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Sharing headlines and information using XML

Content syndication means making headlines and information from one web site available for distribution to any others that want it. This is done technically by using RSS, which stands for RDF Site Summary, Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication. If you need to go all the way, RDF stands for Resource Description Framework. Ben Hammersley first of all explains the separate standards which have arisen, taking them in chronological order.

Then he describes the software which has been written both to generate RSS feeds, and to receive and read them on screen. There’s also a short XML tutorial, as well as a list of useful sites and resources. Unfortunately there are two camps of competing standards, each with two current versions – rather like the early days of the browser wars.

Fortunately he covers them all in his description of how to use RSS and what it does. The separate standards are complex in their differences, and he obviously belongs to one of the rival camps promoting them; but he is even handed in his treatment, and gives them all comprehensive coverage.

Much of the book is rather technical, with pages full of coding; but anyone familiar with HTML or XML will feel pretty much at home.

He gives fully written out examples of pages in each of the standards. As in strict XML, there is a complete separation of style and content. This is because the recipient might be reading the news feed as part of a blog, on on a PDA, or even as a text message.

RSS is sprouting all over the Web at the moment. Wherever you see one of the small buttons saying “News Feed” or “XML Feed”, you have the ability to receive information from that site. And of course it’s all free.

This publication is aimed at web developers and web site authors who want to share their site with others by offering RSS-based feeds of their content. It’s also for developers who want to use the content that other people are syndicating. As usual with O’Reilly publications, the presentation is impeccable.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Ben Hammersley, Content Syndication with RSS, Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly, 2003, pp.208, ISBN: 0596003838

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What’s a ‘feed’? And what are RSS and Atom? Answer – a feed is the automatic distribution of information from someone’s blog or web site, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Atom are the technologies which deliver this information to your desktop. A friend recently emailed me someone’s blog entry. It discussed in excited terms the emergence of Web 2.0 or the Semantic Web. This is the next development for the Web whereby computers will be able to understand the meaning of and the relationships between documents and other data. Automatic web ad blog feeds are one part of that development, and Ben Hammersley’s timely manual is an introduction to the technology involved.

He is a very active technology journalist and blogger, and he knows whereof he speaks. First he explains the history of how there came to be two competing sets of standards – which is more interesting than you might imagine from that description. The advantages of accepting automatic feeds from others are fairly obvious, but why supply your own? Hammersley is in no doubt: it increases traffic to your site; helps with search engine rankings; improves relations with your users; and makes the Internet an altogether richer place, pushing semantic technology along and encouraging reuse.

For reading other people’s feeds, he describes both the available web-based readers and downloadable software. You can even receive feeds as email or on a mobile phone.

The central section of the book describes a variety of feeds and shows you the scripts you might need to implement them I say ‘might’, because for most people all this will be done for you using templates at sites like Blogger and Moveable Type. However, knowing the code gives you more control – and it isn’t all that complicated if you know some basic HTML or XML.

Assuming that you wish to publish a feed from your own blog or web site, he devotes a handy chapter to showing you how to maximise the chances it will be circulated and read.

He ends by offering a collection of recipes for creating and using feeds to do things such as keeping track of “404 Page Not Found” errors on your web site; downloading your favourite comic strip each morning; generating your own wish list at Amazon; automatically checking web pages are W3C valid; and receiving regular weather forecasts for your area.

He ends with what is one of the hallmarks of these O’Reilly publications – a comprehensive and annotated list of tools and resources. Most of these are free – so if you are interested in receiving or publishing feeds, you can start right now.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Ben Hammersley, Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom, Sebastopol: CA, O’Reilly, 2005, pp..253, ISBN 0596008813

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Sharing headlines and information using XML

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