Tim Bray: RSS 'Twice as Good' as Atom

Tim Bray, one of the creators of both XML and Atom, has some fun at the expense of the RSS Advisory Board:

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like there's trouble on the horizon. On the RFC4287 syndication-format front, it may have been stable since 2005 and widely deployed, but watch out, there's a new version of RSS 2.0! (2.0.9, to be precise). RSS 2.0 is sort of RFC4287's main competition, and if there are two different specs, I guess that must mean it's twice as good.

RSS 2.0 is clearly Atom's main competition, and for the moment it's winning by a large margin. According to the latest stats on Syndic8, 80.6 percent of the 510,000 feeds in its database are RSS feeds and 82.1 percent of those are in RSS 2.0 format. Atom totals 16.6 percent.

Atom isn't gaining market share in Syndic8, either. As of February 2006, 77.8 percent of its 455,000 feeds were RSS, 18.1 percent were Atom, and 68.2 percent of the RSS feeds were in RSS 2.0 format.

I'm not pointing this out to cheerlead RSS -- I like Atom and would have no problem if these numbers were reversed in three years. But Atom's nowhere close to knocking off the competition and there are umpteen thousand RSS 2.0 feeds, so somebody should be working on RSS interop.

Rss · Atom · 2007/06/16 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Read the Fine Print On Your Whataburger

A sign on the front door of a combined gas station and Whataburger restaurant in Liberty City, Texas:

By entering these premises you hereby agree to resolve all disputes or claims of any kind whatsoever, which arise from the products, services or premises, by way of binding arbitration, not litigation. No suit or action may be filed in any state or federal court. Any arbitration shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, and administered by the American Mediation Association."

Although I generally avoid fast food restaurants that require binding arbitration, this one was cleaner than an operating room and had a '50s diner interior filled with Beatles memorabilia and life-size statues of the Blues Brothers. The food was delicious and passed without incident.

Texas · Food · 2007/06/13 · 8 COMMENTS · Link

Comic Book Editor Has Trouble with Rejection

I tried selling comic book stories in the early '90s, requesting the submission guidelines for several dozen publishers. My pitches received form letter rejections from Marvel, Malibu Comics, Innovation and Now Comics. I've kept all of this stuff, which I ought to put online. Most of the companies are long gone.

An unnamed submission editor at Marvel Comics told me that my "line work is stiff or heavy; loosen it up." This was difficult advice to follow because I'm not an artist and had sent them a written submission.

I did get one positive response, but it was bittersweet. The good news: Jim Shooter at Defiant Comics liked my Dark Dominion submission. The bad news: Defiant had gone out of business six months earlier.

Shooter, one of the most criticized figures in comics during his tenure as Marvel's editor-in-chief, was reviewing pitches and sending out letters of encouragement after his company folded.

The editor-in-chief of Slave Labor Graphics, Jennifer de Guzman, takes it personally when people criticize her rejection letters on their blogs:

... I will read the nasty stuff you say about us. If you don't want to ever be published by SLG, you can insult us and let your friends call us rude names in public posts all you want. It points to your utter lack of class, but it's your right. Just know that you're closing that door for good should we see it. So be smart and say it in locked posts! Maybe we won't find out that you're a jerk until after we publish you. Good luck with that.

Comics · Writing · 2007/06/07 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

Today's Bible Lesson: Don't Barter with God

On the June 1 Back to the Bible radio show, which airs on 1,200 religious stations around the world, host Woodrow Kroll told listeners how I could seek forgiveness from God:

Jesus wants to take the burden of your guilt away. I read this little story. I just thought I had to pass it on to you. The question was asked, "How much would the Vatican pay for the pope's name?" Now that's not a theoretical question. A fellow by the name of Rogers Cadenhead, who is an admitted domain hoarder, bought the domain www.benedictxvi before Pope John Paul died. What he thought was, I'll get the domain name. When the pope dies, if Benedict becomes the next pope, I'll own the name; they'll have to buy the name from me.

Now he knew that this was a good deal, because the name www.popebenedictxvi sold on e-bay for $ 16,000. So he thought his was in like flint, except Cadenhead said this. He was a good Roman Catholic and he said, "I don't want the money. I'm not going to anger 1.1 billion Catholics and my grandmother," he quipped.

So he wasn't interested in really selling the name. But there was something he wanted. So he told the Vatican, "I will give the name to you, and here are three things I want. Number one, I want one of those hats." I have no idea what what he's talking about -- maybe the pope's hat. "And number two," he says, "I want a free night's stay at the Vatican Hotel." Ridiculous things. But number three was really important. He said, "I want complete absolution -- no questions asked -- for the third week of March 1987".

Now I don't know what went on the third week of March 1987, but it appears to me something went on pretty big in his life that he needed absolution for. See, what he is saying is this: "If I could buy forgiveness, it would be worth any price I had to pay." And what I'm saying is this. You can't buy forgiveness, but you can confess your sin and get forgiveness free.

What Peter shows us in this passage is, Jesus is anxious to forgive us, even when we don't really come clean with Him -- when we answer "Do you love Me?" with "Uh, I like You pretty much." Jesus is merciful and kind and willing to forgive. And if He can forgive Peter of what Peter did to Him, He can surely forgive you.

Domains · Religion · 2007/06/06 · 16 COMMENTS · Link

RSS Specification (Version 2.0.9) Published

The proposal to revise the RSS specification has passed 5-1 with RSS Advisory Board members Matthew Bookspan, Rogers Cadenhead, Christopher Finke, Randy Charles Morin and Paul Querna voting in favor, Eric Lunt voting against and members James Holderness, Meg Hourihan, Jenny Levine and Jason Shellen abstaining.

The Extending RSS section of the specification has been clarified with the addition of the words "and attributes" twice in the following sentence:

A RSS feed may contain elements and attributes not described on this page, only if those elements and attributes are defined in a namespace.

No other changes were made. All edits to the specification are logged. This revision of the document has the version number 2.0.9.

Rss · 2007/06/06 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Marc Andreesen: 'Web 2.0' is an Empty Buzzword

As a result of the widespread adoption of language like "Web 2.0 companies" and the "Web 2.0 space" -- and startups referring to themselves as such, most of which will fail -- you get a predictably cynical backlash from people who then dismiss the whole category as trendy marketing hype full of me-too wannabes and in the process throw out the baby with the bathwater and dismiss all the legitimately new and exciting products and companies that are being created all around us.

As an entrepeneur, I am frankly torn as to whether or not to even post this piece.

It may be in my best interest to have more of my fellow entrepreneurs off chasing trends and pitching their "Web 2.0 startups" to the latest enterprise software VC who is now "doing Web 2.0 deals" instead of building real products that might compete with one of my companies.

Business · 2007/06/05 · Comment · Link

Buying a Dot-Com Domain for the RSS Board

I acquired the domain name rssboard.com this past weekend for the RSS Advisory Board, which publishes its site at an .org domain.

The owner put the domain up for sale on Sedo for $250, which was a reasonable expense to avoid losing type-in visitors who think the site address ends in .com.

Sedo handled the payment escrow and domain transfer process pretty well, calling me on the phone several times to help move things along. From start to finish, it took 16 days. The board operates with a $0 budget and expenditures like this are rare. Web hosting costs are negligible since I'm operating four servers for my various sites and they're not close to capacity in traffic, database access or CPU usage.

Rss · 2007/06/04 · 1 COMMENT · Link

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