I haven't been as excited about a data format since creating a mostly proprietary, but somewhat based on ACORD one at a Canadian insurance company in 1999-2000.
I still have a lot to learn about ATOM, but it seems to address all of the pain points I have seen in integration data formats so I'm optimistic.
I obviously can't be the first one to think of it, but wouldn't Atom / AtomPub make a nice simple Service Directory (think UDDI, but with legs)? Just a feed with entries for each service instance? Categrories and other meta data? You could dynamically register services via AtomPub - perhaps services would have to re-register every so often. Is there something like this already?
I also looked back at some of the blogosphere spaz-outs regarding Atom yesterday. I have more to learn, but perhaps it is best that Atom get's a head of steam before embrace and extend sets in anyway.
Here's to hoping that Atom stays simple - seems to be a beautiful format.
