Bloggers and news sites are the main publishers of RSS and Atom feeds today, but if data bite formats are to be the next wave to sweep the internet, they'll need to be used more widely. Where will the wave take us, and how can we prepare for the ride?

Many of the answers will probably only become apparent as new uses are pioneered and we gain the benefit of hindsight. But a few things are already clear. I've posted plenty before about the need to minimize bandwidth requirements, so I won't belabor the point today. (I may belabor it tomorrow though--no promises!)

One issue we'll face is the need to organize the gazillions of feeds that will emerge. We'll need both the Yahoo! and the Google approaches: categorized indices and keyword searches. Data bite formats also hold forth the possibility of categorizing and aggregating individual items as opposed to entire feeds or sites. This is already being done, but there's probably a lot of room for improvement.

Another thing we'll need to do, especially when aggregating, is to separate quality feeds from the mass of available feeds. But since quality is subjective, there can't just be one measure of quality for everyone. Some people will want to read from mature voices, others youthful. Some will want Christian views, others Jewish, others Muslim. Some will seek conservative views, others liberal. Some will seek both conservative and liberal views, argued logically, others emotionally. Devising a system to deliver on such diverse preferences will be a huge challenge, but if we can meet it, a tremendous opportunity.

Some problems will need to be solved with infrastructure, others with end-user tools (both publisher and reader). File formats and APIs will need to be refined. Other improvements will come from improved skill in publishing (see my post from a few days ago titled "Bandwidth Kills - Blog Responsibly" - it's not all about bandwidth).

I'll keep this brief today, finishing with a list of some of the uses for data bite formats that we need to consider as we make the decisions that will determine whether we catch the wave, or whether it crashes on top of us:

Blogging, news, group communication (families, alumni groups, former coworkers, friends, clubs, political parties and candidates, etc.), poetry, serialization of longer literary works, comic strips, video, graphic arts, event schedules, press releases, status updates (website, utilities, construction, other projects), information archiving, earthquake data. I'm sure there are a billion more.