RSS, Blogs and Wikis SLAIG - Surrey Library and Information Group 20 th February 2007

RSS, Blogs and WikisSLAIG - Surrey Library and Information Group

20th February 2007

Karen Blakeman

RBA Information Services, UK

UKeiG Committee Member

21 April 2023 1Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

RSS vs Blogs vs Wikis

RSS – a means of delivering information to the user

Blogs and wikis– means of publishing information– both are content management systems– can be quick and easy to use– can also be used as collaborative tools within organisations

and outside of the organisation– both can automatically generate RSS feeds

21 April 2023 Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk 3

What is RSS?

Stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary or RDF site summary– depends on version

• Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.9x)• RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)• Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.x)

– also Google’s ATOM– written in XML

• extensible markup language– look for the orange logos

A means of delivering headlines, alerts, tables of contents


Why isn’t RSS more popular?

Need a feed reader to read them and get the most out of the technology

Web based readers

or Programs on your desktop machine, laptop,

Blackberry, mobile Will all change:

– RSS reader incorporated into IE 7 and Outlook 2007

– soon rolling out onto people’s desktops


Raw RSS feed


Feeds in Omea


http://www.google.com/reader


http://www.google.com/reader

http://www.bloglines.com/


http://www.bloglines.com/

Feeds in Outlook 2007


Who does RSS?

Lots of people– Companies and organisations, for example CILIP, UKeiG

• for delivering news of training and events, headlines and abstracts of newsletter articles, blog headlines, discussions in web based communities of practice

– many news services now offer RSS feeds

• Yahoo News, Google News, Moreover

• BBC, newspapers, magazines, Factiva

– professional, scientific, trade press

• BMJ, New Scientist, Information World Review etc.

– Individuals, companies


RSS vs email alerts and newsletters

Bypasses the spam filters

Reduces the overload in your inbox– separate email alerts, headlines etc from urgent email

Quicker and easier to scan individual headlines within an alert and decide what is relevant

Can set up filters to pick up stories that mention specific products, companies etc. as the feeds come in

All your alerts are in one place– can read them source by source, altogether, by date and

time, whatever!


RSS vs email alerts and newsletters (2)

You control when you receive and read the feeds– look at your feeds when you want to– set up default update frequency for all your feeds– can change frequency of update and alerting for individual

feeds• not always available in web based readers

Easier to “unsubscribe”– just hit delete!

Easy to select and forward interesting, individual stories to users, colleagues, clients



Adding a feed to your reader

Spotted an interesting RSS feed?– Click on the RSS, XML, Atom or feed logo

• sometimes the URL of the feed is displayed in the text of the page

– Copy the URL of the feed page – Paste into the Add or Subscribe box of your reader

• there may be additional options you can select

OR– Depending on your feed reader, there may be buttons, right

click options, browser plug-ins that will directly ‘subscribe’ you

That's it!

Want to change feed readers?

No problem Export your list of feeds to an OPML file

(Outline Processor Markup Language) Import the OPML file into your new feed reader

– Note: will not import program specific filters or rules



RSS readers

RSS Compendium– http://allrss.com/

Web based readers– access from any terminal or PC– options and functions not as comprehensive as most PC

programs– Newsgator.com, Bloglines.com, www.google.com/reader/

Desktop programs– plugins for Outlook e.g. Newsgator– standalone programs e.g. Omea, Feed Demon– Outlook 2007 and IE 7 have RSS capability built in

Newsgator suite of programs can synchronize between web account and desktop reader

http://allrss.com/

http://www.google.com/reader/

Add feeds to your web page

Incorporate feeds in your web pages using javascript, php, asp etc. Third part services e,g, RapidFeeds, Feed2js.org


BBC news feeds on your site

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm


Disadvantages of RSS

At present, have to make the effort to set up a web based reader or download and install a program– will change when IE7 and MS Office 2007 start to become

more widely adopted

Not all publishers provide RSS feeds as well as email alerts

It is seriously addictive!!

“Sorry, have to go – got to squeeze 5 minutes work in between feed updates”

Blogs

What is a blog?– short for weblog– content management system with attitude!– publishes information chronologically– content can range from self-indulgent drivel to extreme

erudition

– easy to use and publish from anywhere, hence the high

proportion of utter rubbish in the blogosphere

“Vodcasts and blogs are to the noughties what graffiti was to the

Seventies: mindless scrawls reading: 'I woz ere.' It says: 'I'm a

moron, but worship me anyway.”

The Observer, 3rd December 2006

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1962820,00.html


http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1962820,00.html

Blogs (2)

Blogs by industry gurus are a good way of keeping up

to date with what is happening in a sector

Good way of disseminating information on new

services, product launches and new developments– can use the comments option to encourage feedback

Internal blogs to document project progress Can even be used to generate web sites

– http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/

Most automatically generate RSS feeds


http://www.newsbriefsoman.info/


Anatomy of a blog (1)

Most recent posting at

the top

Option for comments

Tags or index terms

Author profile

Hosted on a web site with its own domain name


Anatomy of a blog (2)

Links to related sites and feeds

Blogroll of related blogs

Links to archives


UKeiG collaborative blog

English Cut



Do you know you are looking at a blog?

Corporate blogging

Makovsky 2006 State of Corporate Blogging Survey– http://www.makovsky.com/mak/corporatebloggingsurvey/Makovs

ky2006StateOfCorporateBloggingSurvey.pdf

– surveyed 150 business leaders from Fortune 1000 companies– 20% monitor blogs to find out what is being said about their

company– 21% read blogs about their sector at least once a week

Jupiter Research – 34% of large companies already blogging, and another 35% plan

to– http://tinyurl.com/ryo2p

Product/company reputation– The “Kryptonite Affair”

• http://tinyurl.com/9p93l


http://www.makovsky.com/mak/corporatebloggingsurvey/Makovsky2006StateOfCorporateBloggingSurvey.pdf

http://www.makovsky.com/mak/corporatebloggingsurvey/Makovsky2006StateOfCorporateBloggingSurvey.pdf

http://tinyurl.com/ryo2p

http://tinyurl.com/9p93l


Blogpulse Trends

Where are the blogging UK librarians?

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/where-are-the-blogging-uk-librarians – University of Glamorgan, LRC Blog

• http://lrc.weblog.glam.ac.uk/ – Shush! – the Information Services Library blog

• http://library.northampton.ac.uk/blog/index.php– Univ of Bath Library Science News

• http://bathsciencenews.blogspot.com/– ILS Matters

• http://www2.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/– E-Resources News and Trials (University of Liverpool)

• http://liveresources.blogspot.com/– Libraries in the NHS

• http://nelh.blogspot.com/ – Talking Knowledge Management

• http://talkingkm.blogspot.com/ 21 April 2023 Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk 29

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/where-are-the-blogging-uk-librarians

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/where-are-the-blogging-uk-librarians

http://lrc.weblog.glam.ac.uk/

http://library.northampton.ac.uk/blog/index.php

http://bathsciencenews.blogspot.com/

http://www2.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/

http://liveresources.blogspot.com/

http://nelh.blogspot.com/

http://talkingkm.blogspot.com/

More blogging UK librarians

Info Junkie– http://swashford.blogspot.com/

Swansea Libraries – http://swansealibraries.bogspot.com/n

Hampshire and Isle of Wight – http://hiow.blogspot.com/


http://swashford.blogspot.com/

http://swansealibraries.bogspot.com/n

http://hiow.blogspot.com/

Setting up your own blog

Host on the blogging service’s own server or install on your site Wordpress

– Host on http://www.wordpress.com/

– Software for loading onto your own site at http://www.wordpress.org/

– Free

Blogger– http://www.blogger.com/

– owned by Google

– Host on Blogger or publish to your own site

– free

Typepad – Host on http://www.typepad.com/

– Priced

Also Movable Type, Live Journal at http://www.sixapart.com/


http://www.wordpress.com/

http://www.wordpress.org/

http://www.blogger.com/

http://www.typepad.com/

http://www.sixapart.com/

Tracking down blogs and RSS

Look for the Blogroll on a relevant blog Google Blogsearch

– http://www.google.com/blogsearch Ask.co.uk – Blogs and feeds Windows Live (live.com) – Feeds

– also site: + feed: command

– site:bbc.co.uk feed:bbc.co.uk Yahoo Advanced Search & file format RSS/XML Exalead - limit search to RSS feeds Blog and feed search engines

– Technorati, Blogpulse

– See also the blog search tool list on http://www.crossengine.com/


Wikis

wiki-wiki – Hawaiian meaning quick A collaborative web application that allows users to easily add

and edit content Can be used for

– developing documentation

– project management

• History keeps a record of the changes and different versions of the documents

Encourages collaboration Many have blog like discussion areas and RSS feeds Most famous example is Wikipedia Standardised format and layout

“Makes our contributors concentrate on content rather than wasting time on pretty layouts”


Wikis (2)

Default in most wiki software lets anyone create and edit a page– need to protect Admin functions and limit creation, edit and access rights

– can ‘lock’ individual pages or sections

– can require registration to set up new pages or edit existing ones

– Internet encyclopaedias go head to head

• www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.htm

– Fatally Flawed

• corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf

– IBM history flow

• www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/index.htm

Not always straightforward to install on your system– use third party “wiki farms” to start with

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_farms

Reluctant contributors



Wikipedia

Option to edit the page

Wikipedia (2)


No edit option

Wikipedia - history


Date of edits Author/editor

www.alacrawiki.com



What next?

Have a go yourself– RSS

• Try Newsgator, Bloglines, Google Reader, IE 7, Omea etc.

– Blogs• Set up one yourself• Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) – not ideal but great to

start with and experiment• WordPress and host it on wordpress.com

– Wikis• Wary of setting one up yourself? Even on a wiki farm?• Come and play on the UKeiG Dog’s Breakfast page

– http://ukeig.xwiki.com/


ukeig.xwiki.com – Dog’s Breakfast

RSS, Blogs and Wikis SLAIG - Surrey Library and Information Group 20 th February 2007

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