Prepare for a rant about what’s wrong with feeds and RSS, Podcasts, Atom, webcal://, vcards, etc etc.

Feeds Are More Trouble Than They’re Worth

Now some of you are saying, “wait a sec, I like RSS feeds… I like aggregating the content from websites… I like subscribing to web-based calendars… I like downloading contact information in a vcf file” etc… And so do I! But the basics of each of these aggregated, subscription, feed, information related xml/IETF/IMC formats has caused me more frustration in building websites that I’m just sick of the coding and maintenance that makes all of these work.

Here’s a few examples some of you can relate to:

• Website X says, “Were changing our feed address!”
• iTunes has a circle with an exclamation point next to a podcast.
• Their feed has less content than their web site.
• The feed is updated later than their website.
• Website Foo has http://foo.com/, but our feed address is actually http://feedburner.com/bar
• Reader Y says, “Why don’t you offer Atom?”
• Reader Z says, “Why don’t you offer RSS 2.0?”

Before you know it, you’re managing (or visiting) http://schmooser.com/ which says this:

“SUBSCRIBE!”

• RSS 0.9
• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• RSS 3.0 !! TADA!
• Atom 0.3
• Atom 1.0
• Atom 2.0!! TADA!
• OGG Podcast
• MP3 Podcast
• MP3 64 (mono)
• AAC Podcast
• … insert next best format here …

Each feed carries (nearly) the same info. And everyone is stuck maintaining (or reading) a page which describes each of the formats so their readers know which one they want to subscribe to (I’ll get a screenshot of one of these sites just in case this is your first time on the Internet).

Enough Already!

All of these cause confusion for readers, maintenance problems for developers, wasteful cpu cycles, cluttering the web with useless URI’s which will quickly change when you move to a different CMS. And, you’re stuck publishing in the ‘next best format’ when egghead # 5,437,189,427,819 decides there’s a minutely better way of aggregating info on the web.

All the while, you’re publishing all the same info you’re aggregating from the HTML index file at http://schmooser.com/ !
It’s the SAME info… just in a different format!

I can’t wait for my Semantic Web which was promised me a few years back. I’m sure it’s just right around the corner. The day when I can enter schmooser.com and read his blog my web browser, subscribe to his content using the same URI, chat with Joe Schmooser by using his URI schmooser.com, schedule a meeting by checking schmooser.com’s free busy time, or give him a call by plugging schmooser.com into my phone. Now if if that’s not a semantic web, then obviously I don’t know what is… but that’s what I’m waiting for.

Now Microformats solve a lot of these problems… as well as the rel= attribute enabling auto-discovery, but many people don’t know what they are, and even more aren’t actively using them or developing tools to discover them.

In case you aren’t aware… Microformats leverage existing html content, and add small underlying structure by using class names to identify structured, or informational data within a web page. The key here being that they LEVERAGE the format which the data already resides! Meaning you don’t have to publish another feed using a different schema at a different URI… the content all exists within the same file.

But unfortunately we live in a world where the next egghead is developing another useless format which doesn’t utilize the EXISTING format the information is already published in.

I would encourage every web developer to read up on Tantek ?elik and Microformats, and start using them in the applications they build. (Me included).