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Georgian RSS Reformed

Peace At LastHere’s an update to to the scandal exclusively reported here as “Georgia Taxpayers Gypped!”

Through intensive back-channel negotiations*, I tunneled deep into the bowels of Georgia’s government infrastructure. Okay, lets just drop that analogy and get to the bottom line: The people** have spoken, and Georgia has listened.

Secret sessions of the state legislature have convened, and a new edict has been issued: pubDate for everyone! Behold the glory of the newly-formatted government news feed:

http://www.georgia.gov/rss/headlines.xml

<rss version="2.0">
   <channel>
      <title>Georgia.Gov Headlines</title>
      <link>http://www.georgia.gov</link>
      <description>The latest Headlines from georgia.gov.</description>
      <language>en-us</language>
      <copyright>© 2006 Georgia Technology Authority</copyright>
      <webMaster>help@georgia.gov</webMaster>
      <pubDate>Tue Jun 27 15:15:47 EDT 2006</pubDate>
      <item>
         <title>GA Requires More CDL Requirements</title>
         <link>http://www.georgia.gov/00/article/0,2086,4802_4961_42526690,00.html</link>
         <pubDate>Tue May 30 11:11:20 EDT 2006</pubDate>
      </item>
      …
   </channel>
</rss>

Everything in italics has been added since yesterday. I have to say, I’m impressed that they jumped on this so fast. Now, if we could only coax them to include the article text in content:encoded (or at least a description summary), the feed would be perfectly usable. Georgia webmaster, if you’re still listening: I’ve found this RSS best practices mini-manifesto to be right on.

This has been an exciting episode, hasn’t it? You don’t need sugar in the morning with news like this. Lets keep the magic alive: If you know of a reasonably public feed in desperate need for a makeover, comment here or drop me an email.

* Cleverly hidden as their contact form.
** Okay, just me.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 05:06 and is filed under syndication, humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Georgian RSS Reformed”

  1. Rob Fay Says:
    June 28th, 2006 at 11:56

    I think perhaps you need to change your tagline from “Feeding a Syndication Nation” to “Changing the world one feed at a time”

    What I’d like to know is how you stumbled across this travesty in the first place?

  2. Rob Fay Says:
    June 28th, 2006 at 12:01

    BTW, the time stamp appears to be off, even for your time zone ;)