What Is RSS?
What is ATOM?
 ATOM Definition
The meaning behind it.
The name Atom applies to a pair of related standards. Atom is an open and evolvable standard developed through the IETF standardization process. Atom is an interesting project, as it stands in the same relation to XML vocabularies as SAX stands to XML parsing models -- both are successful, well-engineered projects designed by an informal, community-driven processes. The main motivation for the development of Atom was the dissatisfactions with RSS. Atom is still evolving, and not all aggregators support multiple links as well as they could. Atom is a format (and an API) that competes with RSS.
Atom is a more granular and better defined specification, and is gaining more and more popularity. Atom and other web syndication formats are now used for many purposes, including journalism, marketing, bug-reports, or any other activity involving periodic updates or publications. Atom also provides a standardized way to export an entire blog, or parts of it, for backup or for importing into other blogging systems.
The development of Atom was motivated by the existence of many incompatible versions of the RSS syndication format, all of which had shortcomings, and the poor interoperability of XML-RPC-based publishing protocols. Some websites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds; others offer only RSS or only Atom. For example CNN, the New York Times, and the BBC offer their web feeds only in RSS 2.
Browsers are moving toward integrated feed reader functions, such as Safari RSS, Web Browser for S60, Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer. On Web pages, web feeds (Atom or RSS) are typically linked with the word "Subscribe" or with the unofficial web feed logo.
Development History
The life line of ATOM
Before the creation of Atom the primary method of web content syndication was the RSS family of formats. Members of the community who felt there were significant deficiencies with this family of formats were unable to make changes directly to RSS 2.0 because the official specification document stated that it was purposely frozen to ensure its stability.
| June 2003 |
| Sam Ruby set up a wiki to discuss what makes "a well-formed log entry". This initial posting acted as a rallying point. |
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| People quickly started using the wiki to discuss a new syndication format to address the shortcomings of RSS. It also became clear that the new format could also form the basis of a more robust replacement for blog editing protocols such as Blogger API and LiveJournal XML-RPC Client/Server Protocol. |
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The project aimed to develop a web syndication format that was:
- 100% vendor neutral
- implemented by everybody
- freely extensible by anybody
- cleanly and thoroughly specified
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| In short order, a project road map was built. The effort quickly attracted more than 150 supporters including David Sifry of Technorati, Mena Trott of Six Apart, Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal, Jason Shellen of Blogger, Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo, Timothy Appnel of the O'Reilly Network, Glenn Otis Brown of Creative Commons and Lawrence Lessig. Other notables supporting Atom include Mark Pilgrim, Tim Bray, Aaron Swartz, Joi Ito, and Jack Park. |
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| Dave Winer, the key figure behind RSS 2.0, gave tentative support to the Atom endeavor (which at the time was called Echo.) |
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| Early July 2003 |
| The main discussion was left off the wiki, after a releasing a final project snapshot known as Atom 0.2. Before ending up with the name Atom, it was tentatively using "Pie," "Echo," and "Necho". |
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| December 2003 |
| Atom 0.3 was established during this phase where the discussion continued with a newly set up mailing list. This version gained widespread adoption in syndication tools, and in particular it was added to several Google-related services, such as Blogger, Google News, and Gmail. Google's Data APIs (Beta) GData are based on Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0. |
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| 2004 |
| Discussions began about moving the project to a standards body such as the World Wide Web Consortium or the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). |
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| June 2004 |
| The group eventually chose the IETF and the Atompub working group was formally set up, finally giving the project a charter and process. |
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| December 2005 |
| Atom Syndication Format was issued as a Proposed Standard in IETF RFC 4287. This document is known as 'atompub-format' in IETF's terminology. |
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| May 2007 |
| Three other drafts were still being worked on as part of the IETF process. They are atompub-protocol, atompub-typeparam and atompub-autodiscovery. Their contents and current status can be viewed at IETF's web site. |
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