My ZDNet post today explores the reasons behind Google's new syndication format, GData. Like most people, Jeff Jarvis isn't sure what this means - and neither is Dave Winer. I'm in the same boat, but what I do know is that Google has taken a sudden interest in extending RSS and Atom. Check out this Google Base documentation, for RSS 2.0 and for all syndication formats. This is all about enabling bulk upload of items into Google Base, which you'll recall is Google's potential giant database of structured data on the Web. Google is obviously eyeing RSS (or syndication in general) as a means of getting people to upload data to Google Base. But why did Google feel the need to create a new protocol, called GData?
My initial reaction was that GData is a way to mix RSS/Atom with their APIs, in order to better integrate their increasing number of web applications. I'm not sure if this points to less of a walled garden, or paradoxically more of one because Google is defining the protocol now.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Why Google is extending RSS.
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Blog.mauricecodik.com explains what Google's GData is all about. It provides a way for users to obtain and modify information that Google stores. He gives the example of the Google calendar. Using the methods provided by Google it's possible to retriev... Read More
Cool lots of people are suggesting and rightfully so that we should all be using the same micro-formats and standards. While we will support GData it would have been nice if they used hCard and hCalendar (etc) where appropriate. Some... Read More
Subscribe to any alerts around the word RSS and what you get is a lot more than just stories around the technology RSS. Professional marketers, analysts, and public relations firms are all over this new buzzword. There is money in it, it is causing old... Read More
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Minor point, GData isn't really a new protocol. It's an implementation/specialization of the Atom Publishing Protocol.
Posted by: James Snell | April 21, 2006 4:39 PMInteresting, because Google is calling it a protocol: "The Google data APIs ("GData" for short) provide a simple standard protocol for reading and writing data on the web."
It seems to me to be an extension of the Atom Publishing Protocol, rather than just an implementation. But I'm by no means a tech expert on this.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | April 21, 2006 4:45 PMI guess that depends how you define "protocol"... personally I wouldn't get hung up on the label.
Posted by: Michael Fagan | April 21, 2006 5:22 PMYep good point Michael. My main interest is in *what* GData will be used for.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | April 21, 2006 5:23 PMThe protocol is HTTP - GET / PUT / POST / DELETE (in other words, CRUD).
The payload is Atom, chosen because it happens to do lists of things really well.
The list items carried in GData Atom are the interesting things - they'll vary according to the application. In the case of Google Calendar, each Atom entry contains a calendar event.
So, in a nutshell, GData is HTTP-based CRUD using Atom entries to represent discrete records.
Posted by: l.m.orchard | April 21, 2006 8:49 PMThere is really nothing sudden about this. They have been busy making big web enabled database clusters and helping define the Atom protocol.
This meshes perfectly with all that.
Posted by: Alper | April 24, 2006 3:25 PM