Integrating RSS into Your Web site Part 1
Integrating RSS into Your Web site Part 1: Introduction Michael Sauers Technology Innovation Librarian Nebraska Library Commission Computers in Libraries 15 April 2007
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Introductions • • • Name Library Position Does your library use RSS? If so, how? Why are you here? 3
What is RSS? • Depending on who you ask it stands for either “Really Simple Syndication”, “Rich Site Summary”, or “RDF Site Summary”. • “Really Simple Syndication” is the de facto definition today. • RSS is an XML language for syndicating news items on the Internet. 4
The History of RSS • RSS 1. 1 (update to RSS 1. 0), RSS 3. 0 (a new, independent project), and “Simple Sharing Extensions” (an update to RSS 2. 0 by Microsoft) have all been proposed but have had no impact yet. 5
How does RSS work? • The information provider creates an RSS file. • Users subscribe to the file via an aggregator. • When the author updates the RSS file, the user is automatically notified of the new items and may read them on their schedule. 6
Implications of RSS • Information received in a single location • Information received in quickly • Reduced need to visit the originating Web site 7
Are there different versions of RSS? • Yes. In fact, there are currently eight different versions: RSS 0. 90, 0. 91, 0. 92, 0. 93, 0. 94, 1. 0, 2. 0, & Atom Feeds • Each has different features from the author’s point of view. • Today’s aggregators support all of the versions transparently. • RSS 2. 0 & Atom are the most common. 8
What does RSS look like? <? xml version="1. 0" encoding="UTF-8" ? > <rss version="2. 0"> <channel> <title>BCR: The Third Indicator</title> <link>http: //www. bcr. org/publications/thirdind /</link> <description>The Third Indicator, published monthly, is a technical memo focusing on OCLC products and services. It includes general OCLC news as well as detailed technical information on cataloging, reference and resource sharing. Announcements of new OCLC developments are also included. </description> <last. Build. Date>Tue, 21 Sep 2004 21: 37: 39 GMT</ last. Build. Date> <generator>List. Garden Program 1. 01</generator> <docs>http: //blogs. law. harvard. edu/tech/rss </docs> <item> <title>World. Cat Resource Sharing Training</title> <link>http: //www. bcr. org/publications/thirdind/2004/august/augsharetrain 04. htm l</link> <description>If you'd like to see what World. Cat Resource Sharing looks like and learn more about it, visit the OCLC Web site at www. oclc. org/ill/migration/ or view the World. Cat Resource Sharing tutorial at www 5. oclc. org/downloads/tutorials/firstsearch/sv/rsbasics/intro/index. html /. </description> <pub. Date>Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19: 29: 47 GMT</ pub. Date> <guid is. Perma. Link="false">thirdind-2004 -08 -21 -19 -29 -47</ guid> </item> </channel> </rss> 9
How can I find feeds? • Feedster • Bloglines • Blogrolls A list of blogs/feeds read by another blogger • Look for the orange icon… 10
How do I subscribe to a feed? • Look for an orange icon: • Depending on your aggregator, the subscription procedure may range from copying and pasting the link to rightclicking and selecting “subscribe”. 11
More RSS icons • “Support the Common Feed Icon” by Rogers Cadenhead http: //www. cadenhead. org/workbench/news/2872/supportcommon-feed-icon 12
A standard icon? • The move is to establish this icon, originally proposed by the Firefox, folks as the syndication icon. • Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 will use this icon. • http: //www. feedicons. com/ 13
Podcasts • Uses RSS to syndicate audio content • RSS 2. 0 <enclosure> – Like adding an attachment to an e-mail • Audio Formats – MP 3 (Open Source) – AAC (Apple Proprietary) • i. Pod not necessary 14
Podcasts in i. Tunes 15
Notable Feeds • Librarian. net www. librarian. net • LISNews www. lisnews. com • The Shifted Librarian theshiftedlibrarian. com • The Travelin’ Librarian travelinlibrarian. info • Tame the Web tametheweb. com/ttwblog • Unshelved www. overduemedia. com • Paper. Cuts papercuts. tscpl. org • Gizmodo www. gizmodo. com • Security Now! www. grc. com/securitynow. htm • Inside The Net & This Week in Tech (TWi. T) thisweekintech. com • Boing boing. net • Google News • isbn. nu • del. icio. us • flickr 16
Integrating RSS into Your Web site Part 2: Reading Feeds Michael Sauers, BCR Internet Librarian 2006 22 October 2006
What is an Aggregator? • An aggregator is a type of software that retrieves syndicated Web content that is supplied in the form of a web feed (RSS, Atom and other XML formats), and that are published by weblogs, podcasts, vlogs, and mainstream mass media websites. -Wikipedia • It’s what you need to retrieve and read RSS feeds. 18
What are the different types of aggregators? • Standalone Clients – Feed. Reader, Radio User. Land • PIM add-ins – Pluck, News. Gator, intra. Vnews • Browser add-ins – Firefox, Sage • Web-based – Bloglines, News. Is. Free • A list is available @ http: //www. lights. com/weblogs/rss. html 19
RSS file in Firefox 20
RSS file in IE 6 21
RSS file in IE 7 b 3 22
RSS file w/ associated style sheet 23
Why do I need an aggregator? • Most importantly it makes the content of the feed readable • Checks for updates automatically • Notifies you of new information • Displays only new items for you • May allow you to sort and save information 24
Types of Aggregators • • • Client Add-on Built-in Server-based Web-based service 25
Feed. Reader (client) 26
Pluck (add-on for IE) 27
Firefox 1. 5 28
Netscape 8 29
IE 7 beta 2 30
Feed on Feeds (server) 31
Bloglines (Web-based service) 32
Subscribing to a feed 33
Bloglines Toolkit (for Firefox) 34
Subscribing via the Toolkit 35
The Bloglines Bookmarklet 36
Integrating RSS into Your Web site Part 3: Creating Feeds Michael Sauers, BCR Internet Librarian 2006 22 October 2006
How do I create a feed? • Hand-rolled You type the markup and the content • Semi-automated You type the content, software generates the markup. • Fully-automated You put the content in your blog and software generates a feed based on that content. 38
Feed. Spring 39
Feed. Spring 40
Feed. Spring 41
Feed. Spring 42
Feed. Spring 43
Feed. Spring 44
Feed. Spring 45
Feed. Spring • Limitations – Local installation limits mobility and posters to a single computer. – No built-in FTP. Must transfer the. xml file to the server manually. – Still in beta (but what isn’t these days? ) 46
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 47
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 48
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 49
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 50
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 51
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 52
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 53
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 54
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager 55
Rapid. Feeds: Feed. Manager • Limitations – Registration does not work with newer e-mail addresses. (Insisted my. info address was invalid. ) – Does not allow publishing to another server so if the company disappears, your feed goes with it. 56
List. Garden 57
List. Garden 58
List. Garden 59
List. Garden 60
List. Garden 61
List. Garden • Limitations – Depending of type of server installed on, may not be secure. (i. e. no passwords on cgi -bin directories. ) 62
RSSxl 63
RSSxl 64
RSSxl 65
RSSxl 66
RSSxl • Limitations – Solid knowledge of HTML required to get parsing correct. – Works better on pages with simpler layouts. – The validation code “will change each month and you will need to visit this page for the new code. ” (Though I’ve found feeds continue to work without updating the code. ) – “If you are using this tool to publish an RSS feed from your website, then you must include a visible HTML link to www. wotzwot. com on your site next to the link to your feed like the following: ‘Powered by RSSxl’” 67
Sabifoo 68
Sabifoo 69
Sabifoo 70
Sabifoo 71
Sabifoo 72
Sabifoo • Limitations – Third party service could disappear at any time. – Doesn’t always work well with Yahoo! Messenger and AIM. – Does not interpret HTML in posts. 73
Twitter • What are you doing now? • Post via: – Web site – Clients – IM – SMS 74
Twitter 75
Twitter 76
Twitter • Limitations – 140 characters per post 77
RSS Calendar 78
RSS Calendar 79
RSS Calendar 80
RSS Calendar 81
RSS Calendar 82
RSS Calendar 83
RSS Calendar 84
RSS Calendar • Limitations – No importing from existing calendars 85
Integrating RSS into Your Web site Part 4: Republishing Feeds Michael Sauers, BCR Internet Librarian 2006 22 October 2006
Integrating feed content into your Web site • Grab content from multiple RSS feeds • Reduce and/or mash it • Republish it on your site 87
rss viewer 88
rss viewer 89
rss viewer 90
rss viewer 91
rss viewer • Limitations – Third party – Has a way to combine multiple feeds (feed combiner) but only those that are preprogrammed 92
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 93
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 94
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 95
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 96
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 97
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 98
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 99
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site 100
Rapid. Feeds: My. Site • Limitations – Registration does not work with newer e-mail addresses. (Insisted my. info address was invalid) – Code supplied is longer than all others as it contains all the CSS. Would want to move that to an external file. 101
RSS 2 HTML 102
RSS 2 HTML 103
RSS 2 HTML 104
RSS 2 HTML 105
RSS 2 HTML 106
RSS 2 HTML 107
RSS 2 HTML 108
RSS 2 HTML 109
RSS 2 HTML • Limitations – Third party service. – Minimal customization / limited to their templates / can’t make it look like your site. – Did not work well on some feeds and not at all on others. (No luck with Google. News. Mixed results with Flickr. ) – Given a URL to embed with, not a script, which forces embedding via iframe. 110
Feed 2 JS 111
Feed 2 JS 112
Feed 2 JS 113
Feed 2 JS 114
Feed 2 JS 115
Feed 2 JS • Limitations – Third party (but you can download and install it on your own server which is recommended) 116
Feed. Digest 117
Feed. Digest 118
Feed. Digest 119
Feed. Digest 120
Feed. Digest 121
Feed. Digest 122
Feed. Digest 123
Feed. Digest 124
Feed. Digest 125
Feed. Digest 126
Feed. Digest 127
Feed. Digest • Limitations – Third party service. – Limited to five feeds in free version. 128
Scrolling RSS News Ticker 129
Scrolling RSS News Ticker 130
Scrolling RSS News Ticker 131
Scrolling RSS News Ticker 132
Scrolling RSS News Ticker • Limitations – Third party – Shows small advertisement 133
RSS Scrollbox Widget 134
RSS Scrollbox Widget 135
RSS Scrollbox Widget 136
RSS Scrollbox Widget 137
RSS Scrollbox Widget • Limitations – Third party – Shows small advertisement • Ad free, local-hosted version available for $35. 138
Grazr 139
Grazr 140
Grazr 141
Grazr 142
Grazr 143
Grazr • Limitations – Third party 144
Library. Thing Blog Widget 145
Library. Thing Blog Widget 146
Library. Thing Blog Widget • Limitations – Requires Java. Script – Requires Library. Thing account 147
Integrating RSS into Your Web site Part 5: Advanced Feed Manipulation Michael Sauers, BCR Internet Librarian 2006 22 October 2006
Feed. Blendr 149
Feed. Blendr 150
Feed. Blendr 151
Feed. Blendr 152
Feed. Blendr • Limitations – Could not get OPML importing to work. – Third party service could disappear at any time. – “If this blend is not accessed for more than 2 weeks, it will be removed from the database and will need to be recreated. ” 153
Feed. Burner 154
Feed. Burner 155
Feed. Burner 156
Feed. Burner 157
Feed. Burner 158
Feed. Burner 159
Feed. Burner 160
Feed. Burner 161
Feed. Burner 162
Feed. Burner 163
Feed. Burner 164
Feed. Burner 165
Feed. Burner 166
Feed. Burner 167
Feed. Burner 168
Feed. Burner 169
Feed. Burner • Limitations – Since by using this you get a new feed URL, it is not recommended you use it on existing feeds. – Your feed will be relying on a third party to work. If the company goes under, your feed will disappear. 170
Feed Crier 171
Feed Crier 172
Feed Crier • Limitations – Only three feeds for free – Free version advertisement supported – Works only with AIM 173
Zap. TXT 174
Zap. TXT 175
Zap. TXT 176
Zap. TXT 177
Zap. TXT 178
Zap. TXT • Limitations – Can’t handle feeds that require logins – Sometimes reports a feed as “not valid” and there’s nothing you can do about it. – Searches on multiple keywords are “OR” searches. “AND” searches don’t seem to be possible. 179
Mail 2 RSS 180
Mail 2 RSS 181
Mail 2 RSS 182
Mail 2 RSS 183
Mail 2 RSS • Limitations – Bloglines doesn’t like the RSS 2. 0 feeds, use the 1. 0 link instead – Mail automatically deletes after seven days – Feeds are limited to 20 items – Potential security issue when using Subscribe with Bloglines bookmarklet (next slide) 184
Mail 2 RSS 185
Rss. Fwd 186
Rss. Fwd 187
Rss. Fwd 188
Rss. Fwd 189
Rss. Fwd 190
Rss. Fwd 191
Rss. Fwd • Limitations – Some (including me) argue that converting RSS to e-mail defeats the purpose of RSS. 192
Feed 2 Podcast 193
Feed 2 Podcast 194
Feed 2 Podcast 195
Feed 2 Podcast 196
Feed 2 Podcast • Limitations – Your feeds are read by a computer generated voice. – Non-English words are not well supported. 197
Contact information Michael Sauers msauers@travelinlibrarian. info http: //travelinlibrarian. info/ http: //del. icio. us/travelinlibrarian/cil 2007/rss 198
- Slides: 198
