RSS

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RSS

• Really Simple Stuff

Web 2.0 Current Realities and A Look To The
Future NFAIS November 18, 2005
Rafael Sidi, VP Product Development Elsevier
Engineering Information
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What are all these buttons?
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RSS

• Really Simple Syndication
• RDF Site Summary (Resource Discovery Framework)
• Rich Site Summary

Dont worry about the acronyms
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What is RSS?

• RSS is an XML format that facilitates content
  syndication
• Its a subscription tool to automatic content
  updates
• You need to have an RSS reader (aggregator) to
  read, manage and display content from RSS feeds
• Its a way of sharing content
• RSS have become the de facto publish-and-subscrib
  e mechanism

Ray Ozzie, CTO, Microsoft, October 28 2005
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A simple RSS file
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Tools to publish RSS feeds

• MyWebFeeds
• RSS Dreamfeeder
• FeedForAll
• RapidFeeds
• IceRocket
• ListGarden
• TypePad
• Blogger
• Userland

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RSS aggregators
Free, web-based news aggregator that makes it
easy to keep up with your favourite blogs and RSS
feeds.
Desktop application that reads and displays RSS
feeds.
RSS aggregator for the .NET framework.
Cross platform, open-sourced, syndicated news
aggregator.
Integrated aggregator that runs in Microsoft
Outlook and web
Web reader and browser which provides access to
news content from different sources
Integrated RSS aggregator,offers an Internet
Explorer add-on which integrates a bookmark
manager, web sharing, RSS reader, and search.
Browser with integrated RSS feature
And many more
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Portals as RSS aggregators
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How is the information presented?
RSS is made up of a list of items presented in
order from newest to oldest
Each item usually consists of a simple title
describing the item along with a link to a web
page with the actual information
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RSS History and versions

• scriptingNews format by Dave Winer(1997)
• RSS 0.90 by Netscape (1999)
• RDF Site Summary
• scriptingNews 2.0b1 (1999)
• RSS 0.91 by Netscape (Dan Libby) (1999)
• Rich Site Summary
• RSS 1.0 (RSS-Dev-Rael Dornfest) (2000)
• RDF Site Summary
• RSS 0.92 by Dave Winer (2000)
• RSS 2.0 designed by Dave Winer (2002)
• Really Simple Syndication

As an end user dont worry about versions
Source RSS at Harvard Law
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RSS 1.0 (Nature Publishing)
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RSS 2.0
Sourcemnot.net/rss
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Current Market Demand
RSS-Crossing into the MainstreamYahoo Ipsos
Insight, October 2005
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Growth in RSS Feeds
Sourcesyndic8.com
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Unaware RSS users
RSS-Crossing into the MainstreamYahoo Ipsos
Insight, October 2005
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Who are these unaware users?
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RSS feeds become part of personalized sites
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Demographics of RSS
RSS-Crossing into the MainstreamYahoo Ipsos
Insight, October 2005
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RSS Content Accessed
RSS-Crossing into the MainstreamYahoo Ipsos
Insight, October 2005
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Benefits of RSS

• Efficient way to access to multiple content
  sources
• Avoid repeatedly checking websites to see if
  there is any new content Content is delivered to
  you
• Allows you to access to content from multiple
  sites through a single interface
• Helps you to collect, organize and aggregate
  information from different sources
• Keeps you informed instantly on new updates
• Consumers now are in control of the information
  they want to receive
• Access to information your way, what you want,
  when you want, how you want and where you want
  (web, e-mail, mobile phones, PDAs, TV)

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Benefits of RSS

• Allows on-line publishers an easy way to
  syndicate content
• Instantly distribute content update to your
  customers
• Through category channels publishers can deliver
  highly relevant content to users
• As users are pulling content, producing relevant
  and high quality content becomes more important
  for publishers
• Build a relationship with your customers

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Benefits of RSS

• Great marketing tool
• If you do a marketing site and you don't have an
  RSS feed today you should be fired
• Avoid clutter and e-mail spam in your inbox
• If you dont like the feed, delete it
• RSS is automatically opt-in and is not intrusive
• Drive traffic to your web-site
• Generate additional revenue by including ads with
  RSS feeds

• Robert Scoble, Microsoft Technical Evangelist

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Issues for publishers

• Whether or not to provide full or partial feeds?
• With RSS feeds every page becomes a home page
• Advertising within the feeds
• Gizmodo
• Full content (with ads)
• Partial content (no ads)
• Usage metrics for feeds

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How do I find out if a website has an RSS feed?
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Subscribe to your searches
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Adding RSS feeds directly to your aggregator
Pick your aggregator
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Adding RSS feeds by copy and paste
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Enter the RSS URL
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Few sources for RSS feeds

• http//www.technorati.com/
• http//www.rssgov.com
• http//www.topix.net
• http//syndic8.com
• http//blogstreet.com/
• http//www.blogpulse.com
• http//feedster.com/
• www.newsgator.com
• http//www.pubsub.com/lists/librarian.php

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Case Study Implementing RSS in Engineering
Village 2
Copy the link provided and paste it in your RSS
Aggregator to receive alerts via RSS feed.
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RSS Feed From Engineering Village 2
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RSS Delivered to Your Reader
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Things you can do with RSS
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RSS feeds and potential for advertisers
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Subscribe to news about major corporations
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Get table of contents
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Amazon top sellers
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Find what people are saying about your company,
products, services or your competition by using
keyword-based feeds from the following services

• Bloglines
• Technorati.com
• Pubsub.com
• Feedster.com
• Blogdigger.com
• Blogpulse.com

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Get updates for your music library
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RSS in Libraries
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Find last minute deals
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Find what others are surfing and tagging
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Find jobs
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Find latest pictures from your area
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Amazon-like features for RSS feeds
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Subscribe to Podcasts
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Get your RSS feeds in your e-mail
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Web 2.0 cloud using TagCloud
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Real-time RSS Alerts
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Suprglu Gather all your RSS feeds in one place
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Create industry specific portals using RSS
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Subscribe to 15 different search engines feeds
Whats OPML?
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OPML

• OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an
  XML format for outlines. Originally developed by
  Radio UserLand as a native file format for an
  outliner application, it has since been adopted
  for other uses, the most common being to exchange
  lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregator.
• Simply OPML lets you subscribe to multiple feeds
  at once
• Enables you easily switch all your RSS feeds from
  one aggregator to another

SourceWikipedia
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Creating an OPML file
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(No Transcript)
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Finding library related feeds
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RSS tools

• FeedDigest
• Show feeds on your site
• Combine feeds into a single feed

• FeedShake
• Filter category feeds by keyword
• Combine multiple feeds into a single feed

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Additional sources for RSS

• http//www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml
• http//allrss.com/
• http//www.eevl.ac.uk/rss_primer/ref2
• http//www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.
  html
• http//www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/
• SearchEngineWatch

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Conclusion

• Start using RSS, its simple!
• It will change your information life and you
  will save time!
• If you are publishing on the web you have to
  provide RSS or a Subscribe button to
  disseminate your information. Your customers will
  love it.
• Publish frequently
• Subscribing will be ubiquitous
• Enterprise use of RRS will explode
• Niche content will be valuable
• Watch for new tools widgets- that are RSS
  enabled