Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Jake — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:30:24 -0000

Follow the troll and keep writing software from shoddy specs.

Is this RSS engine part of Vista or part of IE7? I'd guess that the RSS of IE7 (or the RSS engine/platform) will eventually become de facto standard and other aggregators will follow it.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

James Holderness — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:11:49 -0000

It's not as simple as that. If Teligent were to change the way they produced titles in order to work with IE7, their feeds would suddenly stop working (with silent data loss) in several other aggregators (I personally can name more than a dozen). The thing is neither your blogging software nor your aggregator have actually done anything wrong - they just happen to be incompatible with each other, because the RSS spec is ambiguous.

Recently the RSS Board starting making an attempt to address this ambiguity (and a number of other issues) when it was rather forcefully pointed out to them that the RSS roadmap did not allow for such clarification. In the words of Dave Winer: "it [the RSS spec] *has* to remain ambiguous, because the roadmap says so." This is, of course, for your own good. I'm now sure how it's good for you that your software doesn't work, but apparently it is.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

scobleizer — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 02:36:33 -0000

James: it causes me some concern. I'll send this along to Teligent who makes our blogging software that most employees use.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

James Holderness — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:05:05 -0000

Simon Willison: "How does the Microsoft RSS implementation deal with the HTML-in-title problem?"

When Microsoft is producing feeds (MSDN blogs) they include HTML in the titles. When they're consuming feeds (the IE7 aggregator) they assume there is no HTML in titles. As a result their aggregator is unable to process their own feeds correctly. You'd think that might cause them some concern, but apparently not.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

John C. Welch — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 12:56:05 -0000

Let's see...deal with the IETF or Winer. Tough choice.

Seriously, it's "Deal with a rabid wolverine or a pack of insane weasels". Not sure there's a good choice, but the IETF tends to be more open to new ideas.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Neil Turner — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 06:24:46 -0000

To me, it shouldn't matter whether you choose Atom or RSS. If your application produces feeds, then choose one and stick to it since that's less confusing to the consumer. If your application accepts feeds as input, support both. This is what Microsoft is doing and I see nothing wrong with it.

Atom and RSS both have their own advantages and disadvantages - Atom is an agreed internet standard and has less ambiguity in its specification, whereas RSS is simpler and more ubiquitous. At the end of the day, it should not matter which format you choose.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Simon Willison — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 02:38:30 -0000

How does the Microsoft RSS implementation deal with the HTML-in-title problem?

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

scobleizer — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:47:29 -0000

Mike: There already is one on Atom. It's called the IETF.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Mike Drips — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:41:19 -0000

Wake me up when we start an industry standards committee on RSS and Atom.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

scobleizer — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:22:27 -0000

Hans: the employees I know never were. That was another made up story by Wired magazine.

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Hans — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:14:47 -0000

So Microsofties are no longer scorned for packing an iPod?

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Daniel Nicolas — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:09:52 -0000

You had me there for a second... I read the title, "Google Bullshits on Atom, Microsoft bullsh..."

=) Glad to see no one is making stuff up

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

scobleizer — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 23:47:22 -0000

Dmad: using is -- implicitly -- giving support. It might not be much support, but it is giving support. It further validates Quicktime and PSP as media standards and tells Microsoft's customers that they should support them too.

This wasn't on his own personal time. It was on the http://www.on10.net site that's owned by Microsoft (and supported by such).

Re: Google bullish on Atom, Microsoft bullish on RSS?

Dmad — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 23:44:26 -0000

Since when is "'using" Quicktime and a PSP supporting it? Are you suggesting Jeff will lead XBOX gaming partners to build a PSP version of Halo2? Now THAT would be supporting PSP. Is Microsoft going to start ensuring the WMV files run on Quicktime? Now THAT would be supporting quicktime. But I'm completely baffled as to why you think an employee would be fired for using non MS products on his own personal time. Talk about hyperbole!