We’re up to Draft 10 of the Atom Publishing Protocol, and it’s very close to what the final product will look like. The APP is getting more early developer support and interop testing than any standards project I’ve ever been involved with, and that includes XML. DeWitt Clinton covers some of the bases, but Dave Johnson makes it nice and simple: “Atom protocol can do everything that MetaWeblog API can do, and much more.” On the subject of the Atom Feed Format, I don’t think much more needs to be said, but the U.S. Intelligence community (which is quite feed-heavy internally) commissioned a study: RSS and Atom Considerations; it seems very thorough to me. In reading it, Wikipedia’s article on Intelink may be a useful reference.
