Lead engineer at Amazon recommends Atom over RSS

July 4, 2006 By

DeWitt Clinton has a long, and thoughtful, post on RSS and Atom today. If you’re a geek/developer it’s worth reading and thinking about. Thanks to Niall for linking me to it.

It’s interesting that the Atom side of the fence hasn’t done what it takes to get the world to flip over to its format: build both a publishing tool and an aggregator that demonstrates Atom’s advantages over RSS.

Users don’t care about specs, or arguments about formats. When you understand that you’ll understand how RSS got so big in the first place. Dave Winer evangelized RSS by building a publishing tool (Manila and later Radio UserLand) and an aggregator (Radio UserLand and later Share Your OPML.

Where’s the Atom publishing tool and aggregator that demonstrates Atom’s superiority?

Filed Under: 1
← Older Comments
  • http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/ Isofarro

    “Users don’t care about formats”

    It matters when users lose data because of the format.

  • Pingback: The Reach » Blog Archive » Atom Vs. RSS As A Content Syndication Preference

  • Pingback: Content & Communication » Blog Archive » RSS v Atom

  • Dmad

    Another myopic outlook on your part. Of course users don’t care. That’s not the point of his post. Users didn’t care about x.400 or SMTP, but one was popular intially (x.400) and everyone that built email systems thought that was all we needed. Users didn’t care how the LAN worked but at one time there was a battle between Ethernet and Token Ring. The list goes on, I’m sure.

    All new “standards” have their initial limitations and someone inevitibly comes along to improve on it or comes up with a better one to the end solution more efficient and effective and usable.

  • Dmad

    Another myopic outlook on your part. Of course users don’t care. That’s not the point of his post. Users didn’t care about x.400 or SMTP, but one was popular intially (x.400) and everyone that built email systems thought that was all we needed. Users didn’t care how the LAN worked but at one time there was a battle between Ethernet and Token Ring. The list goes on, I’m sure.

    All new “standards” have their initial limitations and someone inevitibly comes along to improve on it or comes up with a better one to the end solution more efficient and effective and usable.

  • Pingback: Gizbuzz » Battle of the feeds

  • http://www.kbcafe.com/ Randy Charles Morin

    Just a few points.

    There’s nothing that RSS does that Atom can’t do. There’s nothing that Atom does that RSS can’t do. They are interchangeable. But Atom has better clarity and as such better inter-op. But feed readers tend to support RSS better than they support Atom. So, you can do two things.

    1- Clarify RSS
    2- Make feed readers support Atom

    I can’t help with #2, but #1 is being done by the RSS Advisory Board. If you need clarity, then the board can provide it.
    http://www.rssboard.org/

    You can ask questions on the mailing list.
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-public

  • http://www.kbcafe.com Randy Charles Morin

    Just a few points.

    There’s nothing that RSS does that Atom can’t do. There’s nothing that Atom does that RSS can’t do. They are interchangeable. But Atom has better clarity and as such better inter-op. But feed readers tend to support RSS better than they support Atom. So, you can do two things.

    1- Clarify RSS
    2- Make feed readers support Atom

    I can’t help with #2, but #1 is being done by the RSS Advisory Board. If you need clarity, then the board can provide it.
    http://www.rssboard.org/

    You can ask questions on the mailing list.
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-public

  • http://blogs.opml.org/tommorris Tom Morris

    Randy: that’s in the realm of theory. In the realm of practicality, podcasts *are* RSS 2.0 by necessity. Of course, we’re waiting for the standards-oriented, Atom/microformats/Semantic Web answer to podcasting, but like all that stuff, it’s been about as forthcoming as blood is from stones.

  • http://blogs.opml.org/tommorris Tom Morris

    Randy: that’s in the realm of theory. In the realm of practicality, podcasts *are* RSS 2.0 by necessity. Of course, we’re waiting for the standards-oriented, Atom/microformats/Semantic Web answer to podcasting, but like all that stuff, it’s been about as forthcoming as blood is from stones.

  • http://www.utsire.com/ Graham Parks

    Q: Where’s the Atom publishing tool and aggregator that demonstrates Atom’s superiority?

    A: All of them. All aggregators work more reliably when working with Atom than RSS.

  • http://www.utsire.com/ Graham Parks

    Q: Where’s the Atom publishing tool and aggregator that demonstrates Atom’s superiority?

    A: All of them. All aggregators work more reliably when working with Atom than RSS.

  • http://sporkmonger.com/ Bob Aman

    iTunes 6.0 supports Atom enclosures. Podcasts do not have to use RSS 2.0. If a podcast client doesn’t support Atom enclosures, it’s broken.

  • http://sporkmonger.com/ Bob Aman

    iTunes 6.0 supports Atom enclosures. Podcasts do not have to use RSS 2.0. If a podcast client doesn’t support Atom enclosures, it’s broken.

  • http://www.wakhok.ac.jp/~yasui/pukiwiki/?plugin=attach&pcmd=open&file=c.html&refer=Jade wakh

    information page.

  • http://www.wakhok.ac.jp/~yasui/pukiwiki/?plugin=attach&pcmd=open&file=c.html&refer=Jade wakh

    information page.

  • http://xoomer.alice.it/pin7/pokercamp/ Reginald
  • http://xoomer.alice.it/pin7/pokercamp/ Reginald
  • http://www.wide.msu.edu/Members/derik/poker-supply.html Brian
  • http://www.wide.msu.edu/Members/derik/poker-supply.html Brian

  • Pingback: fell in pool

← Older Comments