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Re: [FYI] ATOM ./. RSS
On 12 Feb 2004, at 21:19, I wrote:
> <http://www.dudecheckthisout.com/Blog.aspx?blogId=280&nItems=1&startG
> uid=b912b783-3dff-4e61-861b-b626e0d96182>
>
> Google spurns RSS for rising blog format - News - ZDNet
>
> Google's Blogger service is bypassing Really Simple Syndication in
> favor of an alternative technology, a move that has sparked more
> discord in a bitter dispute over Web log syndication formats.
----*
<http://www.lawtechguru.com/archives/2004/02/13_the_great_rss_vs_atom
_news_feed_debate.html>
February 13, 2004
The Great RSS vs. Atom News Feed Debate
CNET News.com reports that "Google's Blogger service is bypassing
Really Simple Syndication in favor of an alternative technology, a
move that has sparked more discord in a bitter dispute over Web log
syndication formats." Instead of the RSS feed capability previously
offered in Blogger Pro, Blogger is now exclusively supporting Atom
for blog content syndication. Goodbye RSS for new Blogger users.
While there are similarities between RSS and Atom, the developer
community is getting pretty heated up about the debate between these
two specifications.
Last year, CNET's special report on "Battle of the Blogs" provided a
good explanation of the underlying debate. Basically, Dave Winer, who
is credited with much of the development behind RSS 2.0, had frozen
its core development "to keep the developers from screwing with it,"
so that it was kept "simple". This didn't sit well with others, so
they decided to come up with their own flavor of blog content
syndication, which along the way has been named Pie, Echo, and now
Atom.
The problem is that while RSS and Atom are more alike than not, they
are competing specs that could splinter the market. A number of
bloggers have posted that RSS was really for web site content
syndication, while Atom is geared toward blog syndication. There are
many news aggregator programs and web site services that work with
RSS, but very few will read Atom at the moment. Upon doing a quick
Google search, I discovered that BottomFeeder is an open source news
aggregator client that runs on many different operating systems
(Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, etc.) and supports news feeds in both RSS
and Atom formats.
While RSS isn't going away (at least not any time soon), Atom is
trying to be more things to more people. RSS proponents are concerned
as to what a competing standard may do to splinter the marketplace.
After all, for quite a few years, if you wanted to burn DVDs, you had
to choose between buying a DVD-R/W or DVD+R/W drive and cross your
fingers that the DVDs would work on all of your equipment (e.g., DVD
player, laptop DVD drive, desktop DVD-ROM drive, etc.). Only fairly
recently have dual-format burners become popular to ensure consumers
could use their burned DVD's in the way they were expecting to use
them. Thus I foresee that if Atom picks up more momentum, we may see
more dual-format news aggregators like BottomFeeder on the market.
Atom proponents are stymied by the freeze on the RSS core, because
they see that there is much more that RSS is capable of doing and
becoming. Some say that on one hand, the ability to further develop
RSS in the Atom format (rather than stagnation) is a good thing, but
it also adds to its complexity. That is precisely why some RSS
proponents want to keep RSS frozen -- to keep it simple so that it
doesn't take expensive consultants and programmers to deploy it. In
other words, it may not be perfect, but right now it's simple enough
and works well enough that the masses can use it. It's not hard to
see the logic on both sides of the debate, but unfortunately, it's
become personal for some of the key players. There's been name
calling and other less-than-productive approaches taken, which only
serve to cloud the issues.
Even before I created this blog, I saw the unique value that RSS news
feeds bring to both content providers and their reader audience. Now
I and many other bloggers are faced with the decision whether or not
to add and support Atom-based news feeds. If the blogging software
vendors start including Atom support out-of-the-box similar to the
way that Movable Type included RSS support, this may not be so bad.
With any luck, it should just be another button link on my blog
pages. However, right now I just don't have the time to go out of my
way and manually integrate Atom support -- especially since Atom
isn't all that prevalent yet. However, its backers are working very
hard on a proposal for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to
assume responsibility for Atom, which would in effect make it a
standard. If Movable Type and other mainstream blogger developers add
seamless Atom support in an upgrade, that could be doable.
Google's recent decision is interesting in of itself. For a long
time, the standard Blogger software didn't include any RSS support,
which is why they lost bloggers to other systems like Radio Userland,
Movable Type, and TypePad. Now, after Google's acquisition, they've
gone exclusively with Atom support. Is Google crazy, or crazy like a
fox? I certainly haven't chosen any side yet, but I have to admit my
concern over RSS being frozen. Emerging technologies have a hard time
emerging when they're not allowed to evolve. Apple tried to keep
tight rein over their specifications, and it made them the market
leader of a 10% market for many years, while the PC platform
flourished. Notice that I'm not saying that one was "better" than the
other, but rather notice the effect that strict control had on its
adoption.
In the interim, these developments bear watching to see which
syndication standards are appropriate to support on one's web site or
blog. While RSS is the clear leader right now, I still remember the
days when most people thought Betamax would be around forever as the
clearly superior format to VHS. Such is the nature of emerging
technologies. The moral of the story is that it's definitely too soon
to tell, and there may be room for both standards as long as the
context is appropriately set. Given the intensity of the debate so
far, I think it's safe to say we're in for more colorful developments
before it's over.
Posted by Jeff Beard
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