Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Richard MacManus noticed that a Google employee at Mix06 was “very bullish” on Atom while Microosft seemed to be bullish on RSS.

Congrats to Michael Lehman, who did that interview and did a TON of others at Mix06.

When Dave Winer says that RSS is going to embrace Microsoft, he’s right. So far we’re listening to what the community actually uses and haven’t gotten ahead of the community (which includes publishers like the BBC and the New York Times) and tried to tell the community which way to go. I think that’s a good thing.

That said, our RSS platform is reading in Atom too and we’ll support whatever the community adopts. Hey, has that Jeff Sandquist guy (aka my boss) been fired yet for supporting Quicktime and PSP? No!

I love this company!

Update: Richard wrote even more on this topic over on his blog.

Comments

  1. Dmad says:

    Since when is “‘using” Quicktime and a PSP supporting it? Are you suggesting Jeff will lead XBOX gaming partners to build a PSP version of Halo2? Now THAT would be supporting PSP. Is Microsoft going to start ensuring the WMV files run on Quicktime? Now THAT would be supporting quicktime. But I’m completely baffled as to why you think an employee would be fired for using non MS products on his own personal time. Talk about hyperbole!

  2. Dmad says:

    Since when is “‘using” Quicktime and a PSP supporting it? Are you suggesting Jeff will lead XBOX gaming partners to build a PSP version of Halo2? Now THAT would be supporting PSP. Is Microsoft going to start ensuring the WMV files run on Quicktime? Now THAT would be supporting quicktime. But I’m completely baffled as to why you think an employee would be fired for using non MS products on his own personal time. Talk about hyperbole!

  3. scobleizer says:

    Dmad: using is — implicitly — giving support. It might not be much support, but it is giving support. It further validates Quicktime and PSP as media standards and tells Microsoft’s customers that they should support them too.

    This wasn’t on his own personal time. It was on the http://www.on10.net site that’s owned by Microsoft (and supported by such).

  4. scobleizer says:

    Dmad: using is — implicitly — giving support. It might not be much support, but it is giving support. It further validates Quicktime and PSP as media standards and tells Microsoft’s customers that they should support them too.

    This wasn’t on his own personal time. It was on the http://www.on10.net site that’s owned by Microsoft (and supported by such).

  5. You had me there for a second… I read the title, “Google Bullshits on Atom, Microsoft bullsh…”

    =) Glad to see no one is making stuff up

  6. You had me there for a second… I read the title, “Google Bullshits on Atom, Microsoft bullsh…”

    =) Glad to see no one is making stuff up

  7. Hans says:

    So Microsofties are no longer scorned for packing an iPod?

  8. Hans says:

    So Microsofties are no longer scorned for packing an iPod?

  9. scobleizer says:

    Hans: the employees I know never were. That was another made up story by Wired magazine.

  10. scobleizer says:

    Hans: the employees I know never were. That was another made up story by Wired magazine.

  11. Mike Drips says:

    Wake me up when we start an industry standards committee on RSS and Atom.

  12. Mike Drips says:

    Wake me up when we start an industry standards committee on RSS and Atom.

  13. scobleizer says:

    Mike: There already is one on Atom. It’s called the IETF.

  14. scobleizer says:

    Mike: There already is one on Atom. It’s called the IETF.

  15. How does the Microsoft RSS implementation deal with the HTML-in-title problem?

  16. How does the Microsoft RSS implementation deal with the HTML-in-title problem?

  17. MSN Spaces now (Yuck!) Windows Live Spaces

    Well, another Select >> Right Click >> Rename >> Windows Live-ize (evil!) act by Microsoft and this time it’s a successful product, now called “Windows Live Spaces”. Yeah, you guessed it right, it’s none anothe…

  18. The Perfect RSS Web-Based Reader

    RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is THE present and the future. As the days pass by, more and more people are turning over to RSS and are also turning RSS itself in other innovative ways to make it more useful for people. RSS has evolved really much fro…

  19. Neil T. says:

    To me, it shouldn’t matter whether you choose Atom or RSS. If your application produces feeds, then choose one and stick to it since that’s less confusing to the consumer. If your application accepts feeds as input, support both. This is what Microsoft is doing and I see nothing wrong with it.

    Atom and RSS both have their own advantages and disadvantages – Atom is an agreed internet standard and has less ambiguity in its specification, whereas RSS is simpler and more ubiquitous. At the end of the day, it should not matter which format you choose.

  20. Neil T. says:

    To me, it shouldn’t matter whether you choose Atom or RSS. If your application produces feeds, then choose one and stick to it since that’s less confusing to the consumer. If your application accepts feeds as input, support both. This is what Microsoft is doing and I see nothing wrong with it.

    Atom and RSS both have their own advantages and disadvantages – Atom is an agreed internet standard and has less ambiguity in its specification, whereas RSS is simpler and more ubiquitous. At the end of the day, it should not matter which format you choose.

  21. Let’s see…deal with the IETF or Winer. Tough choice.

    Seriously, it’s “Deal with a rabid wolverine or a pack of insane weasels”. Not sure there’s a good choice, but the IETF tends to be more open to new ideas.

  22. Let’s see…deal with the IETF or Winer. Tough choice.

    Seriously, it’s “Deal with a rabid wolverine or a pack of insane weasels”. Not sure there’s a good choice, but the IETF tends to be more open to new ideas.

  23. James Holderness says:

    Simon Willison: “How does the Microsoft RSS implementation deal with the HTML-in-title problem?”

    When Microsoft is producing feeds (MSDN blogs) they include HTML in the titles. When they’re consuming feeds (the IE7 aggregator) they assume there is no HTML in titles. As a result their aggregator is unable to process their own feeds correctly. You’d think that might cause them some concern, but apparently not.

  24. James Holderness says:

    Simon Willison: “How does the Microsoft RSS implementation deal with the HTML-in-title problem?”

    When Microsoft is producing feeds (MSDN blogs) they include HTML in the titles. When they’re consuming feeds (the IE7 aggregator) they assume there is no HTML in titles. As a result their aggregator is unable to process their own feeds correctly. You’d think that might cause them some concern, but apparently not.

  25. scobleizer says:

    James: it causes me some concern. I’ll send this along to Teligent who makes our blogging software that most employees use.

  26. scobleizer says:

    James: it causes me some concern. I’ll send this along to Teligent who makes our blogging software that most employees use.

  27. James Holderness says:

    It’s not as simple as that. If Teligent were to change the way they produced titles in order to work with IE7, their feeds would suddenly stop working (with silent data loss) in several other aggregators (I personally can name more than a dozen). The thing is neither your blogging software nor your aggregator have actually done anything wrong – they just happen to be incompatible with each other, because the RSS spec is ambiguous.

    Recently the RSS Board starting making an attempt to address this ambiguity (and a number of other issues) when it was rather forcefully pointed out to them that the RSS roadmap did not allow for such clarification. In the words of Dave Winer: “it [the RSS spec] *has* to remain ambiguous, because the roadmap says so.” This is, of course, for your own good. I’m now sure how it’s good for you that your software doesn’t work, but apparently it is.

  28. James Holderness says:

    It’s not as simple as that. If Teligent were to change the way they produced titles in order to work with IE7, their feeds would suddenly stop working (with silent data loss) in several other aggregators (I personally can name more than a dozen). The thing is neither your blogging software nor your aggregator have actually done anything wrong – they just happen to be incompatible with each other, because the RSS spec is ambiguous.

    Recently the RSS Board starting making an attempt to address this ambiguity (and a number of other issues) when it was rather forcefully pointed out to them that the RSS roadmap did not allow for such clarification. In the words of Dave Winer: “it [the RSS spec] *has* to remain ambiguous, because the roadmap says so.” This is, of course, for your own good. I’m now sure how it’s good for you that your software doesn’t work, but apparently it is.

  29. Jake says:

    Follow the troll and keep writing software from shoddy specs.

    Is this RSS engine part of Vista or part of IE7? I’d guess that the RSS of IE7 (or the RSS engine/platform) will eventually become de facto standard and other aggregators will follow it.

  30. Jake says:

    Follow the troll and keep writing software from shoddy specs.

    Is this RSS engine part of Vista or part of IE7? I’d guess that the RSS of IE7 (or the RSS engine/platform) will eventually become de facto standard and other aggregators will follow it.