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Content Syndication With RSS

Posted by timothy on from the feed-to-the-world dept.

Alex Moskalyuk writes "Ben Hammersley's Content Syndication with RSS is a step-by-step guide to implementing RSS. This standard is gaining popularity among the Web community, and some of your favorite sites might syndicate their content as RSS feeds. The new O'Reilly publication focuses on many aspects of this standard, and is of primary interest to developers, Web site designers, data architects and anyone interested in distributing their data around the Web." So if you have a steady stream of information for your customers, family, or fans, read on for the rest of Alex's review. Content Syndication With RSS author Ben Hammersley pages 222 publisher O'Reilly rating 8/10 reviewer Alex Moskalyuk ISBN 0596003838 summary Introduction and guide for RSS implementations

The first three chapters are primarily discussing the multiplicity of RSS standards. While with some other technologies it might seem a bit excessive, remember that RSS is a forked project with the forks at this moment bearing little resemblance to one another. The abbreviations even have different abbreviations - RSS means Really Simple Syndication if you are using RSS 0.91 or RSS 0.92, that was developed by Dave Winer. RSS means RDF Site Summary if the version you're using RSS 1.0. The development credits in this case go to RSS DEV team. To confuse you even more, the RSS 2.0 standard is deciphered as... correct, Really Simple Syndication again.

Hence chapter 4 discusses Winer's implementation (simplistic and user-friendly), while chapter 6 focuses on RSS 1.0 (RDF-compliant and data-architect-friendly), and chapter 8 talks about RSS 2.0 (improved RSS 0.9x). Chapter 4 is available online as a PDF file. Section 4.4 is recommended for those interested in promoting their RSS feeds as it provides pretty good reference to meta data.

Chapter 9 is perhaps of special interest to Web developers and administrators out there. It presents several code samples to properly parse RSS and present the result in readable HTML. The examples include (a) parsing with XML::Simple in Perl, (b) parsing with Perl regular expressions, (c) parsing with XML::Simple and sending the headlines to cell phones via WWW::SMS, (d) parsing via XSLT transformation. Python, PHP and ASP folks might feel left out due to the abundance of Perl examples, but if you got so far in the book, you can probably apply the regular expressions example or search for appropriate support for RSS format in your preferred language.

Going beyond the standard itself, RSS directories, aggregators and readers are discussed. Author makes a distinction between the last two by classifying Meerkat-like services into aggregators and desktop or Web applications designed to present the information to the user into readers. The chapter also provides information about Syndic8, its API, and describes the feed registration process. OReilly's Meerkat is also discussed in chapter, together with reference table for its API (you can make Meerkat generate HTML or RSS news headlines on certain topic or using certain keywords by providing a right query to its Web interface).

The book is quite a smooth read for a text describing the details of data specification. The chapters are informative and the book is not overloaded with useless information just to increase the page count. The tips are quite useful for someone, who is knew to the field and answers some questions not covered by standards (e.g., how often should you request an RSS feed, what to do if you're being screen-scraped, etc.)

I like the way the author divided the chapters into RSS 0.9x/2.0 and RSS 1.0 and kept two worlds apart. Most of the time you probably won't be interested in developing a feed to support both standards, but would like to focus just on one. The examples in Perl are perfect with me, although for someone new to Perl or programming in general those examples with abundant regular expressions might look a bit convoluted. Kudos to the author for not expanding on the topic, like many do, and providing an example of a script for RSS manipulation in every possible language out there.

What's missing? I wish more pages were dedicated to desktop RSS readers. FeedReader, HotSheet, Syndirella, Beaver and SharpReader are excellent end user applications currently gaining some popularity among those who'd prefer to browse the favorite headlines at a glance, instead of going to a dozen of sites every morning. To be fair, there's a huge list of readers in Appendix, and some applications mentioned above only came around in the last few months, which was probably after the book hit the press. Some sites also didn't make it into the book. I like DailyRotation and FreshNews that borrow from Meerkat's versatility and provide their own feed portal.

Overall, the book is a pretty good developer's guide to RSS standard. Accompanied with helpful illustrations and numerous tips it's an excellent resource for those unfamiliar with RSS and a helpful reference for those who have been doing Web syndication for a while.

You can purchase Content Syndication With RSS from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

8 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Having used RSS for a while now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As both an aggregator and provider of content, I can safely say an entire book need not be devoted to the subject. Maybe a pamphlet. I guarantee this book is 90% fluff.

  2. Not sure about the book, but RSS is something by Blaine+Hilton · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm not familiar with the book, but content syndication is a big thing on the Internet right now, and I can understand why. RSS and XML data feeds are popping up everywhere and the average John Doe user would like to be able to parse those feeds for his/her website(s).

    I think the ability to easily transfer information in real time is just going to grow with time, this is not a fast fad.

    Go calculate something!

  3. /. Feed by dmdx0a0d · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When is /. going to use the RSS standard instead of its current PITA XML format?

  4. Meta-Slashdot! by Our+Man+In+Redmond · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's Slashdot's current RSS page:

    Slashdot
    http://slashdot.org/
    News for nerds, stuff that matters
    en-us
    Copyright 1997-2001, OSDN
    2003-04-21T16:33:48+00:00
    OSDN
    pater@slash dot.org
    Technology
    hourly
    1
    1970-01-01T00:00+0 0:00

    Your Headline Reader Has Been Banned
    http://slashdot.org/faq/accounts.shtml#ac1 050
    Your RSS reader is abusing the Slashdot server. You are requesting pages more often than our terms of service allow. Please see the FAQ link for more information, and if you email us, include your IPID MD5: 2be13864b6e87d2ec6b4701261c83663.

    You May Only Load Headlines Every 30 Minutes
    http://slashdot.org/faq/accounts.shtml#ac 1050
    Your RSS reader is abusing the Slashdot server. You are requesting pages more often than our terms of service allow. Please see the FAQ link for more information, and if you email us, include your IPID MD5: 2be13864b6e87d2ec6b4701261c83663.

    In 72 Hours, Your Ban Will Be Lifted
    http://slashdot.org/faq/accounts.shtml#ac1 050
    Your RSS reader is abusing the Slashdot server. You are requesting pages more often than our terms of service allow. Please see the FAQ link for more information, and if you email us, include your IPID MD5: 2be13864b6e87d2ec6b4701261c83663.

    Do Not Bother Contacting Us For 72 Hours
    http://slashdot.org/faq/accounts.shtml#ac10 50
    Your RSS reader is abusing the Slashdot server. You are requesting pages more often than our terms of service allow. Please see the FAQ link for more information, and if you email us, include your IPID MD5: 2be13864b6e87d2ec6b4701261c83663.

    So apparently we've not only succeeded in slashdotting Slashdot, we've gotten Slashdot to give us multiple duplicate posts! WE WIN!

    --
    Someone you trust is one of us.
    1. Re:Meta-Slashdot! by jpkunst · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, RSS reader banning on /. is a bit extreme. Just trying to find the correct URLs to use got me banned for 72 hours.

      JP

  5. Revenue model for Semantic Web? by yerricde · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How are sites that offer a Semantic Web interface such as RSS supposed to bring in revenue? They can't rely on advertising because the machines that browse the Semantic Web cannot be trusted to deliver advertising to a human eyeball.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  6. Diarist.com and passworded RSS Feeds by SpaceKow · · Score: 5, Informative

    Password protected feeds add real value to RSS for obvious reasons. You won't always want everyone to read your feeds

    Diarist.com offers a HTTP Password protected RSS feed here. http://rsstest.diarist.com/

    As I write this... There are only two RSS clients which can read it's passworded feeds.

    1. NewsGator
    2. A beta version of FeedReader

    --
    Free Web based FTP
  7. I can't help but do a little astro trufing.... by jmagar.com · · Score: 5, Informative
    If you run PHP / MySQL website, and want a free and powerful RSS content syndication engine that easily integrates with any architecture check out MyHeadlines. Already having been ported to PHPNuke, PostNuke, Xoops, MyPHPNuke, PHPWebsite, and a Stand Alone version is also available. The easy CMS abstraction layer lets you integrate with just about any PHP based web site. It comes with a catagorized database of over 3000 feeds, and features a scraper subsystem for constructing new RSS feeds for sites that don't produce their own.

    Cheers,
    Mike

    --
    www.jmagar.com
    -