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Evolution Of RSS

Posted by krow on from the beat-the-brat-with-a-baseball-bat dept.

If you are not familiar with RSS, and you work with web content and publishing, you should be. Webreference has an article covering the details and history of RSS. This week's temporary loss of the DTD that Netscape was hosting has pushed RSS from a behind the scenes tool, and into the common pool of buzzwords. While RSS may appear new to some peple it has been around for a couple of years. If you are a user with an account and you personalize your Slashboxes, you are deciding which RSS feeds you would like to display (not all slashboxes are RSS, but most are).

12 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Backwards compatibility vs extensibility by BierGuzzl · · Score: 3

    From What I've read at backend.userland.com RSS 0.92 is completely backwards compatible with the now gone 0.91 as all the new features are optional. I see there's also work being started on 0.93. As for RSS 1.0, there's much emphasis on extensibility and creating custom namespaces so we won't have to worry about peoples modules conflicting with eachother,etc. -- From what I can see, RSS 1.0 will still be able to parse the 0.91 RDF's but there doesn't seem to be any clear guarantee of this. Has anyone found clear direction on this?

  2. HierMenu by abischof · · Score: 4

    On a related note, Web Reference really does some fine stuff. Of particular note is the HierMenu script, which uses DHTML to simulate pulldown menus (it works in Netscape v4+, IE v4+, and even Mozilla). It's not Free, but still free. Major websites (such as Merrill Lynch and Trilogy Software) use the script all the time.

    Alex Bischoff
    ---

    --

    Alex Bischoff
    HTML/CSS coder for hire

    1. Re:HierMenu by ethereal · · Score: 2

      But they commit a couple cardinal sins:

      • On this page the hierarchical menus pop out, but you don't click on the popped-out part, and you can't tell that easily because the cursor doesn't change properly when it's over the link part.
      • On this page they have a small word that's the link to a site, and then a much larger spelled-out URL which isn't a link! I wonder if they've ever actually tried to use their pages...

        I'm sure webreference is great and all, but they haven't made a good first impression on me :)


      Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

  3. bad link by BierGuzzl · · Score: 3

    doh -- my bad. Real link is here (let that be a lesson to me)

  4. RSS is Rich Site Summary... by antdude · · Score: 2

    I had to look this one up. According to Everything, RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, an XML format for distributing news headlines on the Web, also known as syndication.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  5. (OT) Slashboxes by Raven667 · · Score: 3

    This is off-topic, but is there a list of the RDF URL's you use for the Slashboxes available? I really like the little news ticker that comes with KDE and I would like to add some of my slashboxes to it. TIA

    --Mark

    --
    -- Remember: Wherever you go, there you are!
    1. Re:(OT) Slashboxes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Yes, I am big fan of KNewsTicker. For some reason, it's not that easy to find non-tech news feeds. I was particularly interested in NY Times stuff. But yesterday I hit the motherload at newsisfree.com which has 1487 sources like NY Times National at: http://www.newsisfree.com/export.php3?_f=rss91&_w= f&_i=758 Another good source is http://w.moreover.com with about 1800 sources.

  6. FYI... by George+Walker+Bush · · Score: 2

    The RSS 0.91 DTD is back at http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dt d...
    --
    George W. Bush
    President, United States of America

    --
    George W. Bush
    President, United States of America
  7. RSS is... by Daath · · Score: 2

    Rich Site Summary, an XML format (presumably made by some netscape folks). I've also heard it as "Remote Site Syndication", which is also fitting :)
    my.netscape.com has (last I checked) a s*load of RSS channels. userland also has a LOT!
    Actually I've tried to convince a lot of the newspapers where I live, to make RSS channels, but only ONE out of the eight I contacted was willing - the others said that was a source of income, and there fore you had to pay for it. That I don't get at all. Something is wrong inside those peoples heads. They actually think that I would pay them to do their advertising?? (The links to the articles goes to their site!)

    --
    Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
  8. Correction to the origin of RSS by Daath · · Score: 2

    Erh! It wasn't netscape! The original RSS DTD was actually done by Lars Marius Garshol (larsga@dontspamhim.ifi.uio.no) - sorry for that one! Although later RSS DTDs was done by a netscape man...

    --
    Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
  9. Re:How to find RSS? by mkrus · · Score: 2

    You might want to try my site: http://www.newsisfree.com/

    If you're tired of MyNetscape, it offers over 1400 news sources you can arrange in boxes as you like.

    NewsIsFree also exports most of them many formats such as many RSS flavors (for use with Radio Userland, Headline Viewer or AmphetaDesk, but also JavaScript or HTML easy integration on your web site.

    Also, check out this page, for a list of other RSS providers.

  10. The other RSS.. by zsazsa · · Score: 2

    When I first saw this post I thought it was about the RSS, as in Relay Spam Stopper. It's responsible for the lack of spam in my inbox.. :)

    (go ahead, offtopic, blah blah..)

    zsazsa