The Travelin' Librarian

In my RSS workshop I explain to my students that there are multiple versions of RSS available for them to use, never mind that fact that there’s also ATOM which everyone lumps in with RSS since it accomplishes the same exact thing but with a built in stylesheet. I make the case that you use ATOM if your blog is created with Blogger because that’s what Blogger generates. If you’re podcasting, use RSS 2.0 since it supports the required <enclosure> element. Beyond that, don’t worry about which version the software you’re using generates since it doesn’t matter to the user as long as it’s working. So, why of why, would a site offer multiple links to their feed and specify which language and version each link goes to?

Take the image in this post as a perfect example. I was surfing through the SciFi.com Tech blog and noticed that they offer four versions of their feed. One is ATOM, two are RSS (versions 1.0 and 2.0) and the fourth is “RSD” which, to be honest, I’ve never heard of before? (According to Wikipedia it’s “Really Simple Discovery” which I’ve now read about and still don’t understand. Anyone want to help me on this one?)

I subscribe to over 300 feeds, teach people how to use and create feeds, and wrote a book on the subject and I’m not sure which one I should choose… O.k. I generally default to the highest number available in situation such as these, therefore I’d choose the RSS 2.0 version, but I’ll be damned if I could explain exactly why should someone ask me.

As it is there’s a move afoot to stop using the terms RSS and ATOM when it comes to presenting this technology to users (look at IE7 and you’ll see what I’m talking about, the word RSS doesn’t appear anywhere,) and just stick to the term “feed”. KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. Take a look at your blog/site. Are you offering more than one version of the exact same feed? If so, I’d strongly suggest you think about getting rid of all but one of them. Your users will thank you.