"This weblog is for discussing how normal users can best take advantage of syndication. This is not about RSS vs. Atom. This is about users using feeds to be more productive and have more fun."
"This is in response to Dave Winer's RSS-biased Really Simple Syndication site.
I believe users should not care about what format a feed is in, or even know about formats. They just need to know feeds. You have to look hard to find a feed consuming system that does not support the current popular feed formats."
While I agree with Ben's assessment of Dave's open biasness toward RSS, I did hold off on that judgment in part with my last post. The reason was Dave's desire to develop a list of aggregators, and a process for keeping the list current.
"I'd like the vendors to participate, in several ways -- by keeping pricing and technical information about the products up to date, and to help us understand features supported by their product, and how they compare to competitive offerings. Of course, I'd like to have all the claims verified by users of the products."
"I want to do this for a couple of reasons. First, the obvious one -- with better information about products this small industry can develop into a healthy industry. The best products rise to the top, and the new ones have a clear understanding of what the competition does. It will make features and performance the basis for comparison, and that's a good thing."
I agree with Dave on this being a good thing. It will be interesting however if this list of aggregator's features will include whether or not the reader has Atom support, or will Dave tuck it under the rug so to speak. It will be a defining moment when (or if) the list does become available. Whether or not the list has that one column with the label Atom probably will not matter anyway, for the chances are highly probable that all readers will have support for Atom -- they would be fools not to support it.
Both sites appear to be catering to the non-tech individual and how to work with and take advantage of XML feeds (no bias with that term, eh?). Basically put, show them the way to a newsreader, install it, and have fun. What more can you say? Anything else beyond the discussion of newsreaders is getting technical any way you look at it.
You are either a reader or a publisher
On the flip side of the coin is publishing content in an XML format. There are numerous sources of information readily available on the Internet today concerning this aspect. All are very technical to some degree and some are so basic, that they do not provide you with any valuable information at all.
A list of publishing agents whether they are blogging software or content management systems that will provide an XML feed are nowhere to be seen, and if there is a list out there, it is usually dated. There is however a very definitive list of blogging software with an extensive list of features, the Blog Software Breakdown which was compiled by Owen over at Asymptomatic.
For the finer technical explanations, I found a wealth of information at Lee Lefever's Common Craft website than I could anywhere else. As reported in Trackbacks, Pings, and Unknown Things, Lee has a knack for laying it out in an easy to understand fashion -- even for me, who was having problems with some of this stuff and I am an old hack programmer at heart.
One stumbling block -- being found
One problem I can see with both sites is how they are going to let the relative newcomer know that the sites exist. You see this is a problem that all websites generally have and it comes down to being found in the search engines. No amount of XML is going to provide that for them.
This is the hard part, for their target audience is more than likely going to be new to Internet overall with not much experience in how to even search for them. When you get right down to it, it is a catch-22 of sorts -- the one form of communication they could get that information to these people is the same form of communication they are trying to find.
It will boil down to who comes up with content on their site that is worth linking to. The more links, the easier it will to be found -- and it has a nice side-effect with search engines for it will promote them in the SERPS.
Currently, David would be the odds on favorite of winning that battle solely on reputation -- but that reputation is slowly being tarnished with his biasness for RSS and general disdain toward Atom. He is not doing any favors for RSS with this approach and is alienating it more and more each day because of it.
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