RSS Won The Syndication Standards Battle

By S. Housley

Welcome back!

RSS appears to have conquered the last hurtle in becoming
the industry syndication standard.

Microsoft's inclusion of RSS into the newest version of
Internet Explorer and reports that RSS will be in Longhorn's
coming release appears to be the final nail in the coffin of
the Atom specification. Even Atom's steadfast supporter
Google, appears to have seen the light. Google had
previously acquired Blogger, a popular blogging tool that
uses the Atom specification to syndicate the contents of
blogs created on the Blogger platform. In the past Google
had strategically steered clear of endorsing the RSS
specification hoping that Atom, would take hold.

Google's recent new service that allows web surfers to
monitor Google News using either RSS or Atom feeds, appears
to be an acknowledgment that perhaps in purchasing Blogger,
they chose the wrong specification.

The adoption of a syndication standard was slowed by the
struggle between Atom and RSS. Two defined syndication
standards vying for the number one position. In an IT
industry that clearly favors single standard solutions, Atom
supporters claimed added flexibility, but RSS' wide sweeping
support from heavy hitters like Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo.
Along with the popularity surge of podcasting, which is
based on the RSS 2.0 specification appears to have sealed
the fate of the future syndication standard.

The history and relationship between RSS and Atom is a
sordid tale that has hindered the progress of an online
syndication standard. Now that the leader has been defined
their is little in the way of RSS' growth. Businesses leery
of becoming entwined in a standards struggle are now
embracing RSS as a communication channel.

It is clear that those who have lined up behind RSS as the
leading specification are the winners.

Oddly enough, while those entrenched in the industry
acknowledge the difficulties with a dual standard, users
rarely see a difference in feeds created using the Atom and
RSS standards. Most popular RSS readers support reading
feeds in both formats. Though the purpose of RSS and Atom is
the same, the specification itself is very different, making
it difficult and time consuming for tool developers to move
between the dual standard.

Now that Atom's attempt at replacing RSS has fallen flat,
the syndication arena will likely see significant innovation
and progress.

Large companies are taking advantage of RSS' extendibility
using namespaces adding needed tags. Apple has done this
with iTunes, Microsoft for ordered lists, and Yahoo with
MediaRSS. All use the same basic RSS 2.0 format but supports
defined RSS' future is bright with many companies working
proactively to unite a once divided standard.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com
an RSS component for developers.