Really Simple Syndication

1
What is RSS?

• Really Simple Syndication
• RSS is a method of delivering frequently updated
  web content directly to readers
• Examples of frequently updated web content
• News sites news.bbc.co.uk, www.cnn.com, etc.
• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Many others
• Can be read using a variety of methods, both on
  your desktop and online.

2
What is RSS good for?

• Using RSS feeds, you can read updates to many
  websites without visiting each site individually
• No need to go to multiple sites every day to
  check for updates - updates are delivered to your
  desktop (or online reader) automatically

3
Terminology

• RSS Really Simple Syndication
• RSS Feed An RSS document, usually published by a
  website
• Reader / Aggregator A program or website which
  presents RSS feeds to a user in a readable
  format.
• XML, Atom May see these instead of RSS on a
  site.

4
What goes in an RSS feed?

• A sample item might look like this
• ltitemgt
• lttitlegtRed Sox Win World Series!lt/titlegt
• ltlinkgthttp//www.bjournals.com/users/itrc/4036.ht
  mllt/linkgt
• ltdescriptiongtThe Red Sox won the world series in
  2004 for the first time since 1918. They defeated
  the Cardinals in a 4-game sweep. (This is a test
  post.) lt/descriptiongt
• lt/itemgt

5
In an RSS Reader it looks like
6
How to tell if a website has a feed
7
How to tell if a website has a feed
8
Live bookmark button in Firefox

• Here CNN offers two feed choices

9

• Web-based feed aggregators - Bloglines
• http//www.bloglines.com/public/itrc (more on
  this later)
• Pluck - http//www.pluck.com/
• Desktop client
• Feeddemon (PC) http//www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/
• Net News Wire (MAC) http//ranchero.com/netnewswir
  e/
• IPodder (cross platform for PodCasting)
  http//ipodder.sourceforge.net/index.php

10
Examples of Feeds

• http//slashdot.org/
• http//www.itconversations.com/
• http//www.h-net.org/
• http//www.bjournals.com/mausland/
• http//www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/
• http//www.thenation.com/
• http//www.flickr.com/photos/senorton/

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For further investigation

• OPML- Outline Processor Markup Language
• Free Rss feedreaders

12
RSS Scenario 1 Individual use

• Sally Faculty Member, Biology
• User-centered assemblage (reader use).
  http//www.bloglines.com/public/itrc
• News_at_Nature.com
• New York Times Science
• ScienceDaily Headlines
• Etc.
• (or, relevant feeds on departmental sites)

13
RSS Scenario 2 Web delivery

• Biology department site as portal
• Departmental news (already coming from MyB)
• Grant opportunities (internal, external)
• New books in biology
• http//www.bio.brandeis.edu/

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RSS Scenarios

• Jason the Student, Journalism (Mike Socolow
  advisor)
• http//www.bloglines.com/public/itrc
• Jasons blog on bjournals.com
• Could have an RSS feed
• Another example UThink at University of Minnesota

15
Proposed Pilot applications

• Add feeds to a departmental web page
• Math and sciences, e.g., Biology
• Provide feeds from a library page
• Tables of contents
• Relevant news in subject guides?