[uf-discuss] Citation and alternates-brainstorming

[Robert O'Rourke]

Angus McIntyre wrote:
> On Thu, December 13, 2007 12:44 pm, Robert O'Rourke wrote:
>   
>> Perhaps in the case of a podcast or video blog you could tell your
>> feed-reader what format you prefer and it would grab the right file.
>> That's one possibility but I don't know of anyone who does
>> podcasts/video blogs in multiple formats.
>>     
>
> We do, 'we' being my $DAYJOB at http://blip.tv/.
>
> I've actually been following this thread with interest because our pages
> currently contain a list of the alternate formats available for any given
> post. Some of our show creators make their episodes available in five or
> six different formats. Take a look, for example, at:
>
>    http://blip.tv/file/509978/
>
> In the bottom-right of that page you'll see a list of the different
> formats available for download. Unless I'm misreading what 'alternates' is
> supposed to be, that's a real-world example where it could be applied and
> - because we're microformats enthusiasts - certainly would be.
>
> Angus
>   

Nice, do you think you could convince your boss (assuming you're not) to 
conduct a survey of your users to see what feed-readers they typically 
use? My money would be on iTunes but I don't know whether a preferred 
format would be necessary there. What file types can an iPod handle? And 
does iTunes already give people the option to set a preference?

I wonder if this is a case where <link rel="alternate" type="xxx" 
href="" /> should be used in the feed, rather than a microformat on the 
page. If there was no feed and sticking with the example of iTunes we'd 
have to convince them to let people point it at a web page to parse out 
the files and the preferred format from the alternates uF...

Alternates would also be a good extension for hAtom also.

-Rob