RE: Time to add advertising to Atom?

["Bob Wyman" <bob@xxxxxxxx>]

James Robertson wrote:
> Here's a really wild thought - each item could be an ad, using
> either markup or plain text as the provider saw fit.  Which means
> that it's already supported.  If providers overdo it, then
> subscribers will opt out.  Why is this hard?
	In many cases, what you suggest is probably quite adequate; however,
I think it is important to remember that not all Atom entries will be
handled as text. For instance, you might have a feed of "Airport Delay
Status" or "Weather" whose entries are processed by some clients as data
rather than as text. (i.e. the entries might drive some interactive map
rather than a text display.). In such a feed, an advertisement for something
like a "cheap airplane ticket to Florida" would probably have a different
encoding then the other entries in the feed. The ad would likely be text
rather than some other XML type. It would be useful, I think, for feed
producers to be able to flag the ads in such feeds with some sort of
metadata to indicate to the client that they require special handling.

		bob wyman