I'm obviously happy to see this. Beyond semantic web feel-good factors, the new RSS 1.0 has a lot to offer the developer. The use of RDF has enabled a modular approach so, for instance, financial news providers can invent a module for sending ticker symbols and include it in their feed. Unlike with straight XML parsing, however, this new information will simply be ignored by processors that don't understand it or want to use it. The authors, having done significant work to craft a coherent specification, have opened the process to public participation in order to create a final spec.
Interested parties can join the working group .
The authoring group is also working hard to provide tool support for RSS 1.0. Online validators, RSS 0.91 converters, and other tools are expected to be made available shortly, as is support for the new format from RSS aggregators. I'm particularly excited about the possibilities that the use of RDF opens up. Building on some recent experiments converting e-mail metadata into RDF, I'd like to be able to tap into a worldwide database of web site content metadata too. The RSS 1.0 proposal is a sensible step forward in ensuring the longevity and widespread application of one of the web's few successful metadata formats.