Today I learned that Apple brings podcasts into iTunes which is excellent news. This will definitely push subscribing to music and videos via RSS feeds into the mainstream. I wonder how long it'll take MTV to start providing podcast feeds.

One interesting aspect of the announcement which I didn't see in any of the mainstream media coverage was pointed out to me in Danny Ayers's post Apple - iTunes - Podcasting where he wrote

Apple - iTunes - Podcasting and another RSS 2.0 extension (PDF). There are about a dozen new elements (or “tags” as they quaintly describe them) but they don’t seem to add anything new. I think virtually everything here is either already covered by RSS 2.0 itself, except maybe tweaked to apply to the podcast rather than the item.
They’ve got their own little category taxonomy and this delightful thing:

<itunes :explicit>
This tag should be used to note whether or not your Podcast contains explicit material.
There are 2 possible values for this tag: Yes or No

I wondered at first glance whether this was so you could tell when you were dealing with good data or pure tag soup. However, the word has developed a new meaning:

If you populate this tag with “Yes”, a parental advisory tag will appear next to your Podcast cover art on the iTunes Music Store
This tag is applicable to both Channel & Item elements.

So, in summary it’s a bit of a proprietary thing, released as a fait accompli. Ok if you’re targetting for iTunes, for anything else use Yahoo! Media RSS . I wonder where interop went.

This sounds interesting. So now developers of RSS readers that want to consume podcasts have to know how to consume the RSS 2.0 <enclosure> element, Yahoo!'s extensions to RSS and Apple's extensions to RSS to make sure they cover all the bases. Similarly publishers of podcasts also have to figure out which ones they want to publish as well.

I guess all that's left is for Real Networks and Microsoft to publish their own extensions to RSS for dealing with providing audio and video metadata in RSS feeds to make it all complete. This definitely complicates my plans for adding podcasting support to RSS Bandit. And I thought the RSS 1.0 vs. RSS 2.0 vs. Atom discussions were exciting. Welcome to the world of syndication.

PS: The title of this post is somewhat tongue in cheek. It was inspired by Slashdot's headline over the weekend titled Microsoft To Extend RSS about Microsoft's creation of an RSS module for making syndicating lists work better in RSS. Similar headlines haven't been run about Yahoo! or Apple's extensions to RSS but that's to be expected since we're Microsoft. ;)


 

Categories: Syndication Technology | XML
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Wednesday, June 29, 2005 5:58:14 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
The really sad thing is that this kind of thing really can get out of hand. Vendors obviously do have the right to extend RSS to do what they want and with these extensions Apple has demonstrated exactly the wrong way to go about doing it.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 7:17:51 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
While I think Apple's design, process, spec, and even file format all suck, isn't "definately complicates my plans" putting it a little strongly? Don't you remember what you wrote after adding Atom support, that it's just another flavor with different element names and slightly different semantics to map to your object model? Some of Apple's stuff is of no interest to you (itunes:owner is specifically the contact person for things related to the feed appearing in the iTunes Store, whatever, and no matter how they fix their misdefinition of itunes:block you don't care), most of the rest is debased RSS that you only want if you can't get something better (if rss:description is missing, settle for itunes:summary, if rss:category is missing map their weird nested categories to the RSS equivalent of &lt;category domain="http://www.itunes.com">Business/Investing&lt;/category>), and the useful bits are gravy: if an item has either itunes:duration or media:content @duration grab that, if it's either itunes:explicit or media:adult display it bold and highlighted... to me it doesn't seem complicated, just the same old annoying "which of these things is better, if I find both, and what's the lowest common denominator that I can count on using."
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 7:20:48 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Now, the way that your comments double-escape a single-escaped less-than, and throw a bloody server exception on an unescaped less-than, *that* definately complicates things ;)
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 8:31:02 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
I hear you about all the extensions. Most of the time it shouldn't be a big deal, since right now there isn't much overlap in the RSS extensions. But if there are competing variations of the same data, there's a pretty simple solution: Use XSLT to convert the RSS/RDF-RSS/Atom feed to a single format--maybe some using internal XML schema, supporting everything that RSS Bandit supports. This internal XML format could mirror your object model, maybe even to the point that you can simply use .NET XML Serialization (if the performance is adequte--I haven't used it except for prototype applications).

This would also help in the case of a new version of RSS or Atom having a breaking change, and it may even allow for custom XML formats to be supported by adding an XSLT to the configuration.

And if you're already using XSLT, then disregard this suggestion. I'll have to take a look at the source code some day to see if I can come up with a better suggestion.
Matthew W. Jackson
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 1:45:25 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Agreed! I think we have to stop this avalanche of vendor specific RSS extensions. Including Microsoft's.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 5:17:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Well yeah it complicates things. But that's the way it goes. If you don't provide a mechanism for extending a spec, someone will just create a new spec and then you have to support that. But if you provide a way to extend a spec, people will do just that. Extend the spec. Some extensions will overlap, some will conflict. And if you don't support them all, your app is seen as "incomplete".

Why did you write an aggregator? You were essentially writing your own spec. You didn't like the existing aggregators and thought you could do better. You have in some aspects, but not in others. But since there isn't one true aggregator, now feed producers and feed extension creators have to be concerned if the feed they produce, extensions and all, will break in RSSBandit or Bloglines or NetNewsWire. It cuts both ways.

As for "Similar headlines haven't been run about Yahoo! or Apple's extensions to RSS but that's to be expected since we're Microsoft.". Maybe part of that is because, in true Microsoft fashion, MS made a big deal about your extension, had a big presentation at Gnomedex, had all the PR and marketing people working the phones 24-7 to make sure everyone knew that MS was announcing a new extension to RSS and it's inclusion in Longhorn BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY HAD ANYTHING IN PRODUCTION. Contrast that with Apples extension. No big announcement, the big announcement was a new PRODUCT that you could DOWNLOAD RIGHT NOW AND USE...oh and it uses a new extension to RSS. Should they have gotten more feedback from the community? Probably, but I don't think they care if you support and use the extension or not. It works for them. If you want that data to show up in iTunes, you'll use it.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 7:33:13 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Actually, I'd reccomend trying to get the big players to start dancing together. See here for my proposal on this one: http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/RSS_and_Media:_Can't_we_all_just_get_along?
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 7:57:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
Someone gotta stop this craziness. Everyone adds more and more tags that duplicate the information and complicate the software development.

Personally I'm responsible for feed editing software. Recently I added Yahoo! extensions. Now I see Apple's coming. Next will be Real and Microsoft. Next week some crazy arrrghitector in Time Warner will invent its very own tags. And so on and so forth.

Are there any people that have some brain in their heads?
Alex
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 9:36:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
"This definitely complicates my plans for adding podcasting support to RSS Bandit."

Podfeeder had no problem. Between the time of the release and people starting to talk about supoprt on the forums, they had a new release in about 20 minutes.

Goebbels
Wednesday, June 29, 2005 9:43:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
"This sounds interesting. So now developers of RSS readers that want to consume podcasts have to know how to consume the RSS 2.0 enclosure element, Yahoo!'s extensions to RSS and Apple's extensions to RSS to make sure they cover all the bases. "

Yes, to cover all the bases. Isn't that the definition of all the bases? Full support isn't necessary, but if you want to, then do. If you don't, don't. As I said about Podfeeder accomplished it in a matter of minutes.

"Similarly publishers of podcasts also have to figure out which ones they want to publish as well."

Yes, you've got to figure out what you are going to publish in order to publish it.

" The title of this post is somewhat tongue in cheek."

Doesn't sound like it; you sound bitter and annoyed, not amused. Can we assume your complaint about "complicating your job" is tongue in cheek too?

"This definitely complicates my plans for adding podcasting support to RSS Bandit."

Not much really. Why is Microsoft so bad at responding to changes and supporting others?

"Similar headlines haven't been run about Yahoo! or Apple's extensions to RSS but that's to be expected since we're Microsoft. ;)"

Baloney: do a search. Winer is Whining. He links to other complaints. Didn't you quote someone? How can that be if stories don't exist. We all recall the tizzy DW went into over Yahoo.









Goebbels
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