1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>RSS Headline Syndication - Frequently Asked Questions for Content Providers</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" />
<meta name="description" content="RSS Headline Syndication - Frequently Asked Questions for Content Providers" />
<meta name="keywords" content="rss faq, rss, faq, rich site summary, rdf site summary, really simple syndication, headline syndication, syndication" />
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
<style type="text/css">
<!--
td.content
{
font-family: sans-serif;
color: #000000;
font-size: 10pt;
font-weight: normal;
}
td.contentbold
{
font-family: sans-serif;
color: #000000;
font-size: 10pt;
font-weight: bold;
}
td.contentsmall
{
font-family: sans-serif;
color: #000000;
font-size: 8pt;
font-weight: normal;
}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
<p align="right">
<i>
This document was taken from <a href="http://www.purplepages.ie/rss/">http://www.purplepages.ie/rss/</a>.<br/>
<tt><a href="mailto:[email protected]">Frerich Raabe</a></tt>
</i>
</p>
<table border="0" width="620" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2">RSS Headline Syndication<br /><br />
<a name="top">Frequently Asked Questions for Content Providers</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2">
<br /><a href="#whatishs">1. What is headline syndication?</a><br />
<a href="#rss">2. What is RSS?</a><br />
<a href="#whyrss">3. Why syndicate your headlines with RSS?</a><br />
<a href="#howrss">4. How can I create an RSS file?</a><br />
<a href="#promoterss">5. How can I promote my RSS file?</a><br />
<a href="#morerss">6. Where can I find more information about RSS?</a><br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="whatishs">1. What is headline syndication?</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
Websites that publish new content regularly usually provide a list of news headline style links to their latest content. In addition to displaying these headlines on their own websites, it is very common for publishers to make them available for syndication, so that other websites or applications can also include their headlines.<br /><br />
Headline syndication does not deal with the full text of articles, it is simply about syndicating an automatically updating list of headlines, with each headline being a link to the item that it refers to on the publishers website.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="rss">2. What is RSS?</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a href="#top">top</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
RSS is the name given to a simple and well-established XML format used to syndicate headlines. Once a website creates an RSS file they have created a means to allow others to syndicate their headlines.<br /><br />
The first version of RSS (RSS 0.9) was released by <a href="http://www.netscape.com/">Netscape</a> in March 1999 as a format for adding news channels to their <a href="http://my.netscape.com/">My.Netscape.Com</a> portal. Then in July 1999 Netscape released RSS 0.91, incorporating most of the features of a format called <scriptingNews>, which was created by <a href="http://www.userland.com/">UserLand</a>. Shortly thereafter Netscape discontinued developing the RSS format, however UserLand persisted and RSS continued to grow in strength. In December 2000, the separate RSS-DEV Working Group released RSS 1.0 and Userland announced RSS 0.92. As of April 2001, Userland is now planning RSS 0.93. Although RSS is not clearly an acronym of anything, different people have called it Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication at different times.<br /><br />
The lack of clarity in what RSS stands for or which version is the correct one to use can seem confusing to beginners. However these issues don't need to addressed by a website wanting to create an RSS file. RSS is a very well recognised format, in fact it is often referred to as the most successful XML format to date. Some websites have a preference for one version, others create more than one RSS file and support multiple versions and a recent survey suggests that the first two versions of RSS (0.9 and 0.91) are still by far the most popular.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a href="#top">top</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="whyrss">3. Why syndicate your headlines with RSS?</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
Syndicating headlines is an excellent and cost-effective way of driving traffic to, and increasing brand awareness of, any website that publishes new content regularly.<br /><br />
Once a website produces an RSS file they are enabling others to syndicate their headlines, without any further work on their part.<br /><br />
The main benefits of creating an RSS file:<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">RSS content can be included in customisable online news portals that aggregate RSS headlines like <a href="http://my.userland.com/">My.Userland.Com</a>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">Websites that display news headlines can use an RSS file to incorporate another websites headlines into their own.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">RSS content can be added to personal desktop news reading applications like <a href="http://www.headlineviewer.com/">Headline Viewer</a> or <a href="http://radio.userland.com/">Radio Userland</a>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">Email newsletter providers could allow users to subscribe to RSS channels. <a href="http://www.xml.com/">XML.com</a> and <a href="http://www.xmltree.com/">XMLTree.com</a> previously offered such a service called Newsboy.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
One positive side effect of producing an RSS file is that it can also be used by headline aggregation services like <a href="http://www.moreover.com/">Moreover.com</a>, who power news portals, specialist news search engines, business intelligence services or provide newsfeeds to websites. Most such companies use crawler-based technologies to aggregate and do not insist upon content being available in RSS, however they do have some requirements which having an RSS file addresses, sparing the need for any work on the part of a website that already publishes its headlines in RSS.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a href="#top">top</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="howrss">4. How can I create an RSS file?</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
RSS is a simple XML format and anyone who has experience in a mark-up language like HTML or XML should find it very easy to create and maintain an RSS file by hand.
<br /><br />Many websites prefer to generate their RSS file using a programming language, which involves a little more work to begin with but means that maintenance is no longer an issue.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
In this section:
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2">
<a href="#specifications">RSS Specifications</a><br />
<a href="#validators">RSS Validators</a><br />
<a href="#tutorials">RSS Tutorials - The Basics</a><br />
<a href="#tutorialsgen">RSS Tutorials - Generating RSS</a><br />
<a href="#examples">RSS Examples</a><br />
<a href="#tools">RSS Tools & Utilities</a><br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="specifications">RSS Specifications:</a><br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" valign="top"><strong>RSS 0.93</strong> (Planning stage, April 2001)<br /><a href="http://backend.userland.com/rss093">http://backend.userland.com/rss093</a> (Userland)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" valign="top"><strong>RSS 0.92</strong> (December 2000)<br /><a href="http://backend.userland.com/rss092">http://backend.userland.com/rss092</a> (Userland)<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" valign="top"><strong>RSS 1.0</strong> (December 2000)<br /><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/files/specification.html">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/files/specification.html</a> (RSS-DEV Working Group)<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" valign="top"><strong>RSS 0.91</strong> (July 1999)<br /><a href="http://backend.userland.com/rss091">http://backend.userland.com/rss091</a> (Userland)<br />
<a href="http://www.purplepages.ie/RSS/netscape/rss0.91.html">http://www.purplepages.ie/RSS/netscape/rss0.91.html</a> (Netscape)<br />
<a href="http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-spec-0.91.html">http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-spec-0.91.html</a> (Netscape, Revision 3)<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" valign="top"><strong>RSS 0.90</strong> (March 1999)<br /><a href="http://www.purplepages.ie/RSS/netscape/rss0.90.html">http://www.purplepages.ie/RSS/netscape/rss0.90.html</a> (Netscape)<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="validators">RSS Validators</a>:<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content"><a href="http://aggregator.userland.com/validator">http://aggregator.userland.com/validator</a> (RSS 0.91, RSS 0.92)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content"><a href="http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/rss_validator/1.0/">http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/rss_validator/1.0/</a> (RSS 1.0)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content"><a href="http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/rss_validator/">http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/rss_validator/</a> (RSS 0.9)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<strong><a name="tutorials">RSS Tutorials - The Basics:</a></strong> (See also <a href="#specifications">RSS Specifications</a>, <a href="#websites">Websites</a>)<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"> - <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/4000/08/25/magazine/rss_tut.html">A step-by-step guide to building an RSS 1.0 document from the O'Reilly Network.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"> - <a href="http://publishing.about.com/arts/publishing/library/blrss.htm">An easy to understand introduction to RSS 0.91 from About.com.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"> - <a href="http://webreference.com/xml/column13/index.html">A comprehensive guide to creating RSS 0.91 files from Webreference.</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="tutorialsgen">RSS Tutorials - Generating RSS</a>:<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">Active Server Pages (ASP)<br />
<a href="http://www.purplepages.ie/site/articles/article.asp?faq=6&fldAuto=76">An article explaining how RSS files can be generated using ASP.</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">Perl<br />
<a href="http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/02/eisenzopf/">Jonathan Eisenzopf explains how his XML::RSS module can be used to create an RSS file.</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content">PHP<br />
<a href="http://linux.gelrevision.nl/php/">phpChannel, a set of two PHP class files to write rss files.</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="tools">RSS Tools & Utilities</a>:
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
Aaron Swartz provides a useful online utility called <a href="http://logicerror.com/blogifyYourPage">BlogifyYourPage</a>, that makes it easy to produce an RSS 1.0 file for any page.<br /><br />
The <a href="http://www.webreference.com/perl/tools/">RSS Channel Editor</a> is a simple Perl CGI script that makes it easy to maintain an RSS channel. It can be used online at Webreference and you can also download the source.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a href="#top">top</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="examples">RSS Examples</a>:
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a href="http://newsfeeds.manilasites.com/">Newsfeeds</a> reviews sources of RSS files, good examples and ideas you can use in putting together your own feed.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.ourfavoritesongs.com/">OurFavoriteSongs.Com</a> is a source of popular syndicated files, the top picks of <a href="http://radio.userland.com/">Radio Userland</a> users.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="promoterss"><strong>5. How can I promote my RSS file?</strong></a>
<br /><br />There are a couple of important places to register RSS files, firstly <a href="http://www.xmltree.com/">XMLTree.com</a>, a specialist directory of XML content, and secondly <a href="http://my.userland.com/">My.Userland.Com</a>. Once an RSS file has been included in these sources it is likely to be found by websites, online news portals or news reading applications seeking RSS content.<br /><br />
Websites should also create an information page, about syndicating their headlines. This will make existing users aware that the website has an RSS file so they can add it to their news reading applications or even include it on their own websites.<br /><br />
This information page will be indexed by regular search engines and can also be submitted to various niche directories:
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.4freecontent.com/">4FreeContent</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.findsticky.com/">FindSticky</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.freesticky.com/">FreeSticky</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://newsfeeds.manilasites.com/">Newsfeeds</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.purplepages.ie/site/content/">Purple Pages</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.woodoggy.com/">WooDoggy</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
Websites that are interested in having their headlines picked up by organisations that aggregate headline content may also wish to visit:
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.linkyournews.com/">LinkYourNews.com</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.magportal.com/">MagPortal.com</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.moreover.com/">Moreover.com</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.newsnow.co.uk/">NewsNow.co.uk</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.newsisfree.com/">NewsIsFree.com</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
<a name="morerss">6. Where can I find more information about RSS?</a><br /><br />
<a name="websites">Websites</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/rss/">O'Reilly DevCenter RSS</a> - Articles about RSS from the O'Reilly Network.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://blogspace.com/rss/">RSS Info</a> - News and information on the RSS format</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://rsswhys.weblogger.com/">RSS Why?s</a> - A site that aims to objectively and concisely explore all the points surrounding the creation, maintenance, and history of RSS.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/">WebReference RSS Articles</a> - A collection of RSS articles and resources from Webreference.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
Discussion Lists
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reallySimpleSyndication">ReallySimpleSyndication</a> - RSS 0.93.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev">RSS-DEV</a> - RSS 1.0.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/syndication">Syndication</a> - XML syndication, mainly RSS 0.91.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentbold" colspan="2"><br />
More RSS FAQs
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="15" class="content" align="center" valign="top">•</td>
<td width="605" class="content" colspan="2"><a href="http://www.voidstar.com/rssfaq">RSS FAQ</a> - A detailed RSS FAQ from Julian Bond, readers can also contribute.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="content" colspan="2"><br />
<a href="#top">top</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentsmall" colspan="2"><br /><br /><a href="http://www.rssfaq.com/">RSSFAQ</a> Copyright © 2001 Members of the Syndication, RSS-DEV and ReallySimpleSyndication Groups.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentsmall" colspan="2">You may freely copy and distribute this document. Please give acknowledgements if you do.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="620" class="contentsmall" colspan="2">Last Updated: 24-August-2001 <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Alis Marsden</a>.</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
|
