RSS and the New Web Revolution

John H. Remmers

Dept. of Computer Science, Eastern Michigan University (Emeritus)

What is RSS?

• RSS = "Really Simple Syndication"
• Or maybe RSS = "Rich Site Summary"?
• Basis of a process called syndication.
• Enables new paradigm for accessing the web.
• Currently experiencing explosive growth and development.

Who Supplies RSS feeds?

• Online newspapers and news services (e.g. New York Times, AP)
• Shopping sites ( Amazon, Netflix, etc.)
• Blogging services (LiveJournal, etc.)
• Public libraries
• Folksonomy sites (Technorati, del.icio.us, Flickr)
• (etc.)

Orange Buttons - Huh?

• A lot of websites display buttons that look like this:
• For example, here's one: Joho the Blog
• The button links to an XML document called a feed.
• The feed contains metadata about recent items on the website, and is accessible via a URL.

What's in an RSS Document?

• List of items. Each item contains metadata about a resource, such as:
  • Title
  • Creation date and time
  • Summary of content
  • Content
  • Link
• Typically just new or recent material.
• Note: More than one version of RSS.

Syndication

• Syndication: The process of delivering feeds to clients.
• Client-Server
• Server provides feeds.
• Client polls feeds periodically.
• Transport: HTTP Get request. (pull, not push)
• OK, what problem does this solve?

The What's New Problem.

• How do you find out what's new at a website?
  • Answer 1: Go to the website and look.
  • Answer 2: Subscribe to an email notification list (if available).
• How do you find out what's new on some topic?
  • Answer: Use a search engine.

So what's the problem?

• You have to sort out for yourself what's new at a site, and it might be buried deeply.
• Mailing list maintenance is a burden on the information provider.
• Search engines are better at finding older stuff than new stuff.

Aggregators

• Aggregator is most common kind of RSS client (also called newsreader or feed browser).
• User can subscribe to feeds.
• Aggregator polls feeds periodically, keeps track of what user has already seen, and alerts user to new material.

Kinds of aggregators

• Desktop (many available)
• Web-based (e.g. Bloglines)
• Embedded
  • Firefox live bookmarks
  • Browser plug-ins
  • Email-based
  • My Yahoo

Innovative Uses of RSS

• Personalized feeds (e.g. Netflix RSS Feeds)
• Search feeds (e.g. del.icio.us tag feeds, or Flickr photo feeds)
• Newspaper blogging (e.g. North Carolina News-Record)
• Do-it-yourself and bootleg feeds
• Podcasting and vlogs

Search Feeds (Query Feeds?)

Instead of feed residing in static file, it's generated dynamically as follows:

1. Client sends URL that contains a query string.
2. Server translates to database query.
3. Server packages result as RSS and sends it back to client.

Podcasting

• New way of distributing audio (and video)
• There exist hundreds of podcast feeds.
• Major broadcasters (e.g. NPR and BBC Radio) now offer podcasts.
• Uses enclosure feature of RSS 2.0
• Podcast-aware aggregators (iPodder, ANT)