June 29, 2004
RSS at ACE, the aftermath
I should have posted this last week--or even during the conference in true blogger fashion--but we did our two panels at the ACE conference last Monday. We had many interested people at both panels, lots of questions and some good side discussions about RSS and what we can do with it.
We provided the URL to this site during the talks and I hope that people are or will get a chance to visit and check out the resources. If you have questions, comments about RSS, or suggested resources, please leave a comment. We'd love to know you were here.
If you didn't have a chance to attend the panels at ACE, you can find our slides here.
June 17, 2004
Slides for ACE
I'm posting the slides we're going to be using for our presentations on RSS at the ACE conference on Monday, if you want a preview of what we'll be talking about:
RSS Part One (what is RSS; why use it; specific examples)
RSS Part Two (history of RSS; Web services; how to build a feed)
There may, of course, be changes before the actual presentation.
June 16, 2004
Web Services for Content
Here's a good document that looks at web services from a content syndication and distribution perspective: Web Services for Content
To date, most of the traffic on the Internet has been human-to-human interaction (email) and huma-to-server interaction (web pages). In the future, it is expected that a significant portion of traffic will be machine-to-machine interaction -- where one program calls another over the Internet and gets back the results that it needs. The language of the request and the response is incresingly becoming XML.
Advantages of web services for documents include:
- Content sharing--Syndication
- Content databases
- Sharing of information between several organizations
- Content personalization
- Multi-channel publishing
- Immediate updates of information
- Content integration within an organization
June 11, 2004
RSS in 10 words or less
I blogged this over on my site back in May, but realized it's totally appropriate here.
Explain RSS in 10 words or less to someone who reads news online (and a possibly few blogs although they may not necessarily know them as “blogs”), but doesn’t know what a newsreader or aggregator is.
Some of the responses:
- Get the latest site updates without visiting the webpage.
- News comes to you. You don't have to gather it.
- News sent to your computer. No spam. No browsing
- What you want, when you want, how you want it
- Makes life easier, but not really
The History of RSS
RSS has both a political and technical history. The technical history consists of different versions some of which have faded into oblivion and some of which currently co-exist side by side. Versions of RSS currently in use include .91, .92, 1.0 and 2.0.
Some links that provide insight into both the technical development of RSS and the political give and take of the process include:
History of RSS and Site Syndication
June 10, 2004
Bunch o' RSS Resources
RSS Tools provides a wealth of links on what RSS is, how to create RSS feeds, background history, and applications for RSS.
Creating the RSS Feed
Now that I am sold on RSS how do I create the RSS feed?
There are several options for creating an RSS feed to syndicate your content. The simplest way might be to check the application that you are using for content management. It may already have the capability built-in. If you are using "blogging" software chances are that the RSS feed is already created for you.
Continue reading "Creating the RSS Feed"June 09, 2004
RSS News Readers
There are several news readers - both free and fee-based - available for the PC and Mac. This is not a complete list, but should get you started. I'm currently using Sharpreader for the PC and on my Mac, NetNewswire. These news readers are simple to use and have a variety of settings you can alter to make your reading more enjoyable. After using a newsreader for a while, you may never find yourself using a browser to read news ever again!
News Readers For the PC:
Sharpreader
AmphetaDesk
Feedreader
NewsGator
Aggie
News Readers for the Mac:
NetNewswire
June 08, 2004
The Popularity of RSS
Learning Circuits has a great survey article on RSS and its appeal by Stephen Downes.
If you want a preview of what we'll be talking about at the ACE conference, this is a good guide:
The major attraction of RSS for Web developers is its simplicity. (In fact, RSS is often known by an alternative name, Really Simple Syndication). An RSS file can be created from scratch using nothing more than a simple text editor and sample file as a template, posted to a Web server as though it were a Webpage, and retrieved and read by a wide variety of applications. Additionally, and this probably accounts for its recent burst of popularity, numerous content management tools now create RSS files automatically and applications called headline readers enable users to view the contents.
June 03, 2004
Syndicating Agriculture News With RSS
Why Use RSS To Distribute News?: Journalists, non-media consumers who use news aggregators can receive news releases as soon as they are posted to a Web site. RSS avoids e-mail distribution. Bonus: RSS feeds can be offered by subject. For example: If a journalist only wanted to receive beef commodity news, a single RSS feed could be written for this topic. Of course you can always offer all of your news content in one, single RSS feed.
RSS Helps Market A Web Site: Often when something is posted to a Web site, nobody knows about it until they visit the site. With a news reader running on the desktop, it scans RSS feeds of news organizations and checks for fresh content.
RSS Content - Feeds Are Versatile: RSS Feeds can be used in a variety of ways for news. RSS feeds for several news categories could be established. Examples: beef, horticulture, soil and crop sciences, crop and weather reports.
RSS Feeds In Extension: Feeds could be established for announcing new Extension publications, educational videos, newsletters or be used for internal communications. RSS avoids the "spam" issue faced by a majority of e-mail users today.
June 02, 2004
What does RSS stand for?
The acronym RSS can actually stand for three different things, all closely related:
- Really Simple Syndication
- RDF Site Summary
- Rich Site Summary
Yes, you may well ask, but what does it mean? More to come...
June 01, 2004
Why this weblog exists
We've created this weblog to add additional information, post and comment on parts of the presentation, and link to people who are using RSS, people who are talking about RSS, and other useful resources.
It's a group weblog which includes all the people involved in planning and presenting the RSS panels at ACE 2004 so we expect to be able to provide a wealth of resources for communicators interested in learning more about RSS.
And we hope to get our presentations done before June 21st...
RSS at ACE: What we think we're going to talk about
Last week in a teleconference we settled on an outline for both panels (which we've already modified somewhat and I'm sure will modfy as again as we go):
RSS Part 1: Using RSS to Deliver and Receive News and Info
- Why should you care about RSS
- What is RSS
- What does RSS do
- Questions from a content providers perspective
- Who's doing what with RSS; Getting started
RSS Part 2: Nuts & Bolts
- How to create an RSS feed
- The many versions of RSS
- Where do RSS feeds fit (kinds of content/web pages)
- Aggregators/Web services
RSS at ACE: What we said we'd talk about
This weblog is to provide a place for information related to two panels that Blair Fannin (TX), Ray Kimsey (NC) and I (Deb Coates) are doing at the ACE 2004 conference in Lake Tahoe, NV on June 21, 2004. Rhonda Conlon, Floyd Davenport, and Kevin Gamble have also been involved in planning for these panels
Program descriptions for the panels are as follows:
RSS Part 1: Using RSS to Deliver & Receive News & Information
RSS is a time saving communication technology that many predict will soon be used by the majority of Internet users. Using RSS, people can choose to be notified when their favorite sites are updated, without getting email or visiting each site. RSS also helps information providers make their resources more readily accessible to their audiences. RSS is widely implemented throughout commercial news sites and is making its way into the Land-Grant system. This session will help communicators understand the significant role that RSS will play in enhancing our ability to share news and information with the public.
RSS Part 2: The Nuts and Bolts
This session is for those who want to learn more about implementations of RSS. It will cover more technical definitions and some of the specific applications, plus offer simple how-to-create details. This session is targeted to those interested in some of the technical aspects of RSS.