Early syndication and publishing protocols faced various problems related to interoperability, scalability, and extensibility. The Atom format and protocol builds on earlier efforts to establish an open, extensible, interoperable, and clearly specified framework for Web-logging applications. Atom has already been deployed on a wide variety of platforms. By closely examining previous syndication formats and protocols, the Atompub working group has been able to "pave the footpaths",load g391-a5003-a8-b 7 and design a standard built around well-known and proven usage patterns.