Submitting TrackBack as an Internet Standard

In 2002, Ben and Mena Trott had an idea for how blogging systems could communicate with one another more effectively about the plethora of content being created. They dubbed the idea "TrackBack" and they implemented it in Movable Type. What followed surprised everyone, the idea and technology they created spread like wildfire. Now, several years later, TrackBack is in use by over 50 million blogs and news sites across the Internet.

As many familiar with the protocol will attest, TrackBack, despite its wide market adoption, is far from perfect -- largely due to the fact that TrackBack was invented for a blogosphere that was much different in size and makeup. Today, blogging has exploded in popularity, presenting TrackBack with a whole new set of challenges to address. Specifically, those challenges include the need for:

• Standardization
• Protocol Extensibility
• Authentication
• Better documentation

Since TrackBack was invented, little has been done to secure TrackBack to prevent people from abusing it and generating unsolicited, unwanted, and ultimately irrelevant "TrackBack Spam." Managing unwanted TrackBacks takes time away from bloggers and blog hosting services that could be better spent elsewhere.

Also, over the years, a number of protocols have emerged to service roughly the same set of problems as TrackBacks -- to inform resources and services on the Internet of the availability of new content. TrackBack and "update pings" have a lot in common, and the industry could benefit a great deal by simplifying and potentially merging them into a single and cohesive standard.

Finally, Six Apart has engaged many companies wishing to extend the TrackBack protocol in some way, a proposition that Six Apart is excited about and encourages. However, no one company should ever be a constraint on anyone's desire to innovate and deliver new and interesting technologies to the blogging world. Extension of the protocol should be simple, logical, and enabled by the protocol itself.

These challenges do not affect Six Apart alone, but the blogging industry at large. If we want to address these challenges, while ensuring interoperability and backwards compatibility with the existing protocol, then we must do so collectively and cooperatively.

Therefore, Six Apart is beginning the process of submitting TrackBack to the Internet community and establishing TrackBack as a standard. To that end, Six Apart would like to invite anyone who is interested to join a provisional TrackBack Working Group by signing up for the TrackBack-protocol mailing list, and engaging its members in a discussion about the future of TrackBack.

Our first order of business will be to review the proposed charter and establish that there is enough interest in the Internet community to take this project on.

In the end, you can play a big role in helping us make TrackBack, one of the cornerstone protocols of the blogging industry, more secure and more useful by contributing your time and your voice.

Update: Six Apart's list servers are experiencing a problem whereby public mailing lists are getting reset to private. If you get a "sorry you are banned" message - that is a mistake. Be patient and check back with this post for updates. We are working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. We're sorry for the inconvenience.