Ik heb er veel over gehoord, maar het kan dus echt dat een chef van een politieke nieuws redaktie van de publieke omroep overstapt naar een communicatie functie bij de overheid. Dat riekt naar beloning.
The rss/atom discussion has sparked something off topic, but fresh and new. Steve Garfield is a user who wants developers to listen to his wishes. This is great. Since users are paying for a lot of the development, we should learn how to approach developers with feedback. Properly structured, this could benefit the development cycle enormously.
I'm really happy to see more users of weblog syndication tools joining in the conversation about rss and the introduction of alternative tools and protocols (whatever that means).
I'm a broadcaster, have been since I was 14, tv, radio and ever since the day I figured out how to set up a gopher server, internet as well.
So to answer the question if I have anything to gain financially by participating in this thread.. damn straight! I don't want to spend time learning how to use additional tools or switching to an aggregator for a new format.
Developers say it's trivial to 'broadcast' via two formats. Perhaps I value my time differently.
To me it's like I was broadcasting happily to the world and all of a sudden I need to install a new set of antennas and transmitters, just because someone says the technology is better.
So far it aint in my book. It took me weeks to explain my needs to the rss development community how I wanted to use it. After days of patiently listening to my story, the enclosure feature was born and is now a part of rss. Yes, it was Dave Winer who listened to my babbling. Not just because we're friends (we enjoy talking about porn a lot more) but because I'm also a customer.
To me, repeating this process is time consuming, which ultimately results in a financial issue. To date not one single person has approached me about what I need in a syndication format. I need enclosures, or something that performs the same fucntion. I presume there's nothing innovative about Atom, otherwise developers would be helping me implement it. There can't be that much difference between rss and Atom developers can there? Or is there, and is that where all the personality conflicts come from?
Surely developers of other syndication formats are doing this for a reason? Perhaps they have financial motivation, or do all these smart developers who work for big companies like IBM and Google really only want to make the world a better place?
And that's the entire point. I want to be creating and distributing content to everybody in the simpelest way possible. Blogger, MoveableType and Typepad users surely want the same.
Here's what Blogger (owned by google) says about syndication, as listed on their help page: "Atom is one name for two things: It's both a new standard for developers, as well as a syndication format or "feed" for your blog. When a regularly updated site such as a blog has a feed, people can subscribe to it using software for reading syndicated content called a "newsreader." People like using readers for blogs because it allows them to catch up on all their favorites at once. Like checking email--without the SPAM."
Sounds just like RSS to me. There is no mention of RSS in the blogger help pages.
Joi Ito (an investor in typepad/moveable type) responded to my latest email with a single line: "I think RSS is "a default" but not "the default". Is this the issue?"
As of February 4th you needed a 'Pro' account (not free) and an 'Advanced' template and this set of instructions to output RSS in addition to the default, Atom.
I don't want to fight about who owns what, I just want to broadcast. Please give me a compelling, non-technical reason to be forced into becoming a customer of new tools, Pro-accounts and god knows what else. I haven't been able to find one on my own.
