BART RSS: What Is and What Should Be
Dave Winer points out that BART now offers an RSS Feed. Here's a screenshot of a recent Yahoo! render:
That's progress, I guess. But here's the type of info I wish BART would stream in an RSS feed:
BART has a stream of events and information that is of interest to BART riders that they should surface through RSS. I'm not interested in subscribing to a BART email list, but I would like to have a BART feed with the latest "traffic tips" to check before I head home. If I'm up in the morning and I see entries of significant delays on the Pleasanton-Daly City line, I might decide to drive into the city -- parking hassle and all -- rather than ride BART.
It's good that organizations like BART are embracing RSS. But they're still mostly stuck in the "newsletter" mentality. Many of these organizations have useful information their customers would like to have broadcast in a timely manner, in a way that doesn't require registration or sign-ups. Instead of (or in addition to) marketing messages being broadcast on their feeds, they should supply the runtime info that wil help make their products and services better -- avoiding a long delay on the Blue Line, for example.
Comments
It is encouraging to see RSS gain recognition as a valuable technology. Too bad its the marketing wonks that control what goes into it, and not the geeks the push the edge of this stuff. I wonder if there's enough community interest to have a read driven feed, that is filled with info not by BART staff, but be folks who use the service everyday, to achieve the same ends?
Posted by: Jeff Pettorino | October 16, 2005 08:20 PM