RSS for Utah Government Issues and Discussion

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RSS for Utah Government Issues and Discussion

• Ray Matthews
• Utah State Library

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What is RSS?

• XML format describing/syndicating web content

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How can RSS be used?

• More than a weblog
• More than news headlines
• For anything that has discrete items
• For anything that changes
• RSS syndication is an entryway to sites

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Some of the uses of RSS
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First application

• But what is News?
• Is it blog-like stuff?
• Opinions, suggestions, status reports?
• Or is it something more formal?
• Press releases, news stories
• Personal / Corporate / Collaborative?
• How will editorial best practices standards be
  built in?
• Scrape (RSSify) sites without feeds?

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What tools do we furnish?

• Reader/aggregator for site users?
• RSS channel creator?
• RSS archives creator?
• Parser(s)?
• CSS, themes, plug-ins?
• Toolset?

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Tools Autosubscripton
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Tools User Email Subscription
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RSS by Email BeSpacific
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RSS by Email Moreover
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RSS by Email www.bloglet.com/
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Tools Newsletter syndication

• Could we use RSS to create, publish, and
  distribute .
• ..all the print and email newsletters we now
  produce?

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Directions
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Ferret
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Complete Newsletter from RSS
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Tools Search of RSS feeds

• Search of RSS/XML items, not page search
• Feedster www.feedster.com/
• Weblog RSS Search Engines backend.userland.com/di
  rectory/167/searchEngines/weblogRssSearchEngines

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feedster
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Tools Search ? RSS

• Dynamic query RSS feeds
• Fresh Searchwww.terrar.com/
• Inktomi Search -- RSSwww.nwfusion.com/diy
• GNews2RSS www.voidstar.com/gnews2rss.php

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Dynamic Query ? RSS
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Dynamic Query ? RSS
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Which RSS versions?

• RSS 1.0
• supports RDF W3C standard
• rich in Dublin Core metadata
• standard from RSS-DEV Working Group
• Extensible XML namespace-aware
• CMS often create 0.9x-2.x
• Could we build in validation?
• Could our parsers be liberal to accommodate all
  RSS versions?

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Steps to Syndicating News

• 1. Find RSS channels to aggregate
• 2. Use a creation program (CMS)
• 3. Validate XML code load to server
• 4. Parse it to a website
• 5. Announce it to an aggregator

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1. Find RSS feeds to aggregate

• Look for the
• Search aggregator directories
• OCS (Open Content Syndication)internetalchemy.org
  /ocs/
• OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language)www.opml.
  org/spec
• Using
• Your client aggregator www.hebig.org/blogs/archive
  s/main/000877.php
• Syndic8 www.syndic8.com/xml.php
• NewsIsFree www.newsisfree.com/syndicate.php
• Others XMLTree, Moreover, Weblogs.com

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OCS Example Moreover

• w.moreover.com/categories/ocs/ocsdirectory_0_1.rdf
  

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Aggregator NewzCrawler
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Aggregator NewzCrawler
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Create Utah OPML Feed

• Heres how using XSLTwww.netcrucible.com/xslt/opm
  l.html

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2. Create RSS with a CMS

• Use a CMS like Movable Type
• CMS could be used for destination display and
  archives

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3. Validate the XML

• Validate ill-formed XML load
• Best Validator feeds.archive.org/validator/

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4. Parse the feed

• Single feed
• Index (headlines)
• Full
• Scrolling, ticker tape
• Aggregated feeds
• Composite feeds

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Aggregated NewsIsFree
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Aggregated MT-RSS Feed

• http//mt-plugins.org/mt/syndicate.php

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Aggregated Harvard Weblogs

• blogs.law.harvard.edu/aggregator/

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Composite Drupal Import

• Ecademy www.ecademy.com/

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Composite Moreover

• One of 334, highly relevant topical
  feedsw.moreover.com/categories/category_list.html
  
• Note how headlines are filtered from multiple
  original sources (channels, categories)

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Reader/Parser Onyx RSS

• http//www.readinged.com

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Reader/Parser Onyx RSS

• http//www.readinged.com

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Download Parsing Scripts

• http//gils.utah.gov/rss/rssparsers.html
• Download, documentation, descriptions, working
  examples

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5. Announce to an aggregator

• Autodiscoverytype"application/rssxml" title"RSS"
  href"http//yoursite.com/rss.xml"
• Aggregators
• Syndic8 www.syndic8.com/suggest_start.php
• News Is Free www.newsisfree.com
• See RSS Workshop for more..

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Select Resources

• Utah News One-Stop (coming)
• news.utah.gov
• Utah Business Portal (coming)
• business.utah.gov
• Utah News Services demo
• webassets.utah.gov/newsutahgov/
• Ben Hammersleys Content Syndication with RSS
• RSS Workshop
• gils.utah.gov/rss/