Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Enter Atom

In June 2003, Sam Ruby set up a wiki to discuss and design “a well-formed log entry.” Many of those frustrated with both the political drama and technical limitations of RSS joined the effort, and in June 2004 formally set up the Atompub Working Group at the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force, a volunteer organization that develops Internet standards) to develop and formalize a new feed format and publishing protocol called Atom (formerly Echo). The Atompub Working Group’s goal is to create a single standard for syndicated content feeds based on experience gained with RSS.

As of this writing, Atom 1.0 has been published and accepted as a proposed standard. Atom is being backed and implemented by some important syndication tool developers and indexers (e.g., Google and Technorati).