Yesterday I decided to make a logo for Info Bite. After a bunch of doodling on paper, I came up with the five balls logo that you see here. Here's an excerpt from the Info Bite List homepage:

The five balls in the logo represent five bites of information. They are arranged to represent a stream of information flowing to you across the internet. The diffused look of the balls in the large logo represents the fact that the format doesn't define the type of content contained in each bite of information--that is left up to the publisher to decide. Also, the little dots "orbiting" around each ball represent pieces of information related to the info bite, to which it is linked.

Having a logo and a favicon, which I'm using all over the place now, got me thinking that RSS and Atom could really use logos. A basic Atom logo shouldn't be too difficult--a nucleus with electrons running around it. More challenging would be to come up with a variation on the theme that says something about what Atom does. RSS would be more difficult. How do you draw a picture of "really simple syndication" or whatever variant of the meaning of "RSS" you prefer? Does RSS have any stated core goals that could be used to brainstorm up ideas for a visual representation? I haven't done the research to know whether or not it does, but I don't recall ever coming across any such statement.

In the end, a logo's value in branding probably comes more from developing recognition than by how well it conceptually represents the brand. But having some connection between the two certainly can't hurt.