a reporter and tech blogger with the Houston Chronicle, pointed out that Mozilla, too, changed both the name for RSS feeds (to Live Bookmarks) and the icon (square orange broadcast symbol) on its Firefox browser.

"Why no hue and cry when Firefox deviated from the path?" Silverman wrote. "Probably because

Mozilla is not Microsoft -- and I am not just talking about reaction from the the vocal, kneejerk, if-it's-Microsoft-it's-gotta-be-evil community."

Nathan Weinberg, founder of BlogNewsChannel.com and head of the "Inside Microsoft" Web site, rejected all of the arguments over the button's redesign, saying that people should stop caring about it so much.

"We don't have a unified icon for HTML or favorites, so why for RSS?" Weinberg argued. "In the future, we'll all be getting our RSS through browser autodiscovery, which will improve. Eventually, sites won't even (be) displaying feeds on (a) page."

Others, too, said the argument over the different button representations missed the point.

Windows expert Ed Bott pointed out that people ensnared in a debate over the color, shape, and presence/absence of text on the button that identifies an RSS-based Web feed "are missing the point, which is: what happens when you click that button?

"Today, in most browsers, if you click the orange (or blue) XML/RSS/whatever button you get taken to a Web page that is an ugly, stripped-down version of the page you were just reading…." Bott continued. "In fact, when people click on the orange XML button now, what do they learn? Don't do that again. When IE7 ships, it needs to have a really great way of dealing with RSS feeds. If it's successful in that regard, then people at all technical levels will have a good experience when they click the button, regardless of its color, shape, or text. And they'll be likely to do it again."

Microsoft first announced its big RSS push for Windows Vista at Gnomedex in June. The company's plan was met with cheers for Microsoft's intentions to make RSS easier to use, but also some trepidation from individuals who feared that Microsoft would exert too strong of an influence over the future of RSS.

Earlier this month, Yahoo published a whitepaper (PDF) which found that awareness of RSS was very low among Internet users, with 12% having heard of it but only 4% actively using it. According to the whitepaper, people were who used "MyYahoo" and "MyMSN" did not realize that they were utilizing RSS technology.