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RSS And Calendar Integration

Posted by Hemos on from the trying-to-make-it-work dept.

sytelus writes "Many has played with the idea of packaging calendar information in to the RSS feed. Almost every other website owned by some kind of group or organization has an event calendar so the thought of aggregating those events in to your calendar is pretty appealing. Even more appealing is the thought that people might start tagging their weekend plans and schedules in their RSS feeds. This essay , written after digging through dozens of W3C specs and half a dozen of implementations, reviews the current state of affair."

7 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. What's Wrong with iCal? by glamslam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Works for me.... Does everything *have* to be XML??!??

    1. Re:What's Wrong with iCal? by spencerogden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe because it is hardly worth creating a standard for scheduling if its not supported in Outlook? I would imagine that among people who use a scheduling app on a regular basis, Outlook has an even better lock on the market than IE.

      --

      Spencer Ogden

  2. Re:Umm by xENoLocO · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, in my haste to post and measure my geekdick, I didn't stop to think. He's right... an XML based calendar (not RSS... why does it have to be labeled 'rss'?? its XML!!) standard would be better because most languages have XML parsers built in, and therefore the application following would increase. I still can't find a good iCal aggregator or application. (Yes, I know about sunbird but flat out, posting a calendar does not work.)

    --
    "The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
  3. Re:Umm by spencerogden · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One of his main points is that one thing RSS does well is provide a good subscription method. IE a well defined standard on, "go here to get an updated version of this calendar". Sounds like he is proposing using RSS with an iCal payload. The idea is to leverage existing support of the iCal into a subscription model.

    --

    Spencer Ogden

  4. Re:Uhh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The only thing that is missing from ics file is that it does not tell me where I should go back and fetch the updates for new events.

    Oh man, that's rich.

    "Help, I bough this delicious can of soup from Kroger, located on the corner of 5th and Main near my house, but it doesn't have instructions on where to buy another can! What do I do??"

  5. Re:RSS-this and RSS-that, all just a hype? by Oldest+European · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think you're wrong, RSS is great, I love it and I use it and you probably use it, so who cares if most people don't know what it is? Does it make it less valuable? Inovation starts with one or a few people.

    You are right about how great it is and that innovation starts with one or a few people, but does this mean that RSS will be a success in the long run? Right now I'm not sure if it will become as successful as email or as successful as betamax and laserdisc.
    I guess in the end it will all depend on the question if sites can make money out of it. - And then we might need Firefox extensions to filter RSS-ads... :(

  6. Re:Umm by metamatic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    iCal already has a good subscription method. You subscribe to the iCal calendar over HTTP.

    TFA is about how we need to reinvent iCal because it's not in XML. Uh, right.

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak