RSS, JavaScript Wed Over AJAX

By Angela Natividad | Published Apr 19, 2007

Google is working on a new AJAX API that will enable the good user — that's you — to post feeds to your web properties with just a wee bit of simple JavaScript.

Those who've tried weathering the storm of server-side feed grabbing and caching issues and the labyrinthine depths of parsing XML know what a welcome pairing this is.

Attendees of the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo got first glance yesterday when Bret Taylor featured the API over the course of his speech, “Who Needs Server-Side Code? AJAX APIs and Product Integration 2.0.”

Now developers and sun-loving civilians alike can reap the benefits of websites whose information just got a little more dynamic. Taking on Yahoo! Pipes, the go-to mash-up source, users can easily host dynamic blogrolls, photo feeds or newsreels on a personal or enterprise Web destination.

The AJAX API handles proxies automatically and provides a clean interface for accessing syndicated data. This means server-side code is not required; everything has been simplified on the client end. Additionally, it virtually vanquishes any confusion users may once have suffered over feed types (about which some RSS hosts can be fickle). Feeds supported include:

Atom 1.0
Atom 0.3
RSS 2.0
RSS 1.0
RSS 0.94
RSS 0.93
RSS 0.92
RSS 0.91
RSS 0.9

The AJAX API will be accessible through the Google Web Toolkit, an open source resource that puts standard Java into browser-specific JavaScript that runs on the client end. It is supported by all major Java IDEs, both free and commercial.

The new resource is meant to be both simple and flexible — see the iTunes feed example on the Google AJAX Search API blog. Additionally, there is no apparent limit to the number of requests a client can make. This makes the offering a boon for high-traffic sites in particular.

Google is also working on a process for making the inclusion of multiple Google APIs on one page easier.

Cheers to Google for, as usual, making life that much easier.