DM110 - Week 9 - Content Syndication

DM110 Emerging Web Media Dr. John Breslin [email_address] http://sw.deri.org/~jbreslin/ Week 9: Content Syndication

Recap of syndication and news readers
Content is “syndicated” from many blog and news sites in computer-readable “feeds” that can be used by other systems
For example, content from RTÉ or my blog is syndicated so that headlines / articles can be reused by other people in their own websites or applications
Syndication format is usually RSS
Some sites use a different syndication format:
Blogger.com uses “Atom”
Can use news readers to read multiple feeds:
bloglines.com, Thunderbird, PlanetPlanet, etc.

The syndication of content
Syndication is used for publishing new content regularly
Content is provided from many blogs and news sites in a common format that can be reused by other websites and applications in a “syndication” process
Rather than mass-spamming via e-mail, interested parties can subscribe to feeds to be notified about changes or updates to information ( self service !)
A common syndication format can have many uses , including connecting services together, “mashing” together of data, etc.
We’ll see mashing with Yahoo! Pipes later…

Not just for blog subscriptions
The latest items, with hyperlinks, titles and summaries, are syndicated using computer-readable formats (e.g. for reading favourite blogs with a feed reader)
Since “items” can be virtually anything, RSS can be and is used for more than just blog headline syndication:
Newspaper articles (one of the original usages) , library updates, recipes, shared calendars (RSSCalendar.com) , podcasts, videos, job posts, weather reports, financial updates, bug reports, wiki page changes, new photo uploads, forum thread replies, etc.
Strength (and weakness!) is in its generality

RSS for libraries
Useful for both librarians and members of libraries since libraries publish lot of announcements, e.g. general notices, activity bulletins, online resources, and TOCs for journals
NUI Galway’s library uses RSS 1.0 to publish lists of their new books and resources:
http://www.nuigalway.ie/web/add-ons/rss_reader.html

What is RSS?
The most common syndication format(s)
Acronyms:
“ Really Simple Syndication”
“ Rich Site Summary”
“ RDF Site Summary”
Eight “flavours”:
Not including Atom!

RSS development timeline
The RSS fork:
diveintomark.org/archives/2002/09/06/history_of_the_rss_fork

RSS technologies
RDF:
RSS 0.90, 1.0, 1.1
RSS 1.0 is a Semantic Web RDF vocabulary for syndication
Using RDF allows the inclusion of other vocabularies to supplement the terms in the RSS 1.0 vocabulary, e.g. dc:author (Dublin Core), foaf:Person (Friend of a Friend)
XML:
RSS 0.91, 0.92, 0.93, 0.94, 2.0

What is Atom?
Another syndication system
Based on XML (not RDF), but efforts towards AtomOWL
Emphasis has shifted from the format to the API
Specification:
Constructs: content, people, dates and links
Elements: feeds, with entries
http://www.atomenabled.org/developers/syndication/atom-format-spec.php
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/Motivation
http://www.atomowl.org/

The good news is that…
… you don't have to worry about which feed format your blog provides, because practically any aggregator or news reader worth its salt will be able to read it anyway!
… if you want to help the Semantic Web effort, can use the RSS 1.0 variant (RDF) as it allows you to combine with other vocabularies such as FOAF, Dublin Core, etc.
1.0 0.9 0.91 0.92 2.0 Atom Simple: Plain XML Extensible: RDF

Explosion of RSS feeds
http://www.syndic8.com/stats.php?section=overview

RSS 1.0 terms
Class “channel”:
Property “title”
Property “link”
Property “description”
Property “items” (rdf:Seq)
…
Class “item”:
Property “title”
Property “link”
Property “description”
…

RSS 1.0 example
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
>
<channel rdf:about="http://sw.deri.ie/~jbreslin/ttdig/ttdig_tourist.rss">
<title>TTDIG Tourist</title>
<link>http://sw.deri.ie:2020/~jbreslin/ttdig/index.php?jcategory=tourist</link>
<description>Things to Do in Galway, Tourist</description>
<items>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li resource="#1" />
<rdf:li resource="#2" />
…
</rdf:Seq>
</items>
</channel>
…

RSS 1.0 example (2)
<item rdf:about="#1">
<title>Galway: St. Nicholas' Cathedral</title>
<description>Located on Market Street, Galway. St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church dates from the 12th century. Christopher Columbus visited this church in 1477, fifteen years before he set out for the New World. Sometimes hosts concerts, a nice venue where Lambchop and gospel singers alike have played.</description>
</item>
<item rdf:about="#2">
<title>Galway: Lorna McMahon's Gardens</title>
<description>Located in Bushy Park, Galway. Only allows visitors once a year! Magnificent gardens which surround Lorna Mc Mahon's home and were created by her single handed. For 25 years, she has carved out a delightful and in places magical garden from hazel wood, rough scrub, rocks and bog. The garden extends over 4 acres, and is subdivided into 12 gardens each with its own specialty. The garden is a personal project and several sections are called after friends and relatives. There is a Japanese garden with a large brooding 'snow viewing' lantern and by way of contrast there is a herbal garden laid out in Elizabethan style containing all the herbs mentioned in the Bible or in Shakespearean plays.</description>
</item>
…
</rdf:RDF>

Aggregators and readers
Syndicated content allows one to check multiple feeds on a regular basis using aggregators or feed readers:
Previously, semi-regular visits to bookmarked sites
Feeds of syndicated content can now be pulled into readers
Also, intelligent pushing of feeds (e.g. with “ pingback ”)
Can highlight new or updated posts
Allows you to quickly scan for relevant content through a larger volume of content items

Some examples of readers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird (Desktop)
http://www.feedreader.com/ (Desktop)
http://www.bloglines.com/ (Web)
http://reader.google.com/ (Web)
http://www.planetplanet.org/ (Server)
http://www.gregarius.net/ (Server)

Bloglines (web reader)

Thunderbird (desktop reader)

PlanetPlanet (server aggregator)

RSS aggregators for Irish blogs
IrishBlogs.ie
First Irish blogs aggregator, well known
Now has an Irish blogs directory
planet.journals.ie
~1500 “Irish” blogs at present
Launched 1 st April 2005
Open inclusion policy

RSS auto-detection
Applications (aggregators or browsers) can automatically detect RSS on pages from links in the HTML header like:
<head>
…
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/feed/">
</head>

Mashing RSS using Pipes from Yahoo!

Gathering (many of) my contributions
“ Subscribe to my brain”:
http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=62377636@N00&format=rss_200
http://del.icio.us/rss/Cloudie
http://upcoming.org/syndicate/v2/my_events/16248
http://www.slideshare.net/rss/user/Cloud
http://www.allconsuming.net/person/Cloud/rss
http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/Cloudie/recenttracks.rss
http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/jgbreslin/videos.rss
http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/feed/
http://www.johnbreslin.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss

Bringing them all together to “subscribe to my brain ”

DM110 - Week 9 - Content Syndication

by John Breslin

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