Permanent link to archive for 2/13/04. Friday, February 13, 2004
Advice for UserLand re RSS and Atom

Scott Young, CEO at UserLand asked what I thought they should be doing re RSS and Atom. Here's what I said.

I don't know, I've been thinking about it of course.
 
The problem is there are going to be multiple versions of Atom. By supporting it now, are you committing to keeping up with all the changes? In many ways it's easier to stay out of the fray and let things settle down.
 
I guess the key questions are -- are you:
 
1. Getting any user requests for Atom support?
 
2. If so, are you losing any sales because you don't yet have it?
 
Personally, I'm not missing it. The only feeds that aren't also available in RSS are two very marginal ones, that rarely update and mostly are irritating, not informative.
 
Also personally, I'd much rather have some news about Manila. Let's change the subject from format changes, which mean nothing to users, to features, which do.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 2/13/04; 1:28:16 PM - --