Atom

Support the Common Feed Icon

A recent Yahoo study reported that four percent of Internet users have jumped on the RSS bandwagon and begun subscribing to syndicated feeds. Considering the number of ways that web publishers show their readers they offer feeds, it's amazing we've gotten that many: In an effort to make the concept of syndication easier for mainstream users, the next versions of the Internet Explorer and Opera browsers will identify RSS and Atom feeds with the same icon used in Mozilla Firefox. Since the market ... (read more)

2006/03/03

Opera Subscribes to Common Syndication Icon

Subscribe Opera has embraced the common syndication icon adopted by Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer, lead developer Trond Hansen announced Thursday: Yes, we're adopting it too, and it will be in the next weekly build. Thanks to www.feedicons.com for making it so easy! Oh, and in case you haven't seen it before (what are the odds). I've attached a large version to this post which you can make love to. The icon, which makes it easier to find syndicated content in software and web ... (read more)

2006/02/17

I'm On Board with RSS

I've accepted an invitation to join the RSS Advisory Board, the group that evangelizes the RSS 2.0 specification. Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, RSS 2.0 isn't owned or controlled by vendors. The specification has been released under a Creative Commons license and the format it represents has no trademark or copyright claims. My new job has very little actual power associated with it, sadly enough, and only one groupie. The Advisory Board's primary task is explaining why the ... (read more)

2004/05/12

Google: Don't be Evil to RSS

Jeremy Zawodny reports that Yahoo has added Atom support to My Yahoo: Since everyone's jumping up and down about the Atom vs. RSS (or "Google vs. RSS" if that's your paranoia) debate, it's probably worth pointing out that My Yahoo's RSS module also groks Atom. It was added last night. It took about a half hour. Yahoo's ability to add Atom support that quickly demonstrates why Google is wrong to mothball RSS. As the 600-pound gorilla in weblogging, the company ought to support an established ... (read more)

2004/02/13

Name the New Syndication Format BikeShed

The expression bike shed discussion, which comes from a FreeBSD mailing list post by Poul-Henning Kamp, describes the experience of being bogged down by interminable debate on a subject where everyone feels comfortable in their expertise -- such as the building of a bike shed. It also can be stated as a law: ... the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change. Looking at the naming effort for the new syndication and weblogging format briefly ... (read more)

2003/08/11