Ubiquitous Online News: Content Syndication and the Semantic Web

1
Ubiquitous Online News Content Syndication and
the Semantic Web

• Dr Axel Bruns
• Creative Industries Faculty
• Queensland University of Technology
• a.bruns_at_qut.edu.au

2
Blogging and Open News

• Not done in isolation, but highlighting the
  interconnection between amateur and professional
  writers
• Practice of gatewatching publicising and
  commenting on content found elsewhere on the Web
• Depends on individuals ability to identify and
  point to interesting material content
  discovery as much as on the quality of their
  commentary
• Automated mechanisms for identifying material are
  now becoming available especially news
  syndication

3
News Syndication

• News syndication is nothing new common practice
  in mainstream news since the invention of the
  telegraph
• Now direct access to syndicated news is possible
  today, in effect, the pipeline goes straight to
  the citizen (Kovach Rosenstiel)
• Removal of intermediaries as well as potential
  for new sources to syndicate their own news
  e.g. Indymedia news wire
• But who the heck has time to read all this
  stuff? (Lasica)

4
News Syndication Technologies

• Combination of push and pull models
  syndication feeds need to be discovered and
  linked to (pull), but then deliver news
  automatically (push)
• Key format Rich Site Summary (RSS, a.k.a. Really
  Simple Syndication)
• XML format that forms part of the W3C Resource
  Description Framework (RDF)
• Provides key news story details (e.g.URL, title,
  time, author, summary, )
• Introduced by UserLand
• Used by Netscape Netcenter
• Now in use in most blogging systems
• Sample feed BBC World News

5
Syndication Uses

• Stand-alone news readers(e.g. AmphetaDesk)
• Embedded inWebsites (e.g.snurb.info)
• Websites often allow directcommentary
  onsyndicated news
• So, syndication feedsprovide raw materialfor
  blogging andsimilar uses

6
Alternatives to RSS Syndication

• Brute-force syndication
• E.g. GoogleNews
• E.g. Syndic8, NewsIsFree scraping of headlines
  from sites without RSS feeds
• Dubious legal status
• News aggregators
• E.g. GoogleNews
• E.g. Technorati, Blogdex, Daypop
• Able to monitor prominent and emergent memes
  across individual sites
• Trend towards a reappropriation/depropriation of
  news items and the perception of swarms of
  related news items

7
Limitations

• Much rhetoric of RSS as democratising
• But power differences between small-time
  operators and mainstream news sources remain
  visible
• Still no direct way to attach ones commentary
  directly to the source article
• In the blogosphere, this is being addressed e.g.
  through TrackBack mechanisms which trace
  distributed discussions across multiple blogs

8
Towards a Semantic Web (?)

• Combination of
• RSS (outward syndication),
• TrackBack (inbound syndication),
• and Semantic Web (more intelligent tagging of
  information)
• could enable bidirectional syndication or
  intercast (Elin) of news and commentary
• E.g.
• original article on BBC World News,
• embedded into other sites through syndication,
• multiple responses on various blogs,
• linked to original article on BBC site and
  themselves embedded into other sites through
  syndication again
• Result a flexible news intercast which takes
  place across multiple sites irrespective of news
  sources or site technologies

9
Newssharing

• Analogies to filesharing
• Content (news items / songs) detached from
  context (online newspapers and sites / CDs and
  DVDs)
• Content discovered through sophisticated and
  automated tools and pieced together in new
  combinations by users
• Similar ethical, commercial, legal questions
  e.g., does it help or hinder product sales?

10
Syndication and the News Industry

• Stephen Gray, publisher of U.S.-based newspaper
  The Christian Science Monitor, on RSS
  syndication
• I look at the Web as an opportunity to have a
  million doorways to the Christian Science
  Monitor. I think of it as a progression from
  one end, where it's free, to the other end, where
  it's paid. The pipeline has to be really big at
  the out end to bring in lots of beginners if you
  want to maximize the number of subscribers at the
  other end. (qtd. in Lasica)