TOC Syndication using RSS

Tony Hammond, ElsevierTimo Hannay & Ben Lund, NPG

17 September 2003

What is RSS?

A lightweight XML format for syndicating news titles, links and descriptions

Developed by Netscape, more recently adopted by the blogging community

Consumed by (e.g.): Users with desktop readers Webmasters who want to embed titles

from other sites in their own pages

Example of an RSS feed<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?><!DOCTYPE rss SYSTEM "http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/rss-0.91.dtd"><rss version="0.91"> <channel> <title>BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition</title> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/default.stm</link> <description>Updated every minute of every day</description> <language>en-gb</language> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 16 Sep 03 09:21:32 GMT</lastBuildDate> <copyright>Copyright: (C) British Broadcasting Corporation, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/services/copyright/html/default.stm</copyright> <docs>http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/</docs> <image> <title>BBC News</title> <url>http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/bbc_news_120x60.gif</url> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk</link> </image> <item> <title>Hutton witnesses face tough questions</title> <description>Witnesses at the inquiry into Dr David Kelly's death will face cross-examination, a day after a BBC boss and a spy chief gave evidence.</description> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/uk_politics/3111926.stm</link> </item> <item> <title>Deadly blast ends Japan siege</title> <description>At least three people are killed in an explosion in an office where a disgruntled worker had taken hostages.</description>

…

Example of an RSS feed

Different versions of RSS

0.9

0.91 0.92 2.0 “Atom”

1.0

Simple: Plain XML

Extensible: RDF/XML

= most popular formats

Example of a TOC in RSS

Example of a TOC in RSS<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:prism="http://prismstandard.org/namespaces/1.2/basic/"><channel rdf:about="http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/dynapage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v425/n6954/index.html"> <title>Nature</title> <description>International weekly journal of science</description> <link>http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/dynapage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v425/n6954/index.html</link> <dc:publisher>Nature Publishing Group</dc:publisher> <dc:language>en-GB</dc:language> <dc:rights>Copyright (C) 2003 Nature Publishing Group</dc:rights> <prism:publicationName>Nature</prism:publicationName> <prism:issn>0028-0836</prism:issn> <prism:rightsAgent>permissions@nature.com</prism:rightsAgent>

...<item rdf:about="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/425107a"> <title>Science and the war on terror</title> <link>http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/425107a</link> <description>Two years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the promised reorientation of US national research priorities proceeds without much direction or conviction.</description> <dc:identifier>doi:10.1038/425107a</dc:identifier> <dc:source>Nature 425, 107 (2003)</dc:source> <dc:date>2003-09-11</dc:date> <prism:publicationName>Nature</prism:publicationName> <prism:publicationDate>2003-09-11</prism:publicationDate> <prism:volume>425</prism:volume> <prism:number>6954</prism:number> <prism:category rdf:resource="http://prismstandard.org/vocabularies/1.2/category.xml#column"/> <prism:section>Editorials</prism:section> <prism:startingPage>107</prism:startingPage></item>

PRISM module for RSS 1.0

Allows additional bibliographic information: ISSN, name, volume, issue, start page DOI Publication date Article type Corrections References Etc.

Adds to metadata that can be captured with existing RSS Dublin Core modules

Using “feeds of feeds”

Using “feeds of feeds” with TOCs

Publisher RSS service

Journals

Volumes

Issues

Towards a lightweight OAI-PMH?

Years

Why syndicated TOCs with RSS?

Publishers: Sends more people to your content Greater range of potential uses than email – e.g,

embedding in third-party web pages

Readers: Allows greater control than email Can be easily aggregated and filtered to create

custom feeds

What’s wrong with RSS?

Multiple standards, often ill-defined

Most desktop readers still at beta or v1.0

Uses more bandwidth than email

(Virtually) text only, no rich media capability

Not yet clear how best to use it as a platform for marketing and advertising

The only near certainties

RSS is here to stay

Use will continue to grow

Applications will get more diverse

If your users aren’t already asking for it, they soon will

Further reading

RSS for Publishers: http://www.eevl.ac.uk/rss_primer/

XML.com: “Why choose RSS 1.0?” by Tony Hammond, 23 July 2003

Content Syndication with RSS by Ben Hammersley, O’Reilly & Associates