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Initiative - provide JSON and JSONP RSS Feeds

Monday, October 10, 2011 { 6 Comments }

JSON has won against XML. Because is lighter and simpler.

Many web services are giving priority to JSON over XML. But the all the blogs are still stuck with XML RSS.

So why give JSON and JSONP RSS support?


- JSON is Fat-Free Alternative to XML (save some bandwidth).
- JSON has been chosen like primary format in almost all major public web services.
- JSONP is easiest and fastest way to directly connect the browser with the web service.
- Growing need of building native web apps who can connect directly with the data source.
.. and probably many other reasons.

This initiative comes from my personal frustration … every time I want to build some web app who needs to talk with RSS and JavaScript I need to use some public proxy like YQL or some other server side XML to JSON solution. JavaScript and the browsers had grown much in the last couple of years, we could start using the browser JavaScript engine speed for some heavy lifting. Implementing JSON and JSONP like an alternative to XML(RSS) is very easy process.

I think if some of the major blog players like Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, Posterous provide JSON RSS support everyone else will follow.

That doesn't mean that we should kill XML RSS it means just providing alternative JSON support.


If you agree with me help me spread the word. Thanks!

6 Responses to “Initiative - provide JSON and JSONP RSS Feeds”

1. //  Andy Walpole // 10/10/2011

   I think it is a great idea but I really can't see it catching on.
   
   RSS is dying a slow death and really isn't much interest in experimenting with the format unforuntatly  

2. //  Vladimir // 10/10/2011

   @Andy: Actually in my case I'm using RSS more and more. Many sad that RSS will die with the raise of Twitter and Facebook. But I think RSS has something special that others don't. RSS is anti-social. RSS is not your friend but your utility. RSS has no filings it will not be upset if you don't follow back. I think the main problem with RSS is that almost everyone is using Google Reader that if I'm not mistaken is still has limited API's.
   
   The idea behind this initiative is simple give the programers format that they actually prefer and help all the people who are building web apps.  

3. //  Peter // 10/10/2011

   http://scripting.com/stories/2011/02/10/faqRssInJson.html  

4. //  Vladimir // 10/10/2011

   @Peter Thanks for the link, it is unfortunate that nothing was done. I needs so little to be done Blogger, Tumbler, WordPress and others to write small script that will extract the data into JSON format.  

5. //  tacone // 11/11/2011

   JSON may seem to be fat free, but what does happen when you use it for real, mildly complicated, data ?
   
   Some month ago I got to play a little bit with Google's Analytics Data Export API.
   
   I got pretty shocked when I found out the XML output for the same data was slightly smaller than JSON's.
   
   Your mileage may vary, JSON is more readable and, although less powerful, more than sufficent for the majority of the tasks.  

6. //  Nicola // 6/26/2013

   Any news about the initiative? Has anything moved in that direction?  

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