Since everyone's jumping up and down about the Atom vs. RSS (or "Google vs. RSS" if that's your paranoia) debate, it's probably worth pointing out that My Yahoo's RSS module also groks Atom. It was added last night. It took about a half hour.

I'm not going to get into this stupid debate (again), so don't try to suck me in. The RSS world is full of political bullshit and personal grudges. I refuse to waste my time getting into the fray. If users want the content and the content is available in Atom, then so be it. Tools need to aggregate Atom.

[Remember, I don't speak for my employer on my weblog or much of anywhere else either.]

Posted by jzawodn at February 12, 2004 11:49 AM

Reader Comments
# chad said:

s/I'm got going to get/I'm not going to get/

on February 12, 2004 12:04 PM
# pete said:

Jeremy, great response. I won't get into any debating here, though I like the "It took about a half hour" line best of all. ;)

on February 12, 2004 12:17 PM
# Adam said:

The RSS world is full of political bullshit and personal grudges.

Can you elaborate.

on February 12, 2004 01:08 PM
# Dan Isaacs said:
on February 12, 2004 01:24 PM
# Scott Johnson said:

Well said Jeremy. I agree that the tools should support RSS and Atom. My personal opinion tends to lean toward Atom, but I don't really care what anybody else uses.

I do, however, provide a variety of syndication options on my site. If you've got an aggregator, my content will work with it in one form or another. And I intend to keep it that way.

on February 12, 2004 01:38 PM
# Adam said:

How is Atom different than RSS. (I know RSS 0.9x pretty well.)

on February 12, 2004 02:15 PM
# Mark Brandes said:

Calm down Jeremy, and think about this. Aren't you part of the political bullshit if you use heated terms like political bullshit.

It's fine that you support Atom and RSS. Now answer this question, wouldn't it be great if Google did the same?

Looking forward to waht the apolitical Jeremy Zawodny thinks about that.

on February 12, 2004 02:48 PM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

Mark:

(1) What makes you think I'm not calm? You didn't see me YELLING or anything, did you?

(2) If by "you" you mean "Yahoo" please say so. As the weblog post clearly states, I'm not speaking for my employer.

(3) As for Google, it'd be great if they did a number of things. Maybe someday I'll post my list of "What Google *should* Do" but I'm sure they think they're doing the Right Thing and not Being Evil. Doesn't every company?

on February 12, 2004 02:52 PM
# Bud said:

$google[right_things] > $google[evil_things];

$yahoo[right_things] < $yahoo[evil_things];

on February 12, 2004 02:56 PM
# Mark Brandes said:

Yeah uh huh. Those "I don't speak for my employers things" mean so much. When you said that you added support for Atom in one hour do you think people are going to say "this random guy Jeremy added Atom support in one hour" or "Yahho supports Atom." See the point. If you're at Yahoo in one sentence and then not at yahoo in the next, well that sounds like political bullshit to me. Could be my problem. In the meantime, if you don't like political bullshit, stop bullshitting, politically.

on February 12, 2004 02:59 PM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

Mark:

I'm not sure what you're smoking. I never said I added it. You wannt know why? Because I *didn't* add it.

As for "you're at Yahoo in one sentence and then not at yahoo in the next" I wasn't Yahoo in any of this stuff. If you don't belive me, call up Yahoo PR and ask.

Seriously.

Why do you think I'm making this up?

on February 12, 2004 03:01 PM
# Chris Pederick said:

Mark - seeing as you seem to be struggling Jeremy's post, here it is again:

"...it's probably worth pointing out that My Yahoo's RSS module also groks Atom. It was added last night. It took about a half hour..."

Notice how Jeremy never uses the words "I" or "you" at any point in his sentence. I think you are the one who needs to calm down...

on February 12, 2004 03:34 PM
# kasia said:

So much for no political discussion :)

Does this fall into the category of religion now?

on February 12, 2004 03:58 PM
# David Grant said:

Sorry about my trackback, was playing with the parameters.

on February 12, 2004 05:04 PM
# JJ said:

If you have some time some day, why don't you include an "add to my yahoo" feature? It's not a big deal...

on February 12, 2004 11:02 PM
# Randy said:

Jeremy, good move. There's nothing wrong w/ providing more choices. I think the upset w/ Google is that they are removing choices.

on February 13, 2004 07:09 AM
# dws said:

"My Yahoo RSS Module" != "my Yahoo RSS Module", in case that's where the misread is.

on February 13, 2004 12:43 PM
# Bilder said:

Oh, just half an hour? That's not a realistic time in my opinion.

on February 13, 2004 04:20 PM
# Bilder said:

Oh, just half an hour? That's not a realistic time in my opinion.

on February 13, 2004 04:21 PM
# havoc said:

Okay, what's "Atom?" I read a grand total of 3 weblogs, so I managed to miss this. I've never gotten on the RSS bandwagon, so I'm a bit of a ludite. Heck, I don't even use a blogging tool for my blog.

Just one link to a good article about Atom, and I'll be happy, thanks!

on February 13, 2004 07:57 PM
# said:

> I think the upset w/ Google is that they are removing choices.

No they aren't. Paying customers had the option of using RSS. They still do. All Google has done is add Atom support for everyone using Blogger. They have not removed anything.

on February 14, 2004 06:44 AM
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