Re: [syndication] Top 10 Reasons Why RSS Rules

[Mark Fletcher <markf@wingedpig.com>]

Roger B. wrote:

> That's pretty much my point. You and your fellow aggregator
> developers/maintainers have a real stake in things... while the content
> production people are out here scrambling for competitive advantage at every
> turn, you're all dealing with the fallout. It should work the other way
> 'round, IMO.
>
>  
Sure, and in a perfect world, donuts would be free on Sundays. 
<obHomer>Mmmmm, donuts.</obHomer>

Yeah, it kinda sucks that we had to spend considerable development 
effort to support Atom, a new format for which I'm still not convinced 
is needed. And Atom is *considerably* more difficult to implement on the 
aggregator side than any of the previous formats, especially when adding 
support to an existing parser of the other formats. But there's going to 
be a decent percentage of the market that's only going to be syndicated 
in Atom format, so we're obligated to our users to support it.

Bloglines announced support for Atom feeds last night.

> When it comes to syndication, you're essentially my customer. All I'd ask is
> that you get together with your peers and tell me what you expect from those
> "other formats" that you're got to continue supporting. If you do, I'll do
> what I can to make your life easier on my end.
>
>  
I personally never had a problem with any of the so-called 'ambiguities' 
or issues with the existing formats. Maybe that's because my background 
is in email, where the specs have always been baroque, somewhat 
incomplete, and written after the fact. Despite all that email seems to 
work ok. And maybe that explains why, to me, the reasons stated for Atom 
being better than the existing formats, don't seem that important.

The only thing I can think of that I'd like to see enforced is no HTML 
in titles. We make titles into links, and putting HTML in there tends to 
make things a bit ugly. Other than that, stick with what currently 
works. And if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

I very much appreciate your attitude of wanting to work with us 
aggregator providers. The world of syndication needs more cooperation. 
And donuts. ;-)

Thanks,

Mark
--
Mark Fletcher
Bloglines
http://www.bloglines.com