It’s been suggested that I invented podcasting. While I was there in the early days of its creation, mine is only one of many contributions that were made to laying the foundation for internet-based sound distribution.
On October 13, 2000 I reached out to a number of people about making changes to RSS that would include attaching audio and video files. The problem at the time was that bandwidth was limited (and having crashed and burned with an earlier startup due to that, it was top of mind for me). At the same time, MP3 was starting to become a big audio format for file sharing and my guess was that video would be next. So I composed an email and sent to to two lists:
- The syndication list (on egroups, later hosted by yahoo groups and now defunct) where people involved with content syndication would hang out
- Dave Winer’s website (Dave was the main proponent of RSS at the time, really THE guy you wanted to buy into your ideas if you wanted to influence RSS)
Below is the email I sent (strikethroughs on links are other edits due to internal scripts cleaning up dead links):
Suggestion for .92 spec
Author: [email protected]… Posted: 10/13/2000; 12:31:08 PM Topic: RSS 0.91 Msg #: 108 (in response to 14) Prev/Next: 106/109 Reads: 76044 I’d like to suggest a few optional additions to the specification. Here are some ideas I’d like to throw around for discussion:
At the item level:
<date></date>: This would allow us to specify a particular date for an item. I think it would be nice for those of us who have several days’ worth of content in their RDF channel.
At the channel level:
These could be encapsulated in to an <external></external> section that would include all links to outside of the channel.
<about></about> : Much like <link></link> points to the page the channel is for <about></about> could point to a page of information about this channel. this could link to a FAQ or more information about the channel.
<wireless></wireless>: Points to a page where wireless devices can go.
<broadband></broadband>: Points to a page where broadband devices can go.
<narrowband></narrowband>: Points to a page where narrowband devices (browsers for blind people, text-only browsers, etc..) can go
<p3></p3>: Points to a P3P page to check the privacy rules
<sound></sound>: Points to either a VXML source file (which can be read by a VXML browser) or an MP3 sound file. For example, it could serve up a radio feed related to this story.
<video></video>: Same as above with video or SMIL file.
That said, here’s what a source could look like (changes are bolded and URLs are fictional (but I cut and pasted my .91 channel content for speed reasons)):
————– Suggested RSS .92 code starts here ————–
<?xml version="1.0" ?> <!DOCTYPE NewDocTypeLinkGoesHere> <rss version="0.92"> <channel> <header> <managingEditor>[email protected]<;/managingEditor> <copyright>Copyright 1999-present, Me.</copyright> <title>TNL.net Newsletter</title> My channel description <language>en-us</language> <rating></rating> </header><image> <title>TNL.net</title> https://www.tnl.net/images/TNLpalmlogo.gif <width>125</width> <height>44</height> My channel description </image>
<external> <link>https://www.tnl.net;/link> <about>https://www.tnl.net/about/<;/about> <wireless>http://wap.tnl.net<;/wireless> <broadband>https://www.tnl.net/100MBpage.html<;/broadband> <narrowband>https://www.tnl.net/under1kpage.html<;/narrowband> <p3>https://www.tnl.net/p3p.xml<;/p3> <sound>https://www.tnl.net/myvoicebasedchannel.vxml<;/sound> <video>https://www.tnl.net/myvideofeed.smil<;/video> </external>
<item> <title>Story 1</title> <link>https://www.tnl.net/newsletter/anewstory.html<;/link> Story 1 is described <date>10/13/2000</date> </item>
<item> <title>Some older story</title> <link>https://www.tnl.net/newsletter/olderstory.html<;/link> Happy New Year <date>01/01/2000</date> </item>
</channel> </rss>
————– Suggested RSS .92 code ends here —————-
As part of the deal, I’d also move the original channel link and image link into the external field under a single link header (unless some people can tell me where they have a different link for the image and the channel.
Your thoughts on this?
TNL
PS: Full disclosure time – My interest in syndication is related to both past and present. For starters, I have my own personal web site that I use to publish a newsletter (and offer a channel). Providing an easy to use format for summary distribution is a great way to increase traffic to it and expose people to my ideas. Second, I’m starting a company called Moveable Media (http://www.moveablemedia.com), which is trying to bridge the gap between online and offline media. While online syndication is WAY in the future for us (we’re first focusing on providing tools that will allow people to deal with freelancers), it is something that we are seeing as a potential future arena for us.
PPS: The email to the syndication list I sent can be found here: http://www.egroups.com/message/syndication/698
Later that month, Dave Winer, who was steering efforts around RSS, organized a dinner at Katz’s Deli in New York (my hometown at the time) so I went to plead my case. There, I found out that Adam Curry seemed to want to solve a similar problem on his end. So we talked more about this and Dave took all that input and turned it into something useful.
Dave made some critically important changes to my initial idea:
- Instead of having a separate sound and video tag, he merged them into a single <attachment> tag, which could deliver ANY media. A big improvement over my approach
- My proposal wrongly tagged the content outside of the item tag. Dave put it inside the tag, which is where it should be
- Dave added a <description> tag to the next version of RSS, adding the content in a clear and consistent fashion
- Dave accepted the idea that each item should be dated as I presented it
Based on that evidence, you can decide whether I deserve credit in the foundation of podcasting. My intent with this page is only to set the record as to what my participation was and when it happened. If others want to question that or have different claims, I would only ask that they bring similar proof to the table in presenting their case.