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has been discussed, but looks unlikely to happen because a significant proportion of those participating in developing the Atom feed format see RDF as not having a sufficiently advantageous complexity-tobenefit ratio. The likely lack of RDF support in Atom 1.0 means that RSS 1.0 is the only viable option for a format for feed creators who want to make available the additional metadata that RDF can provide. Perhaps, in time, Atom 1.0 and RSS 1.0 will be the dominant information feed formats. Atom 1.0 will be used by those who choose not to have the complexity and rich metadata of RDF; RSS 1.0 for those who choose to use RDF. The Standards Body Aspect None of the various versions of RSS have been developed under the auspices of a widely recognized standards body. That reality hasn t prevented the various versions of RSS from being widely adopted in information feeds. However, some in the information feed community believe that standard specifications shouldn t be in the hands of individuals. The decision to develop Atom 1.0 under the auspices of the IETF was, in part, influenced by that perception. At the time of writing it remains uncertain how well Atom 1.0 will be received. A significant factor will be whether the authors of blogging software will adopt Atom 1.0. If the big hitters, such as Movable Type, all select Atom 1.0 (as it looks likely Movable Type will), then the number of Atom 1.0 feeds could increase rapidly. Blogging software and similar products now create most feeds automatically. Whether the number of feeds using various versions of RSS will decrease is much less certain. If somebody produces an RSS 0.91 feed and it is processed correctly by many or all of the major aggregators, what incentive is there to change to Atom 1.0? What Is Atom? Atom 1.0 consists of both a feed format and a publishing protocol. In addition there are draft specifications for autodiscovery of Atom 1.0 feeds and for notification of updated feeds. Each of these aspects is discussed in the remainder of this chapter. Further Information about Atom 1.0 Due to the stage of development of Atom 1.0 at the time that writing of this book is being completed, it is certain that at least some changes will be made in the specifications. The following resources are listed so you can have access to up-to-date information. If you are interested in Atom 1.0 you will want to access online information that updates the material in this chapter. Currently, you can find links to some key Atom documents at http://www.ietf.org/ ids.by.wg/atompub.html. Links from that page may be more up to date than those given here. If the preceding URL returns a broken link at some future date, a likely way to find up-to-date Atom 1.0 information is to use the keyword search located at http://search.ietf.org/ and search for Atom. 131 Looking Forward to Atom 1.0