Raw

Apple - iTunes - Podcasting and another RSS 2.0 extension (PDF). There are about a dozen new elements (or "tags" as they quaintly describe them) but they don't seem to add anything new. I think virtually everything here is either already covered by RSS 2.0 itself (or something close like DC), except maybe tweaked to apply to the podcast rather than the item.

They've got their own little category taxonomy and this delightful thing:

<itunes :explicit>

This tag should be used to note whether or not your Podcast contains explicit material.

There are 2 possible values for this tag: Yes or No

I wondered at first glance whether this was so you could tell when you were dealing with good data or pure tag soup. However, the word has developed a new meaning:

If you populate this tag with "Yes", a parental advisory tag will appear next to your Podcast cover art on the iTunes Music Store

This tag is applicable to both Channel & Item elements.

This is a bit unusual, but I don't suppose it matters: xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/DTDs/Podcast-1.0. dtd"

(there isn't a DTD there)

So, in summary it's a bit of a proprietary thing, released as a fait accompli. Ok if you're targetting for iTunes, for anything else use Yahoo! Media RSS. I wonder where interop went.

PS. Edd's looked more closely, similar conclusions.

Dare picks up on the interop theme:

I guess all that's left is for Real Networks and Microsoft to publish their own extensions to RSS for dealing with providing audio and video metadata in RSS feeds to make it all complete. This definitely complicates my plans for adding podcasting support to RSS Bandit. And I thought the RSS 1.0 vs. RSS 2.0 vs. Atom discussions were exciting. Welcome to the world of syndication.

I guess it brings " RSS Meta Format" another step closer…

[Danny]