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What Is This RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom Business?
It's been a long day at work and you're in no mood to cook
dinner or go out. Time to count on the reliable pizza delivery
guy. The order is called in and he promptly arrives with smokin'
hot pizza within 30 minutes as promised. If it were only that
easy with a picky family where no one can agree on the same
restaurant for dinner. One wants Mexican, another wants Chinese,
and another wants a burger and Mexican. Instead of running to
three different places, you call a delivery service that goes to
all of them and brings it to you. What could be easier in getting
a meal without cooking it or fetching it?
RSS, XML, RDF, and Atom are the food delivery guy of the
Internet. The content they deliver is mixed and cooked elsewhere
on the Internet just like the meal isn't made on your door step
and the acronym fellows bring the content to you via software or
an online application. Instead of trying to remember all the
places where you like to go to get the latest news, it all comes
to you once you order your food.
Click on any of those orange or blue RSS, XML, or RDF buttons
and you see unreadable text. Some of it is readable, but reading
between the is slow and difficult. In this case, you've got the
raw ingredients of the content known as a feed. To make it easily
readable, download a feed reader that can interpret (aggregate)
the ingredients or sign up for an online service that can do the
same.
When the software or application is ready to go, click on the
orange or blue button (or "Syndicate This Page," or whatever is
along these lines) and copy the resulting URL from the address
box. Paste it into the application to cook the ingredients where
it's delivered to you ready for your enjoyment.
Syndication is a not a new concept on the Internet, but it's
growing in popularity as more Web sites and newsletters are
churning content to turn it into syndicated files, which are fed
into an aggregator. Think of it as the content that's ready to
travel anywhere it needs to go. Grab the feed and feed it to the
aggregator, another way of bookmarking (or creating a favorite) a
site because you wish to come back again another time. But how
often did you go back to the site through your bookmarks /
favorites?
Instead of schlepping from site to site in search of
information, I have it all in front of me via the aggregator. The
feeds are sorted in folders by topic for easy finding. If I'm
writing about the latest virus or worm, then I open the security
folder with the security-related feeds and scan them. Scanning
content through aggregators is easier than on a Web site because
it's in one folder with headlines and maybe a short summary. On a
Web site, you're only getting the benefit of that site's news and
no where else. The folder has news from over ten resources
including blogs, news sites, and newsletters.
Any content can be syndicated. It's a matter of having the
backend process in place, which is dependent on the application
used for managing the content. If a site doesn't have such
resources, then there is software for entering content to create
a file with the feed for posting on the site.
Most aggregators have exporting capabilities so the feed can
be shared with others interested in the same topic. If you're
interested in my security feeds, I can export them into, in most
cases, an OPML file and you can import it into your
aggregator.
Spam filters are preventing readers from getting newsletters
or they get lost in the spam pool. Offering a feed for the
newsletter is a compromise. Readers can get the content, only
instead of it coming to the emailbox, it comes through the
aggregator. It's a way around spam. Like everything else, it has
its advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
- Filters can't stop the newsletter from reaching its
destination.
- The recipient will get it - if the server is down, it'll
download next time and email can get lost.
- The feed can be syndicated providing more exposure for your
content.
Disadvantages:
- Rely on readers to open aggregators like they open email
client, but some aggregators are built-in with an email client
like NewsGator and there are online
aggregators like Bloglines, which can be your
home page.
- Metrics won't be as complete, but it's still there through
the links.
- Not as pretty as HTML-based newsletters.
If the feed is automatically created, what have you got to
lose? You're providing another way for your readers to get your
content just like you can get pizza in different ways: go to the
restaurant, have it delivered, or make it at home. More
applications are adding syndication capabilities, which make the
process effortless. Some have said they won't read something
unless it has a feed.
Syndication works better than bookmarks. With bookmarks, you
click on a site that might have the security information and
arrive there to find it doesn't. So, back to the bookmarks to
click on another site. Lather, rinse, repeat. With aggregators,
there is no jumping from site to site. Scan the headlines right
there until you find what you need.
There was a time when we didn't have the option to have pizza
delivered to our doorstep. When we're too tired, we know we can
rely on the delivery guy. In term of content, expect to see it
show up at your doorstep more often than the pizza guy plus it's
cheaper with the cost only coming from the software though there
are many free options available. Syndication is here to stay and
should be added to a company's communication toolbox rather than
as a replacement. Witness it by watching for RSS, XML, RDF, and
Atom out there.
Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl.net who
increases conversion rates by writing and editing content so
organization can focus on their core business. She is the
editor-in-chief of the eNewsletter Journal and Shavlik's The
Remediator Security Digest. Visit her Web site at http://www.meryl.net/blog/.
MORE RESOURCES updated Wed. October / 09 / 2024
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