A long time ago in an IETF working group not so far away, there was a big discussion over whether an Atom feed is really just an Atom entry that contains other entries. At the time, I wrote a long email on the subject, but kept putting off sending it, so it’s been languishing in [...]

Tim Bray sent a message to the Atom Working group mailing list today declaring that, other than changes to the last draft that consensus has already been reached on, the Atom format is, for all practical purposes, done. There are a few more steps to be completed before it’s official, as Tim notes:
“Note that this [...]

Since I posted What’s still wrong with Atom (and probably will be in 1.0), a few of the issues I mentioned have been resolved. Here’s a quick overview of those issues, plus two more. The number of asterisks under each indicates how much I wish the issue would be resolved (1=no big deal, 5=very sad [...]

Google AdSense for Feeds: “Google AdSense for Feeds
AdSense for feeds is a program that enables publishers to place relevant ads in the feeds they syndicate. Google technology understands the nuances of language, and places ads that are closely matched (or ‘targeted’) to the content next to which they appear. [...]
If [...] your feed has more [...]

Two simple steps to higher search engine placement: “Search Engine Optimization doesn’t have to mean paying gobs of money to self-proclaimed professionals with questionable qualifications. Nor does it have to mean hiring an army of copywriters to fill your site with content. Two simple steps will boost your search engine ranking and give visitors a [...]

An issue has arisen in the Atom working group that I wouldn’t have thought we’d need to discuss: who can add elements to the Atom namespace? Technically, the namespace spec doesn’t speak to this issue, but the spirit of it seems plenty clear to me. Should the Atom spec spell the answer out explicitly? Given [...]

Chordata, my directory of RSS and Atom feeds has been growing quickly, and is soon to see some changes that should make it grow a lot faster. In preparation for that growth, I decided yesterday that it’s about time to give it a URL that’s more memorable and independent than “chordata.geckotribe.com”. Unfortunately, “chordata.com” was [...]

Sometimes having a lot of people working on Atom is great, because we get a much wider variety of experience and insight than a smaller group would have available to it. But all too often, it feels like trying to get the US government to move–too many checks and balances keep the status quo entrenched, [...]

The New York Times Company Investor Relations: “NYTimes.com’s RSS feeds generated 5.9 million pageviews on the site in March, which represents a 342% increase year over year and a 39% increase from February’s 4.3 million pageviews. The sections that were most popular among RSS feeds included: Washington and Business. The feeds have been available since [...]

Google’s AdSense ads have started showing up in RSS feeds from a few different publishers. At present, they’re just testing the concept, so not many publishers are able to participate, but it sounds like the program will be expanding soon. This will likely lead to more feeds carrying full content, rather than just summaries or [...]