Feeding Frenzy

Behind the Buttons

If you click these buttons, you might get a screenful of raw code:

raw XML

If you've ever felt mystified, confused, or frustrated upon seeing such a display, you're not alone. You may have thought you were looking at a "broken" Web page. The vast majority of Web surfers today probably feel the same way. Linking directly to such feeds is a major usability problem.

Or you might get something that's a little more nicely formatted:

raw Atom

The first is an example of an RSS feed. The second is an Atom feed. But in either case, these feeds are not designed to be viewed with typical Web browsers.