XML Developer Center: XML Columns: Fun with IXMLHttpRequest and RSS

XML Developer Center: XML Columns: Fun with IXMLHttpRequest and RSS: "Introduction

Recently there's been a lot of buzz about using Javascript and IXMLHttpRequest in Web applications, generated in large part by the recent article Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications by Jesse James Garrett, which coined the term Asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX). The renaissance of the technique formerly known as remote scripting is primarily due to a number of high profile uses of this technique by Google Web sites, such as Gmail, Google Suggest, and Google Maps. Given the renewed interest in using XML in the browser, I decided to try my hand at building a Web page that utilized AJAX.

Around the same time I decided to try my hand at building an AJAX application, I came across an article by Daniel Steinberg entitled Bosworth's Web of Data. This article described a recent keynote by Adam Bosworth at the MySQL Users Conference 2005 where he predicted that RSS 2.0 and Atom would become the lingua franca for information interchange on the Web. RSS first gained popularity as a way to syndicate blog posts and news sites, but has turned out to be a lot more versatile than that. Sites like Feedster and Amazon's OpenSearch technology show that you can use RSS as a mechanism for providing search results and integrating search engines respectively. Podcasting shows that you can use RSS to syndicate digital media content instead of just plain old text or HTML. With Amazon's syndicated feeds you can keep abreast of when new CDs, books, and more are released. The list of innovative uses of RSS goes on."