I’ve added a Json feed to this blog. You can subscribe to it here.

For 99% of you, this will probably be meaningless. If you follow this blog, you probably do so using the existing RSS or Atom feeds, or via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn or Google+. I don’t really know why anyone would need a JSON feed as well, but there’s a WordPress Plugin and it’s simple to install.

The JSON Feed web site is a little light on content, and the relative advantages of JSON over RSS and Atom. The main reason seems to be related to applications that have been written in JavaScript; such applications won’t therefore need an XML parser. JSON, for those of you unaware, stands for JavaScript Object Notation, and it is often used instead of XML for exchanging data.

As for third-party applications that use JSON: Reeder was recently updated and will work with any service that supports it, such as Feedbin.

Another feed format?

For someone who was blogging during the ‘feed Format wars’ between RSS and Atom, to see another format appear is odd. Especially as the use of feed readers seems to be declining. Though there are lots of feed reading web sites and software available, I know very few people who used them nowadays. It’s often easier just to follow a web site’s social media feeds. I bet some web site operators aren’t aware that they host feeds, as it’s something that their content management system handles silently in the background. Remember, WordPress manages a significant percentage of the world’s web sites nowadays, with RSS feeds enabled by default.

Maybe a future version of WordPress will support JSON feeds as standard, if the format takes off. But RSS has a head start of nearly 20 years, and even Atom has been around since 2003. So I will be very surprised if JSON feeds become popular beyond a few technically-minded enthusiasts.

JSON Feed originally appeared on Neil Turner's Blog and is released under a Creative Commons License. Follow me on Twitter - @nrturner