Now that I have been “in the blogosphere” for a while, I have learned quite a bit about the subject. One of the most important aspects of blogs, is their unique publishing capabilities. Most blogs do this using one of two formats (or sometimes both) – RSS and Atom.
Some might say that there is a turf war going on between the two syndication formats. Yahoo has supported RSS, and Google (which owns blogger.com) is supporting Atom. I think that the topic is entirely irrelevant, for the following reasons:
- Dave Winer (creator of RSS) has said the format is frozen at 2.0
- Atom is an open specification and will continue to grow
- Lots of tools already support both formats
Personally, I like the way Atom is going. RSS is currently the most popular throughout the blogosphere, but I expect that as people start to see the improvements Atom offers (and as RSS ages), a switch is probable. One thing is clear however, at least one of these formats is going to be extremely popular if blogging continues to grow.
On that note, I really don’t like that some tools (such as Xanga) do not offer any feeds, RSS or Atom! All blogs should have a subscription feature of some sort (and not the sign up to continue to read online kind). One of the great things about blogs is that you don’t have to visit a website to read them!