July 24, 2005
Atom 1.0 SmartFeed Support
We're happy to announce immediate support for the latest syndication format, Atom 1.0, across the entire spectrum of FeedBurner services. A lot of people have worked long and hard to make Atom 1.0 a reality, and we think that this format may hold some real long-term benefits for publishers.
In the near-term, however, things might be a little frustrating for both publishers and subscribers. Since Atom 1.0 is not backwards compatible with the existing Atom format, publishers will understandably be reluctant to offer an Atom 1.0 feed until the format is supported by the majority of readers and aggregators. So, there's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.
Enter SmartFeed™. Publishers that use FeedBurner's free SmartFeed service can side-step all of these format concerns. Here's how it works: if you have an Atom 1.0 feed and burn it with the SmartFeed service, then when your feed is requested, we'll take a look at the client that's requesting your feed and do one of following:
- Leave it as is (if the reader supports Atom 1.0)
- Convert it on-the-fly to an Atom 0.3 feed (if the reader doesn't support Atom 1.0, but does support Atom 0.3)
- Convert it on-the-fly to an RSS 2.0 feed (if the reader doesn't support any Atom variant)
All of the other great FeedBurner services work with Atom 1.0 as well: stats tracking for keeping track of your circulation, Browser-Friendly to provide potential readers an easy way to subscribe to your feed, and our SmartCast™ service even supports Atom 1.0 enclosures. So burn your feed today and let FeedBurner handle the messy details.
Licensees of FeedBurner Mobile Server who are using the proxy to convert to Atom will now automatically get Atom 1.0 instead of Atom 0.3. Furthermore, licensees who are creating mobile cients with podcatching or video capabilities may now use Atom 1.0. For mobile clients that only support either RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0, FeedBurner will appropriately transform any publisher's feed to the format supported by the client. As we have pointed out before, it is more likely that mobile clients will support only one format, in an attempt to provide as small a client footprint as possible.
Comments
If I switch my existing RSS 2.0 feed over to Atom 1.0, will SmartFeed do the right thing? Or do I need a new feed?
As long as you have the SmartFeed service selected, it will Do The Right Thing and your subscribers shouldn't notice a thing.
Wen I use feedburner, am I automatically converting my atom feed to rss? Or do I now just have 2 different feeds, (http:feeds.feedbuner.com/youngblackandfabulous and http:ybf.blogspot.com.atom.xml)
Also, when I try to use the "Add to MY YAHOO" feature button, the preview page comes up for my feed, but it the feed won't add to people's MY YAHOO afer clicking the actual "ADD..." button. What does this mean?
Well, with Feedburner, you have the one URL (http://feeds.feedbuner.com/youngblackandfabulous). Whatever feed you put into that is automatically converted to whatever your readers support. So, if someone visits your site and subscribes to your feed with a reader that only supports RSS, they will be automatically fed an RSS feed from your Atom feed.
Basically, think of Feedburner as a universal translator. They understand what language your feed speaks and can translate that into whatever languages your readers speak.
I am having the same problem as Natasha. When I try to add my feed to My Yahoo, it shows the preview, but doesn't actually add it to the page.
Help!
I do have the same problem... Can't add my own blog to "my yahoo"
I just added blogspot and flickr feeds into Feedburner. But now I can't seem to have the feed in My Yahoo!
Anyone knows why?
How does feedburner determine whether a client supports atom 1.0 or not? Is it via user-agent? accept header?
Jef, is is primarily from the User-Agent header. We maintain a list of requesting clients and which versions support which formats. If you find SmartFeed not acting correctly with some client, just let us know and we can add it to the database.
I am attempting to use the feed support in Microsoft's WCF Web adapter, and the .NET client does not provide a user-agent by default. I can override that, of course, but I don't have a good idea of what to put. Unfortunately, the API only support ATOM 1.0 and RSS 2.0. Suggestions? I would hate to falsely advertise, but not as much as I would hate to not be able to parse the feed (grin).
Has this problem been fixed at all? It's a few months since these previous posts, but I can't add the feedburner feed to My Yahoo. Would it be the same for anyone wanting to add my site to their yahoo??
Thanks!
