Today’s publishers need to think beyond the fixed location of their website and fully integrate with the large hubs of user activity on the desktop, mobile phone, social networks, blogs, and web pages at large. Syndication and widgets power new opportunities to carry content beyond the walls of a single site and into some of the largest brands in the world yet some publishers still haven’t gotten the message. I recorded a 1-hour video presentation earlier this week to better explain the syndication and widget landscape to web publishers.
Category Archives: Atom
Apple My iTunes widgets
Apple is syndicating iTunes purchase history and user reviews as Flash widgets and Atom feeds under a new program called My iTunes Widgets. Any iTunes Music Store customer can opt-in to sharing their subscribed podcasts, purchased music, music video, TV shows, movies, and positive reviews through an account preference set in the iTunes application.
Rewriting Digg feeds using Atom 1.0
Digg currently uses RSS 2.0 as a lightweight API, adding their own namespaced elements to explain Digg-specific values within the XML. The current Digg feed reinvents some elements (digg:category???) I feel could be better marked up with existing standards and namespaces. I’ll use Digg’s data in this post to show how some complex data and relationships can be expressed using Atom 1.0. Current Digg Technology feedSample Rewritten Digg Technology feed in Atom 1.0 Simplifying drives adoption It’s important to express your data inside pre-defined elements and attributes when possible for easy parsing by the many feed libraries used by…
Google Sitemaps and Atom 1.0
If your site currently generates an Atom feed for use as a Google Sitemap you may want to hold back upgrading your feed to Atom 1.0. Google Sitemaps currently accepts Atom 0.3 only and will throw errors when it encounters the Atom 1.0 feed….
DeWitt on Atom syndication 1.0
DeWitt Clinton: My recommendation to application developers today is to use Atom 1.0, not RSS, as the basis for your content syndication. DeWitt is the lead engineer at Amazon’s A9 search engine. He took a pretty detailed look at RSS 2.0 and Atom as part of A9’s syndication efforts (including OpenSearch) and shared some of his thoughts today on his blog. He appreciates the detailed implementation of the Atom Syndication Format allowing more lossless expression of data between content publisher and parser….
Atom 1.0 now default option
About a year ago I said I would switch my blog’s Atom output from 0.3 to 1.0 once Bloglines, NetNewsWire, and NewsGator supported the new format. Bloglines now supports Atom 1.0, so I just flipped my Atom feed over from 0.3 to 1.0. Everything should transition smoothly….
You down with A.P.P.?
Lately when talking about the Atom Publishing Protocol I can’t help but think of O.P.P. from Naughty By Nature. I don’t remember how it first got in my head, but now that it’s there I feel the need to share this brain worm. You down with A.P.P.? Yeah, you know me. A.P.P. how can I explain it I’ll take you frame by frame it To have y’all jumpin’ shall we singin’ it A is for Atom P is for Publishing scratchin’ letters The last P…well…that’s not that simple Geeky protocols meet early 90s rap music. Army with harmony….
Atom-formatted resume and podcast
Last weekend I decided to break free of the standard boring job résumé or CV and express my job history in the Atom syndication format complete with audio enclosures. Syndication geeks may appreciate the implementation details. I used the published and updated dates to represent my start and end dates. My first day on the job seems like a good match for the published element’s intended use as the “time of the initial creation or first availability” and my last day on the job is the last time the entry was “modified in a significant way” or updated. Since…
Atom 1.0 template for Movable Type
I just finished my Atom 1.0 feed template for Movable Type. I believe it is compliant with the Atom 1.0 specification and my feed validates according to Feed Validator. Movable Type template My Atom 1.0 feed I will not switch my blog’s advertised Atom feed from 0.3 to 1.0 until Bloglines, NetNewsWire, and NewsGator support Atom 1.0 format. Tags: atom10, movabletype…
Atom syndication format draft feed
I just finished my implementation of the latest draft of the Atom syndication format specification. I am currently publishing an Atom feed written to the new specification.